With a $10 million expansion under way, the National Corvette Museum is already looking to further enhance its Corvette experience.

The museum recently purchased 70 acres off Grimes Lane (across Interstate 65 to be accessed by Porter Pike) on which it will build a Motorplex Park.

Wendell Strode, the museum’s executive director, said the property cost about $1 million and will be financed by the property owners, the Collett and Renick families.

The motorplex will include a 1.5 mile drag strip, autocross track and road course that will be used for the museum’s driving school and major events it hosts at the nearby museum.

Strode estimates the project will cost about $2.5 million, but was quick to add that no construction will begin until all the money is pledged or in-hand for the project.

“We don’t want to go into debt for this,” Strode said. “We are going to look at several different funding opportunities ... such as sponsorships and naming rights.”

They also are looking at the opportunity for enthusiasts to “purchase” an acre of the land. Similar to purchasing a star (which you really can’t buy), a fake deed would be issued in that person’s name.

“We already have someone who wants to buy the first acre,” Strode said.

“We are hoping to raise the money sooner rather than later, so we could be finished with it in the next year or two rather than the next four or five,” he said.

The museum already has a certified driving instructor in Roc Linkov, who travels to various tracks across the country to teach people how to handle their powerful sports cars.

“We are very fortunate to have him on staff,” Strode said.

Linkov, events manager for the museum, has been teaching the schools for the last two or three years as a way to introduce the public to the museum and develop relationships with them.

“The skills that we teach are directly applicable to being a better driver on the street,” he said. “We are not teaching people to go the speed, we are teaching them how to handle their vehicle.”

Strode said the driving schools would be offered also to the non-Corvette enthusiasts, and he thinks that parents would be interested in teen drivers receiving advanced instruction there.

“We’ve had several young teenage men and women who have either gotten off the shoulder and overcorrected and done things that very possibly some more detailed and hands-on instruction could have prevented - that will be a major focus for it,” he said.

Of course, there will be the recreational racing side as well.

Linkov said the museum has been limited to the number of racing-related events it has for gatherings to about four a year because of the busy schedule at Beech Bend Raceway.

With its own course, the museum would be able to add more driving events and not have to coordinate with Beech Bend.

Strode and Linkov both said that the motorplex park would not, however, compete with Beech Bend.

“We think it will be a great community resource ... and be a great tourism addition to this area,” he said. “We think for Corvette clubs and automotive enthusiasts that may not have made the decision to come to the museum yet, this will be a little factor in encouraging them to come see us and spend a few days.”

Strode anticipates that the fundraising campaign will kickoff in earnest over the Labor Day weekend. Once funding is in hand, he hopes that the project could be complete in four months or so, with good weather.

Meanwhile construction is continuing on the 47,000-square-foot museum expansion. Most of the structural steel is in place for the addition, which will include a new display, meeting space and provide a library and resource room, among other features.