Get ready for some dirt-track racing and demolition derbies.

A new facility, called Julie Irwin’s Cotton Bowl Speedway, is set to hold a groundbreaking on Saturday, Nov. 11 for a planned opening in March 2012.

It is planned for land along U.S. 290 that straddles the Bastrop and Lee county lines.

“We will have stock car racing, music concerts, tractor pulls and demolition derbies,” said Danny Bennett, a Bastrop County resident who will co-own the facilty with Julie Irwin-Cotton, a Lexington resident.

Bennett, a former stock car driver, said he wanted to create a facility that will attract families.

“We are gearing this thing to fit a family budget,” Bennett said of the approximately $6 – $7 entry ticket for a host of fun activities that will have car racing as the main attraction. “We’ll also have a playground for the kids behind the grandstands and a mini-outdoor theater to show cartoons.”

And then there will be the racing.

Bennett said the track would be clay-based, made for stock cars with 300-400 horsepower that will hit top speeds of approximately 90-100 mph.

“I designed the track with the same safety features as the Ft. Worth dirt racing track,” Bennett said. He said the speedway would be 3/8 of a mile in circumference.

He said he decided on a clay track because of the often-prohibitive cost to drivers for replacing tires on hard racing surfaces.

“It costs money to race a car,” said Bennett. “But with a clay surface there will be a savings on tire replacement, because most tires don’t last two weekends of racing on asphalt.”

As for the reason the facility straddles two counties, Bennett said, “That’s just happenstance – that was where the land was that we bought from owner Calvin Markert.”

Bennett said that dealing with two counties for the proper permits wasn’t that difficult.

“Really, we were dealing mostly with Bastrop County for permits, because for Lee County all we needed was a permit for septic tanks, which we have,” Bennett said.

At press time, Bastrop County engineer Ronnie Moore said Bennett was still working on getting  the required permits for this county.

Bennett said he already has 24 races on the schedule and will likely add more.

He said the planned Formula One racing car facility near Austin Bergstrom International Airport did not really influence his decision to build a track.

“We had already been planning this track for three years,” Bennett said. “We want the area communities to embrace us. With tough economic times, we are hoping to spur the local economy. This track is a win-win situation.”