Need to start this post with a caveat, it not meant to be negative or shutting the idea down but more to help you think about the bigger picture and strengthen your case. I'd 100% be making the trip from Edinburgh if the track came through.
Get your mates to comment here or on the Facebook posts. They’re on a couple drift groups. The more evidence I can supply of interest the better.
Personally I'd look for a better way to show support than comments/likes on a social media platform/forum. Think about who is this being presented to? A register with a list of names, locations and frequency of visit would be MUCH more valuable than a facebook thread with 400 comments, of which 200 of them are two dudes having a pissing match over something irrelevant. - Being brutally honest if its presented from social media/a number you'll be thrown out straight away as not done proper research.
Do you have land in mind to purchase to do this? This is one of the biggest issues for building tracks, a lot of the tracks are re-claimed from disused cart tracks etc (Driftland is exactly this but turn 1 and 3 were combined to make big corner). Noones really going to have much interest in letting you buy some untouched land to "Ruin" by laying a load of tarmac/concrete. - If you look to Japan almost all of the tracks are in disused quarries, good for noise reduction and also you won't see many houses near quarries. Something to look into rather than an industrial estate (which I imagine would be quite hard to build a track on/near).
You need to deal with the public image too, Driftland had problems for years with spectators drifting on the roads after events and it's also why a lot of established tracks don't give drifting a second look. If you're presenting drifting to someone with no experience of it make sure you're using examples of "clean" drifting, not super lairy smashed up cars doing backies. MCR Factory YZ days was what I used when I was pitching a new drift day to tracks.
How are you planning funding it once its open also? Theres a lot of overhead, drifting alone is most likely not going to cover and it most likely wont pay your wage, need to think about other revenues. Driftland used to be a kart track part-time, and then supercar experiences part-time in order to keep the money coming in. Getting a local karting club or someone wanting to expand a business to use track time on board and you'll help strengthen your case as well as help your funding once its open.
Have you looked into insurance for a racetrack and what cover you'd need for motorsport and spectators?
As with the start of this post this is NOT a "Fuck you it won't work" like I assume a lot of facebook comments are, more a constructive way of helping you build your plan for it. I've assumed you've most likely done a lot of this if you're looking for interest to follow through with the idea, but if you haven't its a good indicator of what would be involved and it will also strengthen your pitch to prospectives including all of these points.
Good luck with it.
