Volker Beckmann, the chair of the committee, explains they are in the planning and fundraising stages of the initiative.

Beckmann says the current goal is to build a testing centre for manufacturers.  He explains they had two companies interested last year in coming and they met with them in Austin, Texas and invited them to do cold weather testing in Thompson.  He notes they were also interested in coming in March but in both these cases they lost the business because they didn’t have a test track where these companies need precision controlled road surfaces to do their testing and that’s part of their long term goals to create a world class test center in Thompson as opposed to what they’ve been doing for the last 30 years in using frozen roads and lakes which works sometimes but it doesn’t work on other times.

Beckmann adds at this point, the committee is looking at hiring a consulting company to figure out what a test track in the Thompson area would require, which companies would be interested in testing their products in Thompson, and who would invest in the track.