Alan Wilzig turned the backyard of his 150-year-old Dutch Colonial-style home in Taghkanic, New York, into a real-life racetrack

The track contains nine turns, 80 feet of elevation changes, grass-covered boundaries and FoamAir fences outside the corners to soften the impact in case of a driver goes off course. 

After a motorcycle-riding friend of Wilzig was nearly killed by a car accident, the entrepreneur was turned off by the idea of street-racing.

'After 100,000 miles of around-the-world motorcycle-riding without incident,' he said. 'I realized it was only a matter of time before somebody pulled out in a fancy car and hit me.'

Wilzig was able to finance his property purchase by selling the Trust Company of New Jersey bank - of which he was CEO, president and chairman - in 2004 for $726million. 

Wilzig bought his 275 acres upstate in 2005 for $3.35million.

'I bought this property with the intention of building a racetrack,' said Wilzig. 'Zoning here allowed for it - unlike in the Hamptons.' 

When news first broke of the proposed track, neighbors feared noise and commercial usage. A court injunction halted construction in 2007.

Eventually Wilzig was able to continue and he completed the course in May 2010 at a total cost of around $3million.

Wilzig has had many friends zip around the the track - including celebrity hairdresser Oscar Blandi and film and TV director Ben Younger - but he most often drives with his 23-year-old girlfriend of nearly three years, Clemence Lapeyre.