Thanks everyone for your comments.  I do have plans to make one that is a turn , were I can do all the skid marks!  I'm doing this easy layout as a practice run.

I'm setting it up to display 1:24 size cars.  Most of them are in the 9inch long range and 4 inches wide.  I just felt an 8 x11 was just to small.

Next I put my first sheet of road surface down.  It's black sandpaper around 400 grit I believe.  I put a layer of glue all over the board becasue I figured plan flat grass is a little boring and unrealistic.

As you can see the sand paper is not big enough to cover the whole area so I had to cut and glue another piece to finish it off.  I recently bought an airbrush and decided this is a great place to practice.  I masked off a strip down the center because the road is darker in the center of traffic due to dripping fluids.

I sprayed the road surface with a light gray color and then used a dark gray and black mix to transition teh road to the center stripe I had masked off.  In the pic the center looks light, but it's the reflection off teh semi -glossy unpainted area.