At 1pm this afternoon, the local track in Calgary www.racecity.com announced that it is shutting down for good. They won't even finish off the season which was to the end of the month then a couple of street legal Friday nights in October..

Too many rain outs in the last few years and the low spectator count has put the track in a bad financial situation and the expected closure at the end of next year with the city breaking the lease which prevented anyone from making any sort of investment to keep the track above water.

Management is going back to the owner who will decide if there will be a final season next year but I'd say there less than a 10% chance he'll want to lose money for one more year.

It's not just the drag and street racers who are losing out. The track also has a 1/2 mile high banked oval that also had autocrossing on the infield and has a 2 mile road course. No more track rentals, no more driving schools, no more racing on any of the tracks etc will all make a huge impact in the automotive industry in the city.

I was in Edmonton last Sunday which is another IHRA track. I also have Medicine Hat to race at which is an NHRA track. Both are a 5 hour round trip to go race. I'll be going back to Edmonton in 2 weeks for their season final. If we have no local season next year, I'll have to make long road trips to get any sort of track time.

To travel next year, I now need to get a chassis certification and competition license. Edmonton questioned me about running in the 9's without a license but still let me run. The IHRA license is easier and cheaper to get than the NHRA one and both are accepted at each track.

 

Damn that really sucks, didn't figure Calgary would have these kind of problems. I'am guessing our track will be shut down to this year all though it's only been running for the friday night street drags for the last 2 years.

I'am going to have to get my times with my iPhone now I guess

 

Better get used to it. Every decent track around here is gone, the only one thats 1/4 mile near here is run by the gestapo.

 

Its funny they try so hard to stop street racing but tracks get closed left and right. The closest track to me is over 2 hours one way! They dont think if they have more tracks it will help control street racing? I dont know I'll just keep racing illegally then

 

City council today voted in favor to spend $25 million to build a fancy new pedestrian bridge over the river and onto an island park beside the downtown core. It will help attract tourism. A typical pedestrian bridge should cost less than $5 million.

The city can't help or manage the race track to keep it alive, which could help tourism a whole lot more than a fancy bridge. $25 million could build one hell of a race facility and would attract all forms of motorsports to increase city revenues. We're an IHRA track and have never had a national event. The road course kinda sucks and the oval isn't good enough to bring in a NASCAR race although the NASCAR truck series has tried to get here.

The street racers know the risks and will street race with or without a track. It's the legal racers including the street legal racers who will only race at a track so they can get a timeslip that will really be hurting. With a long road trip to the next closest dragstrip, very few if any will make the trip for a Friday night street legal race just to get a timeslip or two.

 

Closest track to me is 95 miles away 1 way and guess what, I don't street race. Have fun getting your car crushed when you get caught

 

The point is not to get caught and you can have fun waisting the gas to drive there all the time to get a few timeslips. Which you probably bearly go because of the money thing and just have your car waist away in your garage. Or drive it on the street like little ms. daisy because your such a law abiding citizen.

 

I feel spoiled that i have a dragstrip aproximitely 12 miles from my house, its just an 1/8th but its still fun. And there's more to going to the strip than just getting a couple time slips, there are a lot of bracket racers out there, lots of index racing and class racing that is hard to keep at if you have to haul a car for a distance without enough payout to pay for the weekend. I do enjoy the "midnight madness" nights where they turn off the boards with the times and do instant green starts, but there's so much more to it than that, if our track closed it'd almost be like losing a home.

 

Yep, it was a major bummer when they closed Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale, CA. It was 10 miles from my house. Wasn't the best track in the world, but it was legal and had a timing system.
Bill

 

Sad news, sorry to hear, motorsports is the "black sheep" for sure when it comes right down to it.

 

Story in today's paper quotes the old owner as saying he may keep the Friday night street legal nights for next year. Nothing about our Wednesday night drag T&T nights though. Even with the rainouts this year I think we had more fun on Wednesday nights doing T&T and king of the hill racing than we did on the 3 race weekends we had this year.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...2-76bedc0db286

 

Signed the petition...

Sure is a tragedy to see tracks getting shut down. Burnout91 mentions Palmdale... LACR was my first track, and it sure is sad to have lost the ability to go out on any given Wed. or Fri. night and get a bunch of runs in. Cool "old track" vibe too..

 

sorry to hear about the track.


the closest track for me has been a 3 1/2 drive 1 way to a 1/8 mile track for the last 9 years. closest 1/4 mile track is 4 1/2 hour 1 way drive. we have so many racers in the area that we started doing 100 foot drags .