Well this is crummy stuff to be telling you on a Tuesday. It seems that Sacramento Raceway, a track that has been in operation for more than 50 years is in some big trouble. According to a story posted on the Nor Cal Drag Racing Facebook page, owner Dave Smith has put the place, all 200 acres up for sale. The asking price is $11-million dollars. While that sounds bad, it only gets worse. Smith claims that upcoming laws and regulations in the county where the track is will basically legislate the place out of business in 2020. We’re going to go out on a limb here and say that if the place does sell, it ain’t going to be to a drag racer or anyone who wants to operate a drag strip. That’s just a blind guess but history has shown that’s usually the way it goes.
Here’s an excerpt from the story on the Nor Cal Drag Racing Facebook page:
“As many of you may know, Dave Smith and his family have been fighting the county for many years to keep Sacramento Raceway Park operational. Unfortunately, as of 2020, it looks as if the track may be nearing the end of its battle due to the county’s planned residential and commercial development of the area. It is for this reason ONLY that the family has put the land up for sale.”
There’s more at the link below and we recommend you read it if you are a California drag racer. The state has done a fantastic job of ridding itself go of drag strips over the years and it seems they are not going to stop until they are all gone, even this one.
Click on the image below for the full story at Nor Cal Drag Racing’s Facebook page
This sucks!
I raced there for years while living in Sacramento throughout the 1990’s. During the time I was there, the farms that were surrounding the track were quickly disappearing for development. It was only a matter of time before the track would be totally surrounded.
The track hosted really great events from the annual New Years Day race, to the fuel funny cars event, and the Wednesday Night Street Drags that helped keep racing off the streets.
The only place for a Drag Strip now is Native American owned land.
Not as good as one might think. Ask Charlie Allen if you can get a hold of him. Tribe Council vs. County Board of Supervisors. Not much difference other than one makes laws and the other does not have to comply with them.
I’m no expert, but $11M seems cheap to me for 200 acres in Cali
It is cheap. Now if the racers would stop trying to find that last tenth in their cars we could pool our resources and buy the property.
But the truth is that development has sprung up around the facility in the last two decades. People like to run open exhaust; I\’ve been saying for years that this will doom motor sports as not everybody wants to hear that racket.
It also doesn\’t help that seemingly people apart of the compact car segment of the community are often caught and posting on You Tube leaving the track going through the gears at WOT, speeding past the farmer spread and sub-divisions in the area.
The solution is policing ourselves and buying up property when given a chance, where is the NHRA and AAA in this?
Well you know what you do when you don\’t want to hear loud exhausts? You don\’t move your happy ass next to a race track!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
right on dumb asses. YUPPIES TAKING OVER.Like everything else that type of person not to smart.
If its too loud, them you\’re too old…
How do you get this information to those that could help? (i.e. JFR Racing? DSR Racing? etc.)
Jack Beckman and Robert Hight grew up in Norcal? How do you enlist their help in turning this around?
Place has been going downhill anyway the last 5 years or so. Smith used up a lot of people up over the years. Made you feel like he was doing you a favor when paying you. Daughter the same. They ran off a lot of people. Used to have four really good races every year and Gov Cup was awesome. Now all these races are nothing but 2 jet cars and a hodge podge of other stuff. Despite them the track was good most of the time and fun racing 5 or 6 years ago. To bad
I\’d like to respond to your comment on my Uncle Dave\’s racetrack. My name is anonymous. Its due to the county. And the fact it takes a whole lot of money to get the big N H.R.A. racers to come out and perform for the people. Since the track is in such a small division. And the other bigger tracks are meant for the bigger division of drivers.
I agree the N.H.R.A. should step up to the plate. And do there job. To help keep Sacramento Raceway alive. And running. Without that I feel kids will be out ther like the noise me racing on side roads. Causing accidents. Moto cross racers will have no other places to go. waAnd with all the development of homes being built down the road from the track. If you dont like the noise. Move somewhere else.
Now you wanna talk noise. Look at the old Mather air force base
A shame but it seems to be happening more all the time.
Anybody know what’s up with 75/80 in MD? They closed(twice) a few years ago but Motorweek is still using what’s left of the track to do some of their testing on.
It’s completely gone to pot and it looks like there’s more weeds and grass ON the track than beside it. Apparently the TV show isn’t allowed to touch it or I’m sure they would’ve by now.
Bring up closing Sacramento raceway let\’s bring up baylands drag strip the old Fremont raceway they thought it would be good idea to close that drag strip and put condos and housing to my knowledge the land still vacant. That the reason why everything went to the South State. I think county of Sacramento has to clean the land before they can sell the property they can\’t even fix roads let alone raceway this will be a loss for kids all round Sacramento and family\’s in the region .
Never heard the condo story. As i recall it had to do with a land lease, risk/reward analysis and the railroad.There was no pending replacement for Baylands just business decisions that resulted in the ultimate outcome.
This and the years of oil-contamination no doubt account for the absence of development there. Is it still owned by the railroad? If yes, they probably do not need to sell. Just my 2cents.
i live down the road and often hear the cars running (the sweet sound of WOT). Went there quite a bit growing up. Sacramento Co Board of Supv’s is a useless bunch of morons more concerned with improving their political stature than doing what’s right for the people and public. For example, who the heck would approve a major housing development down the street, downwind, from a rendering plant; our board of supv’s. A rendering plant that has been in business since early ’60’s. To the home buyers, you shouldn’t have bought there. Same rule next to a race track. Oh, please ignore the approach pattern for the airport next door, sorry we didn’t tell you. Come 2019-20 the next big problem will be an unexpected and huge increase in illegal street racing. What will be board do, pawn the problem off to CHP.
sorry to see you go, typical of Suctatomato. Closest raceway now is what? Sonoma?
I used to watch my husband race at Sacramento Raceway almost every Wednesday night.We used to go watch racers like Mighty Mouse,Folsom Flash,Grumpys toy and Other NHRA drivers and their really cool cars along with the everyday racers that would come out to race their cars..My whole family loved it and still do .Its a shame when they get to close down something like the raceway for Stupid Houses and commercial crap….Like always we lose and the county wins .What are they going to take away from us next
Thank you Brian for sharing our article. For those who are interested in an update, we have just published the petition that we have created and the letter we have written to the county in an effort to Save Sacramento Raceway Park! It is available on our website and on FB at facebook.com/norcaldragracing.
http://www.norcaldragracing.com/dragstrips/sacramento-raceway-park/save-sacramento-raceway-park-petition/
Signed, sealed and delivered. Thank you.
As a previous track photographer at Sacto i can only say we all knew it was coming, but it is none the less any harder to accept that the end may finally be near for us as well. First Vacaville, then Fremont, and now home. So terribly bummed. Where do we go from here?
i hope that Sacramento Raceway does not close but if it does, Glenn County and Thunderhill Park may be able to create a recreational-based 1/4 mile strip near the road course here. No promises just a back-up plan to keep the drag racing community from suicide attempts. Been through this as Baylands [aka Fremont Dragstrip] There are solutions with the best one being to convince the Sacramento County staffers and elected officials that recreation is part of a well balanced community. I think that this is not only possible but probable. Does David want to continue as well may need to be part of the process. land values is the second top reason why race tracks close.