(Note: The Night of Fire event at Rocky Mountain Raceways was supposed to be a streamed event, but due to technical difficulties that didn’t happen. Instead, we shot galleries of the final farewell for the Salt Lake City track, which was one of the wildest events I’ve personally experienced to date for any reason. You can see more galleries of the event by checking out other galleries from the event, including Friday’s racing, Saturday before racing kicked back off after a windstorm, the final round of racing and the first gallery from the full-fat Night of Fire festivities, as well as my final thoughts written immediately after I left the track. -McT)
From the first jet car to the last, Rocky Mountain Raceways’ Night Of Fire was the final party and everybody knew it. There were tears every now and then, as a racetrack setup that has been around for half a century closes down to become yet more commercial land that West Valley City really doesn’t need. Yes, this means that circle track events, motorcross, and drag racing are now the kind of events where you have to pack up the truck and trailer, call for hotels, and plan a four or five day weekend around. Yes, losing a facility that is as nice as RMR is will sting. But damn if they didn’t know how to say farewell to a racer’s oasis in the roadrunner country of Utah the proper way. The photos don’t lie and they don’t do justice to just how many people were present to see the jet cars as the flames from the afterburner blackened the asphalt. They were there to see Rocky the Racing Raccoon as he stood on the barrier, amping up the drivers and dancing to the rhythm of the afterburner pops. There were kids glued to the fence along the track, who wanted to feel the heat, hear the noise, and to enjoy for a moment the awesomeness of it all. Everybody knew this was the last time, but until it was over, they were going to make it the best time.
I left after the first run early in the evening to go back to the hotel. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had stayed the whole night all the way until I was either unconscious on a bleacher or I was driving back to my hotel by moonlight alone. I wish that this wasn’t my first and only trip to Rocky Mountain Raceways. I wish for a lot of things…most of them after hindsight kicks me hard in the ass and teaches me the lesson that needs to be taught. As I drove out, I went the wrong way up the frontage road on purpose just to see how many cars there were. Nearly two miles of cars parked on the frontage road, plus the filled track parking lot, plus the cars that snuck in and parked who knows where past the stands…maybe in the circle track, I don’t know. People were still flowing through the gates like tap water.
The track is done, the gates are locked, the sound is now eerily silent except for traffic passing on I-80. You might be standing in one of Utah’s largest metropolitan areas, but somehow one of the more empty states in the Union got a little bit emptier.
