California speed freaks, got some bad news for you. Irwindale Speedway is all but condemned to be razed and repurposed as an outlet mall. City officials and Irwindale Outlet Partners, LLC will meet to finalize plans for the change, including converting the property zone to commercial and to finalize the environmental impact report. The speedway has operated on a year-by-year lease basis ever since Irwindale Outlet Partners purchased the property in 2013. Construction will not begin until at least 65% of the outlet tenants are secured, so it’s not known yet if the lease will be extended for 2016. Currently the plans are to begin the project early next year with the razing of the existing structures and the track, with completion of the mall expected by 2018.
Photo: Drew Philips
You may be familiar with Irwindale from Hot Rod’s “Vette Hack” video, but there’s more being lost here. NASCAR, NHRA and Formula Drift are all about to lose a venue, locals are losing yet another dragstrip, which seems like a slap in the face to racers after the Chatsworth street racing crash stirred up the track vs. street debate, and locals now have to look at yet another mall in California. Unfortunately, Irwindale’s fate is pretty much sealed at this point.
Original Story Link: Pasadena Star-News
(Thanks to Charles Wickam for the tip!)
Lame.
Another race track gone to make room for “progress”- another fucking mall.
The last weekly operated drag strip in the Los Angeles area is now closing in the wake of another street racing fatality. This time to make a mall. Irwindale’s other empty and unused rock quarries are not good enough for mall construction? My friend, Bob Beck, is the track announcer at the 1/8th mile drag strip.
And they wonder why so many race and drift on the street. No one wants to travel hundreds of miles to race.
“NO MORE DRAG STRIPS, LETS STREET RACE”
At least when they close the 1/4 mile strip it was to make beer.
Street Race x2!
Why don’t they just re-open one of the many abandoned malls in every city…
That is the perfect location for a race track, easy highway access and no people living nearby. Who the hell would shop there anyways?
The problem seems to be that people or companies rich enough to buy tracks rarely have any interest in running them.