It is claimed to be, at 106 years old, the oldest continuously operating race track in the country. It appears there will be no 107th season at the historic Milwaukee Mile. No national touring series has booked an event for the 2010 season there and no promoters have expressed interest in doing anything there either.
Dave Kallmann, a long time auto racing beat reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and a guy who knows the place as well as anyone, wrote an obit column for RacinToday.com about the track’s demise. Interestingly, Kallmann is not all piss and vinegar about it and this was not brought on by neighbors, lawyers, or greenies. Th closure is simply because the place is ancient, has very limited seating capacity, and just does not stack up as a “major” racing venue anymore. Evolution has its victims apparently. The column is a great read.
One of the coolest things that ever happened at the track involved AJ Foyt. Long story short, Foyt showed up to a fancy, open-wheeler race the day after winning a dirt track race. He had come to watch at Milwaukee because his new car was still under construction. As the story goes (and the video below proves it) Foyt entered the lowly dirt track car, qualified it on the pole and managed a second place finish, not winning mainly because of a small gas tank and an extra pit stop. The video below rules.
