City council had a close 8-7 vote in favor of allowing a lease extension to our track. Calgary's Race City Speedway gets at least 5 more years to live!!

The racing facility (it's more than just a dragstrip) sits right beside one of the city's landfills. The landfill wanted to expand and put in a storm sewer runoff pond on the land that the track sits on. The city/landfill also owns the land on the other side of the track. Council argued that they needed the land and it would cost taxpayers an extra $3 million if the lease was extended. Kind of a poor argument considering how much extra the mayor wants to spend with total disregard to the taxpayers on other projects.

In the last few weeks there has been an enormous amount of support from all forms of racing to keep the facility because there isn't anything else like it in western Canada. Last Friday night there were 217 cars through tech and around 4000 spectators at the track. Saturday night was a car rally downtown to support the track with hundreds of cars showing up. Somehow there was enough consideration to pass the vote and the racing community in a city of over a million people are rejoicing today.

The organized racing on the drag, oval and road course is only a small portion of what happens at the track. From April to October, just about every day of the week, the track is rented out for driving schools or private functions. The amount of businesses that rely on the track will never be realized by the general public.

There's a good chance that in 5 years when the lease is up for renewal, there won't be a lot of political bullying forcing it to close again. I can guarantee the current mayor won't get any votes from the racing community during next years election but the alderman who spearheaded the campaign to keep the track and force the lease extension will get a lot of votes and will probably win the mayor seat if he runs.

There was so much politics involved around the lease. Last Friday there was supposed to be a bunch of different police force race cars showing up from out of town to promote the street legal races and support the track. In the middle of the afternoon, suddenly they were all told that they were not to attend unless as civilians. In the history of the police racing teams, they have never been told not to attend an event. We did however get the support from the local fire department who showed up with 2 fire engines to put on display at the track. They had no problems being there but if they were called out, they would have to leave. I don't think they received any calls that night and enjoyed the show.

In the end, I get to continue racing locally for another 5 years. I still need to make at least 1 road trip next year to do some licensing passes for my NHRA license unless the track decides to switch back to NHRA sanctioning so I can do it locally. It's been running under IHRA rules for a few years now although this year it was more of an independent.

It's sad to see so many race tracks close around the country. Some close because of lack of interest or residential encroachment. Others such as our track may be forced to close due to political pressure for other reasons. In a city with over 1 million residents, there's no reason not to have a racing facility. The best part is that we have a 1/4 mile dragstrip, 2 mile road course and 1/2 mile high banked paved oval all within the city limits.

 

That's some great news!

 

It's good to hear good news about a track closing for a change.

There is talk about two new tracks in our region, one in the greater Denver area, one in the southern Nebraska panhandle. Haven't heard anything recently about progress on them.

 

That is great news, glad to hear that!! btw the sig picture is really awesome, how big of a copy do you have?? (thinking screen saver!)

 

You want a picture of my car as your screensaver? I have to admit, out of all the track photos taken of my car this year that I was able to obtain, that one is the best so far but I know there are many more taken of my car that I'll never see. I'm still also trying to track down some launch video that I know is out there.

The original is online from the photographer who took it. Unedited, it's 1024 x 683, which is more than enough as a screen saver, but it has his business name across the very bottom. My sig picture is a highly cropped picture. I've also cropped the picture to roughly that size and printed out a bunch of 4 x 6 photos to hand out as "hero cards". On the back I have a bunch of basic information about the car. So far my sponsors have copies and a few friends have copies. I'll have to print out a bunch more for next season. Seems every time I make a pass, someone new comes up to me in the pits to say how much they love the car.

The original online photo can be seen here. At the top left of the photo is an option to download it in it's original size.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/evolize...7622468410796/

As for the track, we're waiting for an announcement as to what's going to happen for the next 5 years. Rumor so far looks very good. Perhaps we'll get more race dates next year instead of once a month like we did this year. That's why I attended so many Friday night street legal nights. I wanted track time for tuning and as you can see in the picture, it was worth it plus I got a lot of great photos during those Friday night sessions.