So that to me is my favorite part because Ive been looking at these race tracks on this Google map that I made for over a decade, and that aerial view is all Ive got, right? The half-mile Meyer Speedway in Houston, which hosted a 1971 Cup Series race in which Bobby Allison and Richard Petty started on the front row in front of 9,000 spectators, went down in the late 1970s. But, there hasn't been any racing in sight for years, and since then the second story wide-windowed hasn't had a view of anything. The "New Belmont" Would Become the Deadliest Track in U.S. My dad had a lot of history there. How did it fail?. Texas horse racing today exists because the fair associations and brush tracks kept the flame burning during the dark years. Address: United States, United States The OIYS Visitor Center Historic Drag Strips. I guess I will. Description: 1/8 mile and 3/8 mile Clay Ovals, Description: 1/4 mile clay oval semi-banked track, Description: 3.4 mile road course and multi purpose track, the official F1 Track in the United States, Description: 8/10 mile asphalt karting road course, Description: 1.7 to 2.5 mile asphalt road course, Description: 1/4 mi Asphalt Drag Strip, Mud Drags, Moto Cross, Description: 11-turn asphalt karting road course, Description: 1/8 mile NHRA Drag Strip & 3/8 mile NASCAR Asphalt Oval, Description: 1/8 mi Concrete Drag Strip, status unclear, see website for details, Description: 1/8 and 1/4 mile all concrete drag strip, Description: 1.5-Mile Oval, 2.324-Mile Road Course, 4/10 mile Clay Oval, Description: 1/8 mile high banked clay oval, Description: 3/8 mi Asphalt Oval, CLOSED March, 2017, Description: 1/4 mi Dirt Oval, Now Closed after 2012 with no plans to re-open, Description: 1/2 mi Asphalt Oval, CLOSED as of 2007, Some dreams of reopening someday, Description: 3/8 mi Clay Oval, sadly closed in February of 2017. B. died before the lease handover in 1968, and his former race track became known as Capital Speedway under its new owners. I've decided to pick four examples of race meetings being cancelled or postponed, with three of them being due to a health scare. Apr 22, 2022 179 Dislike Share Circuits of the past 22.4K subscribers Texas World Speedway - Abandoned Race Track USA In this Circuits of the past video, we show you the abandoned Texas. The track is a 3/8 mile slightly banked clay oval. Longhorn Speedway was the name under which it eventually closed, with grandstands left to rust and asphalt to crack even further under passive ownership by an Austin realty group. But back in the 1950s, this forgotten Cornish track played host to high-stakes Formula One races. Let's just hope that they didn't forget to get everything out of the fridge and freezer. The racing surface, bad shape and all, still held up. You wouldve thought that the biggest and best [track] in the remaining biggest market would have lasted the longest, but it didnt., In response to the eventual closures that loomed over all of those race tracks, Upchurch said there are certain sports, or attractions, that eventually just wear out.. Between 1954 and 1955 it welcomed three Formula 1 races, watched by a throng of thousands of spectators. by ScottKo in RacingIn News, Track Promoters Get FREE Promotion with RacingIn.com's Track Directory and Race Dates Page 20 Abandoned Race Tracks NASCAR Wants Us To Forget About, A New Toyota Celica Concept Shows What A Pure Toyota Sports Car Could Be Without BMW, A Modern Plymouth Road Runner Like This Could Shake Up Today's Pony Car Market, EXCLUSIVE: This Toyota 2000GT Rendering Brings An Icon Into Modern Day, 2025 Chevrolet Corvette SUV: Release Date, Specs, And Everything We Know. And that might be the track surface, but also kind of wandering into the infield or outside of the track as well to find any kind of evidence of the racing and the history and the physical evidence of the track. The phenomenon stretches from local race tracks to ones that used to host NASCARs top divisions, such as North Carolinas old North Wilkesboro Speedway that operated from 1949 to 1996 and hosted 93 races in whats now known as the top-level Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Our list of abandoned tracks could also include another impressive project that was supposed to draw in the most famous teams in the world. The stands are empty, there are no cars, it's overgrown with foliage. Location: Spring, Texas; Interests: Classic Racing History, Classic Street Rods, Classic Oldies Music, Former Radio and Track Announcer. No, nobody ever comes out here to look at that.. Track draws racers from. But also Metrolina meant so much to this community, and when it was successful and thriving in the mid-70s, the racing community knew that was the place to be. A race course was built in Brownwood in 1880; Hyde Park was established in 1850 in Austin; and Dallas had fair park in 1886. This dog, for example, seems to have found a new home here. A highly recommended stop. This is what I was dealing with. After all, Zuniga sat in those grandstands so many years ago that she can remember drivers showing up to race in T-shirts and jeans rather than fire-resistant race suits. GB. None of us really knew anything about Nashville Superspeedway and what it might be like. Meaning urban explorers, of course. In its day, former Longhorn Speedway PA announcer Neil Upchurch said the tracks premiere Late Model eventsone of the most expensive and therefore exclusive divisions in short-track racing, which features stock cars that appear to the casual eye to be a few years behind the current-generation NASCAR race carswould pull around two dozen race entries on any given Friday night in the late 1980s and into the 90s. Sources: Seph Lawless, USA Today & My Fox 8. As he called races at different short tracks across the state, Upchurch saw the declining popularity of local short-track racing in Texas as it happened and said it wasnt singular to Longhorn Speedway or the Austin market. Top Speed offers daily industry news and reviews on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Anyhow, it was only open on weedends and mostly stock . On July 19, 2018, developers broke ground for the Southern Pointe master-planned community, a plan for the construction of 1400 new houses.Since then, the Texas World Speedway is being slowly demolished with the concrete husk of the grandstands keeping watch over a broken circuit, bifurcated in several sections. Some of us old fart historians, who Its like losing and old friend, Zuniga said. Motordome Speedway is an Abandoned Wonderland. A Bruton Smith property. This is a great place to fill your evening with fast paced, adrenaline filled action. The high-banked half-mile oval opened in 1969 and hosted races every single year until its closure in 2008, helping to . Now, there's no hope that any car could go safely around this track at two hundred miles per hour, or even at highway speeds. Confederate Speedway was built in 1950 as a quarter-mile dirt oval that only lasted for about five years before being abandoned. This abandoned horse racing track was an exercise in hubris from its inception. Although the deed to the circuit, which includes two configurations measuring 1.3-miles and 1.7-miles respectively, isn't included with the purchase of the house, unparalleled access is up for offer. The dusky sunset paints the scene in a glowing but melancholy light, with an empty garage and empty pit stops down below, mere hollowhusksof what was once one of the loudest, fastest, and most exciting places to be, especially at race time. The Texas World Speedway is on its final leg with barely a spire to reach to the sky as it faces a reality where it is driven into the earth forever.Recentely, Kyle Bartz visited the site and took these pictures from the remains of the track. All photos credit: Alanis King. Not much directly lines the highway, either, except for dirt roads and some high grasses that could be a vibrant green or a stiff, dead brown depending on the time of the year. One end of the race track is a little bit different than the other, Umscheid said. But as bad of a shape as the asphalt was at Longhorn, it was still more fun to race on, to me, than any of the other race tracks that we ran at.. Not far underneath the low-flying airplanes descending into Austin-Bergstrom International Airport lies the old quarter-mile Longhorn Speedway, a former local short track which resides, defunct and wilting from age, under five miles away from Circuit of The Americasthe shiny, new 3.427-mile international motorsports facility that hosted nearly 270,000 spectators over its Formula One weekend in the fall of 2016. Quarter Horse racing was particularly popular at the time as it remains today throughout the Texas hill country. The fastest road course in the U.S.? Miraculously, it didnt hit any of them and he wasnt hurt eitherthe driver of the car. Many tracks have been abandoned or left to second-tier status. Zuniga passes by it every once in a while, remembering the days of demolition derbies, stunt shows and the Friday-night racing features. Add Your AD Follow Title Garage space Location Price Pic. by ScottKo in RacingIn News, Bay Area Modifieds bringing IMCA Racing back to Emerald Coast $65,000.00 Local Pickup The Lattimore Valley Raceway hosted auto racing back in the 1920s and 1930s. The track opened as Thunderhill Raceway for the 1998 season, its facilities being nearly four decades newer than those at Longhorn. The [decline] of racing in Texas was, in some cases, so slow that it was hardly noticeable, Upchurch said. This is a premier drag strip located in the mid-west providing racing for professional drivers as well as the amateur racer. And theres so many of them, where Im like, Man, I wish I could see it, be there and see it and look at it.. Nothing besides the decaying tarmac, the growing plants, animals taking up roost, and the falling apart of all the structures of this NASCAR raceway that they want us to just forget about. The Beaumont Flyer, Freddy Fryar, said Upchurch, summoning back his announcer voice as if hed called a race yesterday. by Chris Stuber Feb 22, 2023, 7:28 am. Riverside International Raceway was a 2.62 mile road course in California's Moreno Valley. It didnt feel as homey as [the racing] once did, Zuniga said. You keep going back to these other race tracks, and you kind of know what to expect. NASCAR might want it to be that way, so they can continue to make excessive amounts of money to keep building new tracks. The crowd wasnt as big; the atmosphere wasnt the same. Paired with the allure of an abandoned place like this, and the best of the urban explorers won't get wanderlust to come to this exact location. After visiting tracks across the country throughout the series, Earnhardt will offer up exclusive access to the viewer a tour of his race car graveyard and abandoned dirt track in Mooresville . But Labonte did race at other local short tracks across Texas, and even won the first local Late Model track championship at the nearby San Antonio Speedway in 1977. Weaver. He recalled the night Houston native Foyt made a visit, leaving locals stunned upon signing in at the pit gate. Even if it's only an oval circuit, there's still a fantastic amount of excitement knowing that the cars are hurtling around the bends at insane rates of speed. There was an effort to revive it again in 1970, at which point it . This is where the commentators would be, so they could see the whole thing happening as clearly as possible, so as to narrate the events of the race factually. Dale Earnhardt Jr. explores abandoned racetracks on 'Lost Speedways,' Season 2 debuts July 1 on Peacock Season 2 moves beyond the South to visit deserted raceways. These days, barbed wire lines the property. You pretty much had to be on your game the whole race.. In 1993 the company withdrew and the track was used for club racing again. 353. Its just sad.. Red Cedar Speedway offers dirt track racing on Friday nights. Opened in 1956 and closed at the end of the 1970 season. After 2004, it lay abandoned with dirt piles to prevent unauthorized racing till it was bought for commercial development in 2015. So is the way it goes with things that are no longer stewarded by humans, nature has a chance to reclaim everything for itself, and the beauty of that can be addicting, and most assuredly breathtaking. Then there's the parallel imagery with that. While any gearhead would kill for a garage like Jay Leno's, an even more perfect piece of real estate has popped up in the Lone Star State of Texas. Let's take a look at 20 abandoned racetracks NASCAR wants us to forget about. Hartwell Speedway opened in 1969. But just over two decades ago, things were still going well at Longhornit stayed that way even through the 1990s. It's one of only seven, and it recently closed down, too. Spooky. There were still the same drivers, Bobby Joe New, Larry Darity and all of them who used to race down at Speed-O-Rama and in San Antonio, but the feel was totally different.. The reduction and the closure of [asphalt] tracks has been a very slow cancer to creep along and eventually, we have one go down permanently.. The following race tracks in Texas were found. Heart O' Texas Speedway 19 Auto Racing Tracks By tlratliffyahoocom Cotton Bowl Speedway in Paige, Texas is for sale: 20: TX / Paige $2,100,000. Racers, cars, blunders, and even tracks. The famous track was started in 1925 by Richard Winning's great-grandfather, T.L. The 254 Speedway Road in Hartwell, GA dirt track is now for sale. Finding a one-of-a-kind property can be difficult, but if you think outside the box you could bag yourself a conversion project with plenty of potential. 84 talking about this. In its first year as Capital Speedway in 1968, Longhorn managers didnt open the track until mid Aprilan entire two months after the years Daytona 500. Nearly 20 years after Longhorns closure, the earth underneath its racing surface is even beginning to overtake the track itself. This story was originally written for Reporting Texas at the University of Texas at Austin. Track/ Made for legendscars. And then, it finally just went down and stayed down. $40 Fall Family Fun at Houston Motorsports Park TechNet SpeedFest Saturday, November 9th! What I learned there, I could take anywhere in the United States and race, said Umscheid, who raced at Longhorn from 1978 through around 1990. With that, the demise of Longhorn Speedway became final. The biggest barrier for Dale Earnhardt Jr.s NASCAR Xfinity team to make the jump to Cup, Alex Bowman reveals the easter eggs hidden in his Dale Earnhardt Jr.-designed Nashville paint scheme, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick share their predictions and hopes for Jimmie Johnson's first Indy 500, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. No regulation accompanied this legislation and in 1909 the legislature voted to prohibit race track gambling all together. So is the inevitability of time. San Antonio Speedway opened in 1977, but closed its gates a few decades later. Asking price is $89,000. Not very fast, but at least something is still moving. Things also required so much concentration at Longhorn, Umscheid said, because the track was not a true oval in the sense that most oval race tracks are considered to be. Alas, not all good things can last forever, no matter how successful, and this speedway was shut down in 1996. owner and founder of Niftee 50ees; . Relocated here ca. His passion is the backbone of Lost Speedways, his Peacock series that explores shuttered, dilapidated and abandoned race tracks around the country, as the (mostly) retired NASCAR driver investigates the tracks histories, their legends and their failures. The door locked, too. They were all family people, and a lot of times you would be able to go to school with their kids, or you knew somebody who knew somebody.. Erica Larson Odello Graphic Designer (2000-present) Author has 92 answers and 317K answer views 4 y Related Why are so many race tracks derilict? 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