I've done my share of racing their and have been going their since I was a kid with my dad. My dad used to drag race their with his 67 Plymouth GTX. It's terrible if it closes but noone has said where the rumor even started. I haven't heard a thing. The website is set up for next season like nothing is wrong. Could just be a rumor. Does anyone know the actual truth?

a friend of mine keeps his car at island and knows the family the track is not closing

Strange considering other people with stuff there were told to come get it

As of now they are all rumors, no one really knows except the parties involved. It is a shame if they shut down, some people that don't race on Saturday's(points days) wouldn't know that it is like a home away from home, one big family.

That sucks, etown is only open for test n tune because of the ricers rumor has it. If local tracks close then that leads to more street racing.(not saying its a bad thing haha)

It is a bad thing.

Nah, just gotta do it on a good road not on route 9 with traffic like idiots do. Like a back road, ive raced more on the road then at the track

Time for a reminder on NJFBOA's stance on street racing

The loss of any NJ track is a bad thing.

Englishtown was pretty close to getting shut down a few years ago - nearby residents were complaining about the noise from their $800k mcmansions. At least the housing market crashed so that has been pushed a few years out at the minimum due to still open space and the fact that they pay a lot of taxes to the town and state.

I want all of you to be aware of how lucky we are here in NJ, we have three 1/4 mile tracks here in a small state with less than average per capita drag racers - if Island survives. In the 20+ million population of LA, all the tracks have been closed - either sprawl or ass clown neighbors have killed them all. And considering that is where hot rodding started over 60 years ago, that is a travesty. So guess what, street racing is heading through the roof because there are no alternatives.

I never liked Island - it's a misfit track that is more something you might find behind a corn field out in the midwest, but it's the idea that counts - a sanctioned place to race.

They can complain all they want. Fact is that track was there before any of the houses. They built and bought them with the track already there. Not the tracks fault that they were sold their houses during the winter. Lol

East windsor raceway closed due to housing around it

must be nice to be young & naive

No the house owners are the naive ones. Its like buying a house next to an airport and then trying to get it shut down because its too loud. You know its there, so live somewhere else if you cant deal with it. They all knew the track was there. Kinda hard to miss it. If you don't like the noise you shouldn't have moved there in the first place...

Naive again FFB. But, off topic.

:facepalm:

great, we know how it should be, but that ain't how the world moves.

Its sad if its true. I went there all the time. Tried going on their website to se if there's anything on there about it but it says the websites down everytime I try. My thing is you don't know what to believe. Everywhere I try to find out about it the info is on some kind of forum.

Ouch...hopefully they can ride out this economy

Don't quote me on this, but if i recall a few years ago rumors were floating around that contractors wanted to build homes close to atco raceway and were trying to get them shut down as well.

Who knows the truth?

About Island? They owe feds money and the epa is on their ass. Once January 1st rolls around a lock will be placed on the gate and the property will be seized. Newest rumor has it that there might be a few parties interested in purchasing the property before this happens. Keep an eye on the YellowBullet thread. You gotta sort through a ton of ******** posts but there is good info to be had there. Many people posting in there are directly connected with the track owners and the interested parties possibly looking to buy it...

Ever heard of Flemington Speedway?

Municipalities care more about tax money and being able to charge more of it than they do about a race track.

Melissa is a member here, and is good friends with most of the OG folks on here. We would know straight up. Those YB guys are running their mouths. Some seem to know the real deal, others are spouting crap.

Ding ding ding! That is the correct answer. Munis make more from homeowners, businesses than they would the track. If there is opportunity to build more homes/businesses which would bring in more tax revenue, they will do it. As for Island, I have no impression of how the locals or muni feels about the track.

Problem is that the 300 or more houses that could be built on a lot like Raceway park or Island (if they were converted to residential lots) would be in the millions per year - maybe RP pays a good amount in property and sales taxes, but Island sure doesn't.

When enough people complain, things happen and that is a fact of life.

I mentioned LA earlier in the thread for a reason - that being a movement toward eliminating any sort of outlying non-residential, minimal tax generating properties. You can even throw farms on that list because they don't generate hardly any property taxes; so if NJ tracks go extinct, don't expect a new one to pop up somewhere out of a huge open field out in the sticks.

Flemington Speedway - remember going there quite a bit when I was younger before they closed...

Towns can and do use just about any means to close down unwanted businesses - EPA, illegal stuff, criminal activity, lawsuits, imminent domain - name it and they do it. As long as a court sides with them, it goes through.

From what I just read on Facebook, written by a person closer to Island than anyone here so far or on YB, its not a closed matter as of yet.

A lot of farms in our area are preserved farmland/green acres. They are purchased by the municipalities and property owners pay for their taxes or something like that.

You would never see that for a racetrack.

And FWIW, here's another that went away long ago- Flemington Dragway:


http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...psa3b970af.jpg