Not only that, they should have an entire Series in the game you can unlock that allows you to drive as former, legendary drivers. Like Dale Earhardt, Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty, the Allisons, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, etc.
You took my comment away. Now that we are in the subject, and bare with a new yorker here that is not supposed to know about NASCAR. In this video a Chicago track is mentioned, is this Chicago Land? The one that is in the best NASCAR game to grace the PS3 NASCAR 09 with J. Gordon in the cover?.
TWS was a hair before my time. Riverside went to the wayside because it was the 1980's in Southern California and as the late great Frank Zappa wrote a song about, the Valley Girls couldn't survive without a mall within 500ft walking distance at any given moment. Very sad to see it go! But Wilkesboro being cut was a total disgrace, NASCAR forgot its roots once it was gone!
They are building houses on TWS as I type this. There was an effort to bring it back several years ago but the owner of Texas Motor Speedway got it blocked ( that was the talk around town, how true that is I don't know). I spent a fair amount of time at TWS when I was a kid.
@@stevehairston9940 Even though its been officially closed for decades I saw a drone video of the track here on TH-cam from a few years back. They had patched sections of the track and people were using it, they even had a relatively new garage area. I guess the rich folks with their $200,000 speed machines were just screwing around out there. I was surprised how well the track surface held up after decades of sitting, its like the Texas weather preserved it! That would've never happened on the east coast. It's sad of course, a repave and new grandstands and a scoring box and the track would be good as new.
There was another dirt track that closed in the mid to late '50s. It was located by what is now I-85 and Little Rock Road in Charlotte, NC. I lived in the neighborhood adjoining it and remember watching the races through the wood fence. All trucking and industrial property now.
Thank you for including Heidelberg Raceway near Pittsburgh, not far from my family roots. Though I never lived there any visit meant the races first stop. I've been to speedways half-way 'round the world and some of the best racing I've seen has been at Heidelberg. That includes a 500 lap ARCA race on the half-mile dirt. In 1949 Heidelberg hosted the seventh-ever NASCAR (what would now be called Cup series) race won by Lee Petty. Sara Christian finished fifth that day, still the highest by a woman at NASCAR's top level. Three of the (now called Cup) four races held there were run on the half-mile, the other on the infield quarter-mile. There was also one Convertible Series race, and one late in the game race of the short-lived Grand National/East Series. Heidelberg was part of the Pittsburgh Racing Assn who ran modified coupes & sedans to full pits & stands at five different tracks every week. They were one of the first NASCAR local track sanction & support programs. Thanks for the memories!😎
What's sad about this is that there's only one Nascar dirt track left that's still used, Viking speedway had it's last Nascar track event in '99 the year my dad started racing Wissota. Which is what series they run here only track in Minnesota I think that was a Nascar track.
Yes, they were... but I used pause to stop the video and read the captions, then un-paused and continued. Without pausing, I wouldn't have been able to read stuff fully either.
One minor correction is the Tampa Florida track that was owned by Frank Dery and known as Golden Gate.Many great races on Friday nights at the gate. Fierce competition and a good car count. We were based out of Sunshine speedway across the bay in St. Pete just reopened!
Ronnie , I am analog too . Ha ha ! I am glad you asked the question because I learned something . I have been using the mouse to pause and back it up , hit the space bar thanx Simon . Now if I can figure out what key is reverse I will be happy . I like the video .
My Dad used to go to races at Asheville-Weaverville.It was paved the last few years.At one time it was the worlds fastest half mile,even faster than Bristol they say.It is now North Buncombe High School. I graduated from there.My Dad and I went to The New Asheville Speedway every Friday night when I was growing up.They ran super late models,street stock etc there.
William your right the Asheville Weaverville race track is now the new North Buncombe High School. I was raised up in Weaverville, but I was unaware of a track at McCormick field 😊
Field getting smaller, stands can't get filled! No better time for NASCAR to come home to its roots and bring back these speedways our heroes drove on. Create some new memories at these historical tracks.
I live two miles away from the defunct Powell Speedway now. That area is completely unrecognizable now and I had no idea a cup race was run there in the 50s. Great but sad video. We lost our beloved Columbus Motor Speedway a few years ago now.
That was a amazing video. I didn't know there were so many racetracks. I especially didn't know how much New York was a player in nascar's growth. And the fact that the New York state fairgounds had stopped racing there. I knew about that track, but I didn't know it was closed. thank you for this video.
Great Job on the video and the history! I was just curious about old tracks that nascar used to race on and found this. Growing up near Portland Or most people are not into these things like I am. In the late 90's I went to Portland SpeedWay a few times to watch the Winston West Series. So much fun in those days before they ripped out the asphalt to make it a dirt track before closing. A more up to date status on the site is yes it closed in 2002, sat empty for many years and now is a Trucking company "Old Dominion Freight" the only signs of a race track around there now is some of the old fencing up on the main road that used to block the view so you couldn't pull over and watch the races for free.
The Langhorne Speedway location shown is incorrect - that is Oxford Valley Mall that you're showing, which is about a 1/2 mile west of the location of LS, which was at the corners of Woodbourne Rd & Old Lincoln Hwy (Business US Rt 1), which became a large Ford and now KIA dealership, a Levitz Furniture (now The Restaurant Depot), a Sam's Club, a K-Mart (now a CARMAX) along Rt 1, and as far east along Woodbourne as the ALDI Market (soon to be vacant, as it is moving to my old Staples location soon). Part of the back section of the property is still visible via Google Maps, where you can still see vestiges of the Turn 2 and 3 curves in the trees that have grown in since its closing. Mind you, originally, Langhorne was a big round constant curve, but in the mid 60's it was squared off and paved (as the picture in the video shows a paved surface). Oddly, the last paved section of the speedway still exists - if you look in the Google Map picture at the western corner of the off-skew diamond shape of this property, you'll see the service road that rounded outside Turn 1 between Rt 1 and Highland Park Way.
Portland also hosted NASCAR Winston West series races. In-between in was a drive-in theater. Saugus was also a regular Winston West stop. A NASCAR-based episode of Dukes of Hazard was filmed there. Like Martinsville, Asheville started off dirt then was paved. Sacramento Fairgrounds hosted Pacific Coast Late Models races which became Winston West not Cup. Lakewood often hosted car and motorcycle racing on the same bill. Langhorne, in it's short straights, one mile dirt form was taken in a near perfect circle. Paul Goldsmith is the only racer to win there on two wheels & four (same for Daytona's beach races). When it was paved late in the game it was expanded to 1.5 miles with a truly straight back stretch and a curved front straight, like a tri-oval. Notice the Jaguars in the Linden field. They won a couple of different early road races. NASCAR had foreign cars racing long before the Toyotas. There was a mid-50s Martinsville dirt race that had early Corvettes & two seater Thunderbirds competing. Tim Flock drove a Mercedes 300SL coupe. One Langhorne race had a VW Beetle competing. The commonly used Marchbank photo looks like Darlington to me. I've never seen a photo from Marchbank that shows a canopy over the stands. When Asheville was paved they originally had dirt & paved tracks together. If I remember, the dirt track was the inner oval. For many years Mesa Marin was a regular stop on the Winston West and Southwest Tour schedules. It hosted the first truck demonstration races that became the NASCAR series when they proved feasible. I believe it was the Spartanburg track where ABC's Wide World of Sports covered an only time on TV dirt track Cup race. Thanks for your obviously huge effort. I hope my input helps. 😎
Nazareth had two tracks that closed up one dirt one asphalt, Reading and Flemington were two of the best dirt tracks to go to and race on , was there when Mike Garbac was killed at Reading on the front stretch terrible impact ! Raced Flemington with URC once wow those g forces were something else !
1:52 The place was called the Santa Fe speedway. Not Santa February. The sign at 1:57 stood for several years after the track closed. There's houses built there now, and plaque commemorating the old speedway.
Man, I just got done seeing some of these abandon race track. To me on reality show comes to mind. That is Life Without People. I mean so many race track being abandon. Mother nature taking back what once was ours. What gets me not only tracks are being abandon. So are other things and places. Like car, plane, buildings, malls, and towns and cities. Your wondering what is this world coming too!!?
There is a local speedway I am surprised did make this list. It was the Queen City Speedway just outside Cincinnati Ohio. They hosted many lower level NASCAR events in the 1980's. A lot of famous names raced there when they was coming up through the ranks.
Corporate ownership is a killer! Doesn't matter what it is. Small businesses, farming, or any other merger/buyout! If the company you work for gets sold, HANG ON TO YOUR ASS AND DON'T BELIEVE A WORD THEY SAY!
@@bradlindeman7417 Amen to that. This Midwesterner is wondering what will happen to ARCA, and especially the ARCA Midwest Tour, now that NASCAR owns them. And in more general terms, more and more segments of the economy are being dominated by a few megacorporations. We used to have these things called anti-trust laws, but they seem to be forgotten about.
When I lived in NJ I went to 3 races there- the '97 & 98 Truck races, and the '98 Busch race. Very unique track, probably more of a "roval" than Pocono or anywhere else.
As a NASCAR fan that mostly followed the CUP series for the last 30 years, Nazareth was a good track. I miss the CART racing there before they had that split into IRL and CHAMP. The Truck racing was awesome too, I feel sorry for your northerners that was a damn good track!
@@thegoose858 Those laws are still on the books, it's just that no one has any real interest in enforcing them. Look up the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890 and you'll see how rarely it's been used in recent decades. It needs to be amended, like any good law, but, again, no one (since that butt-hole Reagan showed up on the scene) has had any interest in doing anything about it.
The "Pittsburgh" track was actually in Heidelberg,PA....adjacent to Rt50 and I-79. Now the site of Lowes, Wal*Mart, a strip mall, and Woltz&Wind Ford dealership.
Savannah Speedway is now known as Oglethorpe Speedway Park. It is now considered Pooler, GA and functions as a local dirt track. It hosted an ARCA race in the mid 2000s. It is still operational. It is NOT underwater.
Also the other track in Charlotte was not a dirt track. It was a board track aka motordrome. At least at the location you have mapped on here. It was also a 1.2 mile track. I don't recall reading it ever held dirt races.
Andrew Murch that is wrong. I was 2 different tracks. Savannah Speedway location is located on highway 17 in Savannah, the one that is now a borrow pit, hence underwater. Ogelthorpe Speedway Park is another track located off of highway 80 in Garden City and is still running events. My first race I attended was at Ogelthorpe Speedway in the late 50's. Savannah Speedway was a small grass airstrip before becoming a speedway in 1962. Ogelthorpe has always been red clay dirt. Savannah Speedway started out as paved asphalt, and drivers complained of it eating the tires up, so the pavement was taken off and it became dirt and about that time, Ogelthorpe stopped their events. Later, Savannah Speedway was repaved and that's when there were 10 Cup events and big drivers coming from North Carolina every week to race. I was at both races that Richard Petty won...2 of his 200. That lasted until about 1977 when Ogelthorpe Speedway started up again, so Savannah Speedway ripped all the asphalt up again and tried to compete with Ogelthorpe as a dirt track. It didn't work out very well, so Savannah Speedway was closed in 1981. I have pictures of Savannah Speedway before it became a borrow pit with remnants of the front straightaway, back straight and both corners with guardrails and pine trees growing up in the pits and all along the track. Savannah Speedway was at it's best as an asphalt track. Ogelthorpe Speedway has NEVER been asphalt.
That was NASCAR's downfall! With the decline of NASCAR CUP popularity the cookie cutter tracks with 2 dates in big markets are the weakest ticket sellers and the lowest in TV ratings. Some rich dude should buy Wilkesboro for a million, pump 5mil into the track and have Cup racing their again within two years easy NASCAR I think would go for it with some serious outside investment along with being pressured by NASCAR fans to race there again!
@@KK-ex5zu There is talk that Jr. has some interest in helping to bring the track back. That was a double whammy loss for the people of Wilkesboro, particularly when Dallas had so much trouble in building a track to replace it.
@@bobby-ov9qn I know Dale Jr went to Wilkesboro to clean the track up so they could scan the race track with computers for I-Racing. I've heard nothing of that but lets see what happens. If 5 people would be able to convince Bruton Smith's family to sell the track it could be a Cup venue again. Billionaires interested in NASCAR are hard to come by, but if a handful of dedicated NASCAR fans/drivers were willing to invest a million dollars a piece it could easily make bringing back the track happen!
@@HeavyFOC awesome, my dad lived in Charlotte for a few years, on Pine St, it was a circle and a big tree in the middle. From the kitchen window, the new Panther Stadium was visible.
This is great. I have been working for 3 days on finding the long lost tracks. Found all i looked for except Jacksonville Speedway in NC. I plan to walk the tracks or whatever is left of them as my Bucket List.
Good news and one correction. The good news is I-70 is being revived in some form but I don't know the status of the track. The correction is Louisville Motor Speedway closed after the 2001 season not 2000 and is now and industrial park used by UPS. A jerk by the name of Jerry Carroll who built the Kentucky Speedway about 70 miles up the road in Sparta bought the Louisville track for the truck date getting his foot in the door with NASCAR. The jerk was involved in the horse industry so that made 2 tracks we lost in Louisville to horses. The Fairgrounds Motor Speedway which never ran NASCAR closed after the 80 season allegedly to build horse barns but they were built elsewhere on the property.
McCormick Field in Asheville was originally a baseball field.Legends like Babe Ruth and others played there.Then the Tourists who is a minor league team lost their major league contract.It was only a racetrack for maybe 2 or 3 years.Bango Matthews absolutely dominated.Then they started playing ball again. The tourists are now a farm team for the Rockies.
My roots of racing began at Powell Speedway and Columbus Motor Speedway. My father and uncle were racing there from the beginning.. I so miss Powell Speedway, many childhood memories there.
Morristown Raceway Morristown Nj was located on Hanover ave on the former Mennen Company property and has an ice arena on the site where the track was.
Excellent video. And these are just tracks NASCAR raced on. It's so sad to see history disappearing; many of these tracks I raced on. That was the day, where have all the real men gone.
@@jr.daniels7750 You not wrong in many ways tbh. But other motorsports such as Open wheel racing and WEC aren't dying. Other sports are. Idk about Formula drift.
Danbury Speedway cloed in the 80]s to make way for Danbury Mall, & in my town West Haven Speedway closed to make way for an intersection in a new road when they pulled the Savin Rock Amusement Park for urban development. Both in Ct.
Riverside Raceway, a predecessor to Sonoma Raceway Daytona Beach: Replaced With Daytona International Speedway Texas World Speedway: Replaced With Texas Motor Speedway Chicago Motor Speedway: Replaced with Chicagoland Motor Speedway Las Vegas Park Speedway: Replaced with Las Vegas Motor Speedway
The i70 speed way in Missouri is under remodel and will be opening as a new dirt track and road course for weekend racers like me so I'm super excited that someone brought it back but I like it good video
I-70 never closed, they just couldn't get Lloyd's of London to write a liability insurance policy on the dump. Tentative dune buggy race scheduled May 2020, dependent on trim work. Acme Underwriters of Afghanistan phoned in a high deductible, low premium, limited liability, waiver mandatory, Africa subsidiary, variable rate policy based on Ethiopia's economy. Translation.........A 1st aid kit fully equipped with band-aids, bactien & bayer aspirin along with taxi-service to the nearest free clinic maintained on-sight. Hurry while tickets are still available. General Admission $8.50 Dopes, Drunks and children under 23 get in free.
rayism 24b, they showed on the local news the track before they did any work. It was an overrun dump. Didn't look anything like the track I remembered.
Theres a track by where I live that's closed down. Idk if NASCAR ran it. But its illiana speedway in Schererville, Indiana. Such a shame it closed down. Its been there since the 40s. People were complaining about the noise. Also close to the old route 30 dragstrip.
Ascott speedway in so Cali off 189 th and Vermont avenue in the city of gardena is always missed 15 mins from stub hub and 45 mins from Staples it was awesome I had so many fond memories
I can’t believe they shut down Peach State. I saw some great racing there. I used to drop trailer several miles away at the Pilot truck stop and bobtail to the speedway.
there is an error in this video one the tracks listed her as abandoned and not used is actually stillin use today and part of the world of outlaws dirt circuit and been in constant use for the past 60 years! that's the .333 dirt oval charlotte NC track. unless there was two of them??
Not sure about your position of the Tri-City track. It was on Skeet Club Rd. I think you are wrong on Laveview too. There was another track south of Mobile that was there in teh 50s adn now it is almost gone.
I'm a younger person and agree that some of the captions go wayyy ro quick. However from what I did catch off of the things seen that bother me is the fact of racing tracks or venues being closed due to the noise that comes along with the se venues. If you move into an area with a racetrack close to you, you should be accepting to the fact that there will be noise beyond belief! The other thing becomes despite any noise of what kind of income does said noise bring to your community??? Wake up people! I live in Milwaukee the home of the legendary Milwaukee Mile. Usually the only people to complain are people that aren't even close to the track. Sadly we haven't had anything since 2015 or 2016. We are have to have something back this year in 2019 on father's day weekend or around there. I'm hoping so, because I would hate to see this track fall in along with all that have been listed
Owner had been trying to close it for years to build house's. After Houston flooded they parked 1000's of flooded car's at the track. That was it's final death blow.😟
steve hairston wow Steve, I didn’t know they did that. I know for awhile they allowed car clubs to rent the track and run on it. I went down one day to run my Corvette on the track about 6 years ago but a Viper club was on track that day and couldn’t use it. Enjoyed watching them run. Too bad it’s dead now. I tested a Baby Grand back in 1998 on that track and had a blast but ended up buying a Legends car and racing at TMS for 2 seasons.
Eduardvi78900 You need to look up TWS on TH-cam and watch. This was a huge 2 mile+ oval and there were many big time NASCAR races held there through the 70’s and 80’s.
@@scottt3100 sorry about that. I didn't mean to quote you, I must've tapped your name accidentally. Video says it permanently closed in 2015, but really closed in 2017 after Houston flooded.
steve hairston Oh it’s quite alright my friend. I appreciate your accurate info about when and how it closed. I actually responded to you on another part of this topic. Sad that they closed it. I live in the Waco area and enjoyed going down there from time to time and watching various car clubs run on the track.
If it were me, Chicagoland and Kentucky would be heavily reworked into better designs. Make Chicago a near replica of Rockingham and turn Kentucky into a new Nazareth. Add Iowa to the schedule and remove a Texas race, if Texas still has two races, I don't remember. Build a North Wilkesboro clone inside of Pikes Peak or just behind it and remove a race from Pocono. Add a fourth road course race, at Road America or Mosport and remove a date from Kansas. So... we'd gain new Rockingham and Nazereth by altering Chicago and Kentucky, which suck anyway, gain two short tracks in Iowa and a Pikes Peak Wilkesboro, and get another road course for 4 out of 36, which sounds good to me. We'd still have Kansas, Texas and Pocono, though they are down to one race. Seems fair as they dropped Atlanta and Darlington to single race dates. NASCAR really screwed the pooch when they went to the cookie cutter mile and a half tracks, but I'm pretty much convinced they won't see how badly the sport has been botched until it's too late.
10:17 Odessa MO I-70 Speedway has a World of Outlaw winged dune buggy race scheduled May 2020, following some minor weed-eater trim work. By the looks of these pictures, shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours. I-70 never really closed, they just couldn't get Lloyd's of London to write a liability insurance policy on the dump. Acme Underwriters of Afghanistan phoned in a high deductible, low premium, limited liability, waiver mandatory, Africa subsidiary, variable rate insurance policy based on Ethiopia's economy. Translation.........A 1st aid kit fully equipped with band-aids, bactien & bayer aspirin along with taxi-service to the nearest free clinic maintained on-sight. Hurry while tickets are still available.
Motorsport had a presence on MN state fair property started in early 1900s and when until it ended 2002 nascar did a presence on property it was called the Minnesota state fair speedway the speedway closed on September 2nd 2002
Someone should make a NASCAR video game with all these classic tracks, just like Papyrus did with NASCAR Legends nearly two decades ago.
Not only that, they should have an entire Series in the game you can unlock that allows you to drive as former, legendary drivers. Like Dale Earhardt, Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty, the Allisons, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, etc.
I loved that game.
You took my comment away. Now that we are in the subject, and bare with a new yorker here that is not supposed to know about NASCAR. In this video a Chicago track is mentioned, is this Chicago Land? The one that is in the best NASCAR game to grace the PS3 NASCAR 09 with J. Gordon in the cover?.
@@JediGamingX no, not Chicagoland.
@@six-pack1332 oh ok, thanks for clearing that doubt.
I-70 is back up & running as a 3/8th dirt track. Ran practice there last night & it is awesome!
Three tracks that didn't make sense to go to waste - Riverside, Texas World Speedway, and North Wilkesboro.
Wilkesboro all about money, to small of a venue; sad, great track....
TWS was a hair before my time. Riverside went to the wayside because it was the 1980's in Southern California and as the late great Frank Zappa wrote a song about, the Valley Girls couldn't survive without a mall within 500ft walking distance at any given moment. Very sad to see it go! But Wilkesboro being cut was a total disgrace, NASCAR forgot its roots once it was gone!
@@KK-ex5zu TWS's owner had been trying to close the track down for years to build houses. Rotten SOB finally succeded. RIP TWS🙁
They are building houses on TWS as I type this. There was an effort to bring it back several years ago but the owner of Texas Motor Speedway got it blocked ( that was the talk around town, how true that is I don't know). I spent a fair amount of time at TWS when I was a kid.
@@stevehairston9940 Even though its been officially closed for decades I saw a drone video of the track here on TH-cam from a few years back. They had patched sections of the track and people were using it, they even had a relatively new garage area. I guess the rich folks with their $200,000 speed machines were just screwing around out there. I was surprised how well the track surface held up after decades of sitting, its like the Texas weather preserved it! That would've never happened on the east coast. It's sad of course, a repave and new grandstands and a scoring box and the track would be good as new.
you forgot Air Base Speedway, one of the most forgotten tracks
Went to a couple of those tracks in VA and NC when I was a kid. Sad to be reminded as to what happened to them.
There was another dirt track that closed in the mid to late '50s. It was located by what is now I-85 and Little Rock Road in Charlotte, NC. I lived in the neighborhood adjoining it and remember watching the races through the wood fence. All trucking and industrial property now.
Thank you for including Heidelberg Raceway near Pittsburgh, not far from my family roots. Though I never lived there any visit meant the races first stop. I've been to speedways half-way 'round the world and some of the best racing I've seen has been at Heidelberg. That includes a 500 lap ARCA race on the half-mile dirt.
In 1949 Heidelberg hosted the seventh-ever NASCAR (what would now be called Cup series) race won by Lee Petty. Sara Christian finished fifth that day, still the highest by a woman at NASCAR's top level. Three of the (now called Cup) four races held there were run on the half-mile, the other on the infield quarter-mile. There was also one Convertible Series race, and one late in the game race of the short-lived Grand National/East Series.
Heidelberg was part of the Pittsburgh Racing Assn who ran modified coupes & sedans to full pits & stands at five different tracks every week. They were one of the first NASCAR local track sanction & support programs. Thanks for the memories!😎
I remember going to the Mesa Marin track back in the 70's. Met Rick and Roger Mears there! Nice vid!!
What's sad about this is that there's only one Nascar dirt track left that's still used, Viking speedway had it's last Nascar track event in '99 the year my dad started racing Wissota. Which is what series they run here only track in Minnesota I think that was a Nascar track.
The captions are way too fast to read. I quit watching half way through.
Yes, they were... but I used pause to stop the video and read the captions, then un-paused and continued. Without pausing, I wouldn't have been able to read stuff fully either.
Guys, you can slow the replay down. I watched it in half-speed, but you can go all the way down to quarter-speed.
The Pause Button: Am I a Joke to you?
That's why God invented the pause button. You need to find God sir.
@@stanpatterson5033 common sense is the best ain't it?
One minor correction is the Tampa Florida track that was owned by Frank Dery and known as Golden Gate.Many great races on Friday nights at the gate. Fierce competition and a good car count. We were based out of Sunshine speedway across the bay in St. Pete just reopened!
You need to slow down the captions as some older people can't read them that fast!!
press space bar to pause the video whilst your watching, a good way of quickly stopping the video if you arent that comfortable with moving the mouse
@@simmycutters3757 thank you! I'm tech challenged and didn't know that!! Lol
@@ronniewatkins you're welcome!
@@ronniewatkins I'm 48 and had a hard time reading lol, I did pause the video from time to time lol.
Ronnie , I am analog too . Ha ha ! I am glad you asked the question because I learned something . I have been using the mouse to pause and back it up , hit the space bar thanx Simon . Now if I can figure out what key is reverse I will be happy . I like the video .
My Dad used to go to races at Asheville-Weaverville.It was paved the last few years.At one time it was the worlds fastest half mile,even faster than Bristol they say.It is now North Buncombe High School.
I graduated from there.My Dad and I went to The New Asheville Speedway every Friday night when I was growing up.They ran super late models,street stock etc there.
William your right the Asheville Weaverville race track is now the new North Buncombe High School. I was raised up in Weaverville, but I was unaware of a track at McCormick field 😊
Field getting smaller, stands can't get filled! No better time for NASCAR to come home to its roots and bring back these speedways our heroes drove on. Create some new memories at these historical tracks.
I live two miles away from the defunct Powell Speedway now. That area is completely unrecognizable now and I had no idea a cup race was run there in the 50s. Great but sad video. We lost our beloved Columbus Motor Speedway a few years ago now.
Live 2 miles from Trenton Speedway. Wow i didnt know there were NASCAR tracks in new jersey
That was a amazing video. I didn't know there were so many racetracks. I especially didn't know how much New York was a player in nascar's growth. And the fact that the New York state fairgounds had stopped racing there. I knew about that track, but I didn't know it was closed. thank you for this video.
That was my home track. Dammit Cuomo.
Great Job on the video and the history! I was just curious about old tracks that nascar used to race on and found this. Growing up near Portland Or most people are not into these things like I am. In the late 90's I went to Portland SpeedWay a few times to watch the Winston West Series. So much fun in those days before they ripped out the asphalt to make it a dirt track before closing. A more up to date status on the site is yes it closed in 2002, sat empty for many years and now is a Trucking company "Old Dominion Freight" the only signs of a race track around there now is some of the old fencing up on the main road that used to block the view so you couldn't pull over and watch the races for free.
The Langhorne Speedway location shown is incorrect - that is Oxford Valley Mall that you're showing, which is about a 1/2 mile west of the location of LS, which was at the corners of Woodbourne Rd & Old Lincoln Hwy (Business US Rt 1), which became a large Ford and now KIA dealership, a Levitz Furniture (now The Restaurant Depot), a Sam's Club, a K-Mart (now a CARMAX) along Rt 1, and as far east along Woodbourne as the ALDI Market (soon to be vacant, as it is moving to my old Staples location soon). Part of the back section of the property is still visible via Google Maps, where you can still see vestiges of the Turn 2 and 3 curves in the trees that have grown in since its closing. Mind you, originally, Langhorne was a big round constant curve, but in the mid 60's it was squared off and paved (as the picture in the video shows a paved surface). Oddly, the last paved section of the speedway still exists - if you look in the Google Map picture at the western corner of the off-skew diamond shape of this property, you'll see the service road that rounded outside Turn 1 between Rt 1 and Highland Park Way.
Portland also hosted NASCAR Winston West series races. In-between in was a drive-in theater. Saugus was also a regular Winston West stop. A NASCAR-based episode of Dukes of Hazard was filmed there. Like Martinsville, Asheville started off dirt then was paved. Sacramento Fairgrounds hosted Pacific Coast Late Models races which became Winston West not Cup. Lakewood often hosted car and motorcycle racing on the same bill. Langhorne, in it's short straights, one mile dirt form was taken in a near perfect circle. Paul Goldsmith is the only racer to win there on two wheels & four (same for Daytona's beach races). When it was paved late in the game it was expanded to 1.5 miles with a truly straight back stretch and a curved front straight, like a tri-oval. Notice the Jaguars in the Linden field. They won a couple of different early road races. NASCAR had foreign cars racing long before the Toyotas. There was a mid-50s Martinsville dirt race that had early Corvettes & two seater Thunderbirds competing. Tim Flock drove a Mercedes 300SL coupe. One Langhorne race had a VW Beetle competing. The commonly used Marchbank photo looks like Darlington to me. I've never seen a photo from Marchbank that shows a canopy over the stands. When Asheville was paved they originally had dirt & paved tracks together. If I remember, the dirt track was the inner oval. For many years Mesa Marin was a regular stop on the Winston West and Southwest Tour schedules. It hosted the first truck demonstration races that became the NASCAR series when they proved feasible. I believe it was the Spartanburg track where ABC's Wide World of Sports covered an only time on TV dirt track Cup race. Thanks for your obviously huge effort. I hope my input helps. 😎
Nazareth had two tracks that closed up one dirt one asphalt, Reading and Flemington were two of the best dirt tracks to go to and race on , was there when Mike Garbac was killed at Reading on the front stretch terrible impact ! Raced Flemington with URC once wow those g forces were something else !
1:52 The place was called the Santa Fe speedway. Not Santa February. The sign at 1:57 stood for several years after the track closed. There's houses built there now, and plaque commemorating the old speedway.
Riverside was a cool ass track, saw lots of good racing there.
I grew up in turn 6
nah nashville is cools
This just hurt my heart so much. It makes me realize just how fucking old I am now and how much I miss the things that are gone now.
Kinda leaves ya with an empty feeling doesn't it.
RIP New York State Fairgrounds Moody Mile !!!
I wish Nascar still raced at Buffalo Civic stadium, old Bradford speedway, and stateline speedway
So I've visited Mall's in recent years that were sites of NASCAR tracks, how awesome and sad at the same time it is.
Man, I just got done seeing some of these abandon race track. To me on reality show comes to mind. That is Life Without People. I mean so many race track being abandon. Mother nature taking back what once was ours.
What gets me not only tracks are being abandon. So are other things and places. Like car, plane, buildings, malls, and towns and cities. Your wondering what is this world coming too!!?
There are many closures of race tracks and small airports because greedy developers and their supporting politicians caused them to close down.
I explored the Nazareth speedway there is still shit in the building
There is a local speedway I am surprised did make this list. It was the Queen City Speedway just outside Cincinnati Ohio. They hosted many lower level NASCAR events in the 1980's. A lot of famous names raced there when they was coming up through the ranks.
The video was meant to be for abandoned no longer existing tracks that the top 3 series of NASCAR once raced on.
Did i miss it or was Pikes Peak International Raceway near Colorado-Springs not on the list? Opened 1997 and closed around 2007-08.
What's the 2nd music in this?
And 4th
Nazereth, shame it closed.
Corporate ownership is a killer! Doesn't matter what it is. Small businesses, farming, or any other merger/buyout! If the company you work for gets sold, HANG ON TO YOUR ASS AND DON'T BELIEVE A WORD THEY SAY!
@@bradlindeman7417 Amen to that. This Midwesterner is wondering what will happen to ARCA, and especially the ARCA Midwest Tour, now that NASCAR owns them.
And in more general terms, more and more segments of the economy are being dominated by a few megacorporations. We used to have these things called anti-trust laws, but they seem to be forgotten about.
When I lived in NJ I went to 3 races there- the '97 & 98 Truck races, and the '98 Busch race. Very unique track, probably more of a "roval" than Pocono or anywhere else.
As a NASCAR fan that mostly followed the CUP series for the last 30 years, Nazareth was a good track. I miss the CART racing there before they had that split into IRL and CHAMP. The Truck racing was awesome too, I feel sorry for your northerners that was a damn good track!
@@thegoose858 Those laws are still on the books, it's just that no one has any real interest in enforcing them. Look up the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890 and you'll see how rarely it's been used in recent decades. It needs to be amended, like any good law, but, again, no one (since that butt-hole Reagan showed up on the scene) has had any interest in doing anything about it.
The "Pittsburgh" track was actually in Heidelberg,PA....adjacent to Rt50 and I-79. Now the site of Lowes, Wal*Mart, a strip mall, and Woltz&Wind Ford dealership.
Savannah Speedway is now known as Oglethorpe Speedway Park. It is now considered Pooler, GA and functions as a local dirt track. It hosted an ARCA race in the mid 2000s. It is still operational. It is NOT underwater.
www.speedwayandroadracehistory.com/savannah-speedway.html
Strange bc there's a race or two there in the next month. And tarheel is very much alive as well. But you will only see flat track motorcycles there
Also the other track in Charlotte was not a dirt track. It was a board track aka motordrome. At least at the location you have mapped on here. It was also a 1.2 mile track. I don't recall reading it ever held dirt races.
Andrew Murch that is wrong. I was 2 different tracks. Savannah Speedway location is located on highway 17 in Savannah, the one that is now a borrow pit, hence underwater. Ogelthorpe Speedway Park is another track located off of highway 80 in Garden City and is still running events. My first race I attended was at Ogelthorpe Speedway in the late 50's. Savannah Speedway was a small grass airstrip before becoming a speedway in 1962. Ogelthorpe has always been red clay dirt. Savannah Speedway started out as paved asphalt, and drivers complained of it eating the tires up, so the pavement was taken off and it became dirt and about that time, Ogelthorpe stopped their events. Later, Savannah Speedway was repaved and that's when there were 10 Cup events and big drivers coming from North Carolina every week to race. I was at both races that Richard Petty won...2 of his 200. That lasted until about 1977 when Ogelthorpe Speedway started up again, so Savannah Speedway ripped all the asphalt up again and tried to compete with Ogelthorpe as a dirt track. It didn't work out very well, so Savannah Speedway was closed in 1981. I have pictures of Savannah Speedway before it became a borrow pit with remnants of the front straightaway, back straight and both corners with guardrails and pine trees growing up in the pits and all along the track. Savannah Speedway was at it's best as an asphalt track. Ogelthorpe Speedway has NEVER been asphalt.
I didn't see Rockingham or did I miss it because the captions were rolling so fast
Abandoning North Wilkesboro for cookie cutters...
That was NASCAR's downfall! With the decline of NASCAR CUP popularity the cookie cutter tracks with 2 dates in big markets are the weakest ticket sellers and the lowest in TV ratings. Some rich dude should buy Wilkesboro for a million, pump 5mil into the track and have Cup racing their again within two years easy NASCAR I think would go for it with some serious outside investment along with being pressured by NASCAR fans to race there again!
Sucks. I fell askeep watching the California race a couple of weeks ago.
@@KK-ex5zu There is talk that Jr. has some interest in helping to bring the track back. That was a double whammy loss for the people of Wilkesboro, particularly when Dallas had so much trouble in building a track to replace it.
@@bobby-ov9qn I know Dale Jr went to Wilkesboro to clean the track up so they could scan the race track with computers for I-Racing. I've heard nothing of that but lets see what happens. If 5 people would be able to convince Bruton Smith's family to sell the track it could be a Cup venue again. Billionaires interested in NASCAR are hard to come by, but if a handful of dedicated NASCAR fans/drivers were willing to invest a million dollars a piece it could easily make bringing back the track happen!
@@KK-ex5zu
Fingers crossed.
Wow, North Wilkesboro, I remember that track in video games, I loved it because I had better times on it.
Fonzies HW68 my hometown.
@@HeavyFOC awesome, my dad lived in Charlotte for a few years, on Pine St, it was a circle and a big tree in the middle. From the kitchen window, the new Panther Stadium was visible.
Daytona Beach is my favorite circuit in this video.
This is great. I have been working for 3 days on finding the long lost tracks. Found all i looked for except Jacksonville Speedway in NC. I plan to walk the tracks or whatever is left of them as my Bucket List.
Nashville Fairgrounds used to be closed but luckily NASCAR Reopened it in 2018
Hosting an ARCA event in 2019.
Nashville superspeedway
Thanks guys for more info!
um dude Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is still active and i dont believe it was closed you are probably thinking of Nashville Superspeedway
I have no idea what you guys are saying
I live 5 min away from Tar Heel speedway, I had no idea there was a track that close to me.
Good news and one correction. The good news is I-70 is being revived in some form but I don't know the status of the track. The correction is Louisville Motor Speedway closed after the 2001 season not 2000 and is now and industrial park used by UPS. A jerk by the name of Jerry Carroll who built the Kentucky Speedway about 70 miles up the road in Sparta bought the Louisville track for the truck date getting his foot in the door with NASCAR. The jerk was involved in the horse industry so that made 2 tracks we lost in Louisville to horses. The Fairgrounds Motor Speedway which never ran NASCAR closed after the 80 season allegedly to build horse barns but they were built elsewhere on the property.
I didn't see the one near Scranton PA listed.
McCormick Field in Asheville was originally a baseball field.Legends like Babe Ruth and others played there.Then the Tourists who is a minor league team lost their major league contract.It was only a racetrack for maybe 2 or 3 years.Bango Matthews absolutely dominated.Then they started playing ball again. The tourists are now a farm team for the Rockies.
Good post and thanks for mentioning Dayton Speedway.
Imagine what the racing would be like at Lakewood if it were to be around today as well as many other tracks
Fascinating stuff. Thank you.
My roots of racing began at Powell Speedway and Columbus Motor Speedway. My father and uncle were racing there from the beginning.. I so miss Powell Speedway, many childhood memories there.
Morristown Raceway Morristown Nj was located on Hanover ave on the former Mennen Company property and has an ice arena on the site where the track was.
Were is air base speedway in Greenville sc on Antioch church road near Donaldson Air Force base that closed after w2
i KNEW you would put walt disney speedway! anyway the video is awesome!
Excellent video. And these are just tracks NASCAR raced on. It's so sad to see history disappearing; many of these tracks I raced on. That was the day, where have all the real men gone.
The Lehi, AR track was supposed to be asphalt but ran out of money. Three fatalites in Cup races.
Appropriately, the shopping center on the site of the former Heidleberg Speedway in the Pittsburgh suburbs is Raceway Plaza.
NASCAR is dying
logpile13 as with many other sports
@@jr.daniels7750 You not wrong in many ways tbh. But other motorsports such as Open wheel racing and WEC aren't dying. Other sports are. Idk about Formula drift.
I70 speedway in Odessa Missouri is being renovated unsure if it will be a dirt oval or asphalt.
Texas world speedway is still operational. Some Texas based teams use it as a testing track.
Apparently they've broken ground to make it a housing development. It's too bad.
Nope! Gone! Now a housing development.
When was it that NASCAR ended for good, the initroduction of the car of the future or the two part season?
Wasn't Rockingham in the UK meant to be a NASCAR track at one point?
Yeah but it never came into fruition
The track is still there just NASCAR never went and raced there.
Danbury Speedway cloed in the 80]s to make way for Danbury Mall, & in my town West Haven Speedway closed to make way for an intersection in a new road when they pulled the Savin Rock Amusement Park for urban development. Both in Ct.
Minnesota State Fair?
Pretty soon there will be more
Riverside Raceway, a predecessor to Sonoma Raceway
Daytona Beach: Replaced With Daytona International Speedway
Texas World Speedway: Replaced With Texas Motor Speedway
Chicago Motor Speedway: Replaced with Chicagoland Motor Speedway
Las Vegas Park Speedway: Replaced with Las Vegas Motor Speedway
The i70 speed way in Missouri is under remodel and will be opening as a new dirt track and road course for weekend racers like me so I'm super excited that someone brought it back but I like it good video
I-70 Speedway is coming back! It is slated to open for dirt track racing this year, with a quarter mile track in 2021.
I-70 never closed, they just couldn't get Lloyd's of London to write a liability insurance policy on the dump.
Tentative dune buggy race scheduled May 2020, dependent on trim work.
Acme Underwriters of Afghanistan phoned in a high deductible, low premium, limited liability, waiver mandatory, Africa subsidiary, variable rate policy based on Ethiopia's economy.
Translation.........A 1st aid kit fully equipped with band-aids, bactien & bayer aspirin along with taxi-service to the nearest free clinic maintained on-sight.
Hurry while tickets are still available. General Admission $8.50 Dopes, Drunks and children under 23 get in free.
rayism 24b, they showed on the local news the track before they did any work. It was an overrun dump. Didn't look anything like the track I remembered.
Theres a track by where I live that's closed down. Idk if NASCAR ran it. But its illiana speedway in Schererville, Indiana. Such a shame it closed down. Its been there since the 40s. People were complaining about the noise. Also close to the old route 30 dragstrip.
Ascott speedway in so Cali off 189 th and Vermont avenue in the city of gardena is always missed 15 mins from stub hub and 45 mins from Staples it was awesome I had so many fond memories
I can’t believe they shut down Peach State. I saw some great racing there. I used to drop trailer several miles away at the Pilot truck stop and bobtail to the speedway.
Riverside International Raceway was the official name of the racetrack not Riverside International Speedway
there is an error in this video one the tracks listed her as abandoned and not used is actually stillin use today and part of the world of outlaws dirt circuit and been in constant use for the past 60 years! that's the .333 dirt oval charlotte NC track. unless there was two of them??
There were 2 of them I meant to say 0.75 miles
Tri City speedway has a plaque nearby and is actually right behind my grandparent's old house.
There was a track in Freeport, Long Island. Closed in the late 80's.
The two local dirt tracks In my area closed down sadly but hosted monster jam and nascar trucks a couple times. It's a shame
Lakewood had races until 1980. It was even in Smokey and the Bandit.
Not sure about your position of the Tri-City track. It was on Skeet Club Rd. I think you are wrong on Laveview too. There was another track south of Mobile that was there in teh 50s adn now it is almost gone.
yeah the tri-city track picture is actually in michigan lmao
The unfortunate thing is that the Flemington speedway is now a Lowe's and a few other stores
I'm a younger person and agree that some of the captions go wayyy ro quick. However from what I did catch off of the things seen that bother me is the fact of racing tracks or venues being closed due to the noise that comes along with the se venues. If you move into an area with a racetrack close to you, you should be accepting to the fact that there will be noise beyond belief! The other thing becomes despite any noise of what kind of income does said noise bring to your community??? Wake up people! I live in Milwaukee the home of the legendary Milwaukee Mile. Usually the only people to complain are people that aren't even close to the track. Sadly we haven't had anything since 2015 or 2016. We are have to have something back this year in 2019 on father's day weekend or around there. I'm hoping so, because I would hate to see this track fall in along with all that have been listed
Boy if this film isn't depressing. Islip NY, Riverside California to name a few I went to.
I do not understand why Texas World Speedway closed
ChuckLuckyDingo SF Great track but bad location. It’s a college town. They love their football but could care less about racing. Sad.
Owner had been trying to close it for years to build house's. After Houston flooded they parked 1000's of flooded car's at the track. That was it's final death blow.😟
steve hairston wow Steve, I didn’t know they did that. I know for awhile they allowed car clubs to rent the track and run on it. I went down one day to run my Corvette on the track about 6 years ago but a Viper club was on track that day and couldn’t use it. Enjoyed watching them run. Too bad it’s dead now. I tested a Baby Grand back in 1998 on that track and had a blast but ended up buying a Legends car and racing at TMS for 2 seasons.
@@scottt3100 motorcycle's raced there also starting in 1974.
Search CRRC and CMRA on TH-cam and you'll find some kickass superbike racing.😲
My Great-Granddaddy owned the speedway in Salisbury, NC. I grew up there, and never knew about it unti a few years ago!
I think Texas World speedway was a track in NFS prostreet
Eduardvi78900 You need to look up TWS on TH-cam and watch. This was a huge 2 mile+ oval and there were many big time NASCAR races held there through the 70’s and 80’s.
@@scottt3100 the year it closed was 2017, not 2015.
steve hairston I hadn’t mentioned or known exactly when it closed but thank you Steve. 👍🏻🤓
@@scottt3100 sorry about that. I didn't mean to quote you, I must've tapped your name accidentally. Video says it permanently closed in 2015, but really closed in 2017 after Houston flooded.
steve hairston Oh it’s quite alright my friend. I appreciate your accurate info about when and how it closed. I actually responded to you on another part of this topic. Sad that they closed it. I live in the Waco area and enjoyed going down there from time to time and watching various car clubs run on the track.
The Gastonia Fairgrounds track wasn't in Tampa, Florida. It was in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Westboro Speedway , Massachusetts. Great small track , MANY exciting races there. Miss that place.
I miss Plainville Racetrack in Plainville, CT. Now the home of a dying shipping center...
Jacksonville had a second track called pecan park raceway, it, too is closed and gone.
amazing how many race tracks are still being used thou
Saddest video ever
If it were me, Chicagoland and Kentucky would be heavily reworked into better designs. Make Chicago a near replica of Rockingham and turn Kentucky into a new Nazareth. Add Iowa to the schedule and remove a Texas race, if Texas still has two races, I don't remember. Build a North Wilkesboro clone inside of Pikes Peak or just behind it and remove a race from Pocono. Add a fourth road course race, at Road America or Mosport and remove a date from Kansas. So... we'd gain new Rockingham and Nazereth by altering Chicago and Kentucky, which suck anyway, gain two short tracks in Iowa and a Pikes Peak Wilkesboro, and get another road course for 4 out of 36, which sounds good to me. We'd still have Kansas, Texas and Pocono, though they are down to one race. Seems fair as they dropped Atlanta and Darlington to single race dates. NASCAR really screwed the pooch when they went to the cookie cutter mile and a half tracks, but I'm pretty much convinced they won't see how badly the sport has been botched until it's too late.
Sad to notice that most tracks got converted into mall and now the malls are mostly dead too
One thing I learned is that race tracks pass away and become shopping center malls in there second life
Especially in California in the 1980's, it's all those airhead Valley Girls Frank Zappa wrote a song about's fault! LOL.
Curious lost history...
Enjoyed background guitar music in 2nd half... Who was it...
Riverside had two nascar event,s the 500 was in late Jan.the season opener,and the 400 in late Jun.
10:17 Odessa MO I-70 Speedway has a World of Outlaw winged dune buggy race scheduled May 2020, following some minor weed-eater trim work.
By the looks of these pictures, shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours. I-70 never really closed, they just couldn't get Lloyd's of London to write a liability insurance policy on the dump.
Acme Underwriters of Afghanistan phoned in a high deductible, low premium, limited liability, waiver mandatory, Africa subsidiary, variable rate insurance policy based on Ethiopia's economy.
Translation.........A 1st aid kit fully equipped with band-aids, bactien & bayer aspirin along with taxi-service to the nearest free clinic maintained on-sight. Hurry while tickets are still available.
There is actually a very secret track, air base speedway i think i managed to find only one video about it but you should check it out
nice video been to 4 of the track on the video riverside ascot park santa fe and chicago
RIP Savannah speedway, but dredging out the Savannah river channel made us the largest port on the eastern seaboard
Very interesting. Have a nice day now.
Motorsport had a presence on MN state fair property started in early 1900s and when until it ended 2002 nascar did a presence on property it was called the Minnesota state fair speedway the speedway closed on September 2nd 2002
Very Cool
Ironically mall is now abandoned except for two stores
5:11 music