Birth of a Race Track
Add Northern Louisiana to the growing list of geographic areas looking to suckle the teat of auto racing’s current boom in popularity.
Racing enthusiast and local businessman Stewart Bashner announced a capital investment of $4.5 million from BizCapital in New Orleans for construction of a speedway. Monroe Motor Speedway will feature a .375 mile paved oval short track accommodating up to 5,000 fans.
Basher said of the venture:
“Racing fans in northern Louisiana will no longer have to drive six or more hours to see top quality racing,” Bashner said. “Instead of making the trip to Talladega or Memphis, they will soon be able to see some of the sport’s most promising young drivers compete right here in Monroe. Once this speedway is complete, we have no doubt we will achieve our goal of becoming a NASCAR-sanctioned track.”
Obviously that’s a bit of hyperbole. A third of a mile facility seating 5k fans isn’t in direct competition with the Talladega or Memphis superspeedways in the attractions offered or on price-point. Basher can be forgiven though, in todays NIMBY environment it’s not everyday a race track of any size is constructed.
It would appear the team behind this project selected an area ripe for it. A very cursory search reveals Louisiana is under served by short track facilities with only four in the entire State.
The list of those backing the project is also impressive. In addition ot Bashner, who will act as general manager, other consultants include Don Naman, former director of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame; Andy Vertrees, CEO of the Iowa Speedway; Johnny Parsons Jr., retired Indy car driver, Bobby Allison, retired NASCAR driver and Doyle Ford, retired flagman for NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series.
Paxton Waters, designer of the California Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Iowa Speedway adds Monroe Motor Speedway to his resume. If Paxton can come close to the universally applauded design of Iowa Speedway this group may have a winning proposition on their hands.
Plans are to hold the first races in early 2008, assuming the politicians and NIMBY’s don’t get in the way.
Monroe Motor Speedway, NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle
I love a night at the “skids”, here a link to my local dirt oval. There is something animal about sprint cars on dirt.
http://www.parramattacityraceway.com.au/
Hey… I thought you were yelling “surfs up,” pulled on your Speedos (Oh the humanity!) and were hanging ten somewhere off the coast.
What are you doing hanging around here?
Anyway I’m well aware of Parramatta I’ve linked to it via my other avenue of [non-paying] self employment many times.
But alas I’ve been remiss in posting the latest from Parramatta and how NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne has done with his Sprint Car team the last few days. (not to mention the rest of the Yanks that tend to dominate)
BTW, they must be having a surge of traffic from the Yanks looking for info. This is what pops up when accessing the speedway site:
This domain [ http://www.parramattacityraceway.com.au ] is currently in the process of being moved to a new webserver. Please be patient.