Full Throttle

The town of Fort Erie Ontario, Canada is the site of a purposed one mile NASCAR type oval, located a hop, skip & gambling chip toss away from Fort Erie Race Track & Slots, Niagara Fallsview Casino and other southern Ontario attractions. The location is only 2 miles from the Peace Bridge a vital transit link between the United States and Canada.

First purposed last year the new track is back in the news as the Fort Erie town council is scheduled to hold a meeting next week that holds the future of the track in its hands.

If approved by the local government, the project will still need to be given the green light by the regional government at its next meeting on Dec. 9th.

To date, $150 million has been spent by the project’s investor, Emirates Consulting, a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti Investment Bank.

Support for the track seems to be relatively strong, officials moved the meeting from Council chambers to a local banquet hall, supporters will gather at a local restaurant and sports bar and march to the meeting in hopes of seeing council voting in favor of the speedway.

Ed Moody, who refers to himself as a “retired motorsports historian” says this project is what the Canadian auto-racing industry has been waiting for. Although he has just recently moved to Greater Fort Erie, he feels his new place of residence will become an area visited by tourists even more than what it already is.

“If this speedway is approved, there will be a lot of people attracted to the area,” said Moody, who spent many years as a freelance motor sports writer for Sun Media and worked at Mosport Speedway in Bowmanville since the 1960’s.

He feels there isn’t enough people addressing the “mistruths” that have appeared in local newspapers. One submission suggests there will be out of control tailgate parties that will continue until the early hours of the morning after a race event. He finds this hard to believe and says “someone is confusing a football game with a car race.”

Fort Erie’s mayor will not be present at the meeting as he will be traveling to Switzerland for a discussion on refugees, hosted by the United Nations. Mayor Martin met with the potential speedway investors last year and has expressed support for the project.

For my two cents, both Canadian and U.S., NASCAR needs to be better served in Canada, the most likely tenets being the truck series and possibly NNS. (Cup, forgetaboutit!) The real advantage would be realized for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series that at present competes on smaller tracks than one mile.

A local so-called super speedway would raise the level of competition and provide a smoother bridge for Canadian drivers attempting to break into the top tier of NASCAR south of the border.

UPDATE: At the time of writing I had an idea this proposal had been around longer than the last year or so.

I was correct, upon further review, this track first came to light in late 2005 with essentially the same cast of characters.

At that time Charlotte-based architect Dennis Yates, who did Texas Motor Speedway, was named to design the track, whether that’s still true I don’t know. One change you’ll note is than the facility was to be 7/8ths of a mile where now plans call for a one mile track.

UPDATE: The Fort Erie town council unanimously passed this purposal as presented by the developers. The next step in the process is getting approval from Niagara Regional Council Wednesday [Dec. 9]. If it passes as expected, the permitting and zoning process will begin. Town officials say there are about a dozen more steps before the project will get the final okay; however, if all goes as planned, construction could start in months.

The story also note Jeff Gordon and his “design team” are part of the project. Whether that team includes the aforementioned Dennis Yates is unknown.

The Canadian Motor Speedway has its website up and operating. As I suggested, it will be a “Jeff Gordon Signature” facility.