With the tragic events of this past weekend, I almost feel a heavy burden of responsibility to spearhead this discussion.

Is it realistic to have a 1/8th mile track in this region? 1/4th mile?

I'm almost positive that every one of US will loudly vote yes that we WANT this to happen... but can it be done?

There are lots of dynamics that need to be addressed when bringing up this issue. Things along the lines of, but not limited to:

Insurance
Noise
Safety risks
Location
Staffing
Management
Budgeting
Revenue

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the way things go within city governments, but there are a couple of different situations that I see this materializing through.

First: A large and rich member of the private sector, say... the CEO of Pepsi Cola Co. says that he will throw down $10 million dollars for the namesake of the track, and he approaches the respective city officials and goes from there. Now that would be the easiest, but at the same time, the hardest to pull off. Where would a sponsor like that come from?

Second: A group of citizens(us) present the facts to some city officials. We say, look, there have been so and so deaths in the past year related to street racing. There are so and so accidents and police reports related to street racing a month. These are the problems, and the only viable solution is that you build us a track.

The only problem with the second solution, is that the CITY is then required to front the money for the track, and hope it goes well enough that they will inturn see revenue one day.

Now i don't know how it is in other cities, but i know the City of Newport News struggles with its budget as it is. Heck, the whole state of virginia is in a budget deficit appropriate enough to be called a crisis.

Third: We leach onto a speedway of sorts that is already in the area, I.E. Langley, and try to get some sort of "drag-strip" type of facility integrated.

Now i've done some research, but i still am not sure of all the details that building a track entails. How much would it actually COST if a drag-strip were to be built? How much revenue could actually be brought in? Although i don't think that the revenue portion will be a problem. What would insurance cost? Where could we put this thing at?

But in the end, i believe that this can be done. Take a look at racelegal.com That site is a testament that with the proper cooperation of many different organizations, a track can be built. There are other groups, such as racersagainststreetracing.org who are examples that things can be done about this situation.

But, we need to start small and work upwords. Everybody throw in your ideas pertaining to this topic. Discussion will be kept intelligent, respectful, and most importantly of all, on-topic. I will be monitoring this thread intently to make sure that happens.