what about that track theyre building in james city county? i wanna say it the "tail of the dragon" or something.

 

I heard there was going to be a 1/8 mile going up in NC near the border...anyone else heard that one? As far as local, there are three unused airfields in Virginia Beach pungo area that might be a good starting point. In Las Vegas they had a big street racing problem and opened the 1/4 mile track on Friday nights for what they called "midnight madness" it opened at 9PM and for $20 you could race all night, they closed at 3AM. Worked well when I was there last summer there had to be 300 cars entered. They also let you run with friends in the car, kind of weird seeing a Honda trying to run the quarter with 5 people in it but what ever.
Remember that tidewater is a 1.8 million-person area with out even a pro sports team, things don't come here easy. This would be a big undertaking and cost allot of $$$.
Not to get off track but I do believe we still should hold some kind of local fun raiser for the families it would be nice and show support. A car show or even a group gathering late on a Saturday night with someone walking around collecting $$$ would due fine. There are a lot of people me included that feel really bad over this tragedy and want to do something. We also should realize that the people that hang out in p-town were availability on late Saturday night and most work a day job or otherwise there for this charity event should go off on a Saturday night so as many as possible can show up and give. Having an event on a sunny Saturday afternoon would be nice but lets face it we are night people and most are not available during the day. This also could be advertised to the media in such a way that not only does the families benefit but it might help the public see us differently. Anything I can do to help set it up just ask.

Mike

 

Been doing some research. There used to be a dragstrip in Pungo here in VA Beach, but the city shut it down in the 80's. I can't seem to find out why though. Does anyone know any more on that subject? That could give us some insight on what to do and what not to do...

 

i would go for suffolk. there is plenty of open space on route 460, it connects to *64, it isnt very populated, who knows you might even be able to find an old air strip which would cut down on paving costs.

i like something along the lines of raceforlife (raceforlife.org and .com are already taken) but it would be good to keep with the theme of saving lives so it has kind of a moral base to it. i think setting up a website would be a big step for the project. it needs a project name too so we have something to refer to it by.

also since it seems like everyone thinks it may be achievable, maybe the project can be divided into sub-projects to keep it humanly possible to actually get somewhere. maybe have an advertising and promotion division can be created along with a funding division etc. etc. if the project got organized and serious to the point where a group of dedicated people were working towards one small achievable goal instead of just 'build a race track,' i bet it could be done.

 

The thought of this acually happening is great. I work for a civil engineering company as a CADD Technician. We also have a construction company too. I'm looking into the city regulations to see if i can find anything on parking requirements, zoning, ect. I also have a few people at the city i could call and try to get more info from. I could also draw up a set of plans that we could submit if we found a location or what not. Let me know if i can help out at all.
Mike H

 

just an idea of one way to organize it?

ms paint 4 life baby

 

Dont forget that there are countys like surry and isle of whight that have a lot of space and land is fairly cheap

 

This was talked about a loooong time ago, someone posted something about a "speed" park in New Kent or around about there, it looked pretty cool, but not realistic. Only way to keep prices down are to have big names back it up, not only business's!

Something intresting i found out of a article:
-- "The Northern California Drag Racing Association, which runs the drag strip near Redding Municipal Airport, will make a fair and legitimate request tonight that council members should approve without hesitation. It's asking the city for a $70,000 loan so a local paving contractor can resurface about a half-mile of the track. The association will pay the city back over five years at 3 percent interest"

thats just to resurface... so your looking at 100K+ just to make the track.... her is more info

-- "The street-legal drags are affordable ($5 a carload for spectators and another $10 to race) and provide enjoyable family entertainment. Many folks bring their barbecues for a day or night at the races."

See that is more like it, Richmond and Dinwiddie would lose a lot of their business if someone opened one up for $5 a car load! and $10 to race!

-- "Redding race officials have a good track record with the city on a previous loan. They borrowed $25,000 at 6 percent interest in 1997 to pay for lighting and repaid their debt in full in April 2002. We'd say they're an excellent risk."

 

I believe this topic has been discussed on TWR in the past. I'll go look. I know that the insurance for a 1/4 mile track is significantly higher then that of a 1/8 mile track.

 

Yup, I found it. Tommy brought this topic up in November. Here is what was said....

Building a dragstrip in Tidewater thread....

I would highly advice those who are interested to read over the posts in that thread because I'm sure they will find them helpful.