The Long Island Motorsports Association (L.I.M.A.) has been struggling with the Riverhead town officials to reclaim their right to race safely, on the strip. Their biggest nemesis in this whole struggle – Riverhead Resorts, who has been planning to use the land for a 700+ acre theme park, though Riverhead Resorts is having some troubles of their own in acquiring the land, as they’ve breached their payment contract with the town as of June 15th. So it’s a win for L.I.M.A., right? Unfortunately, wrong, as Riverhead officials seem to be adamant about not allowing L.I.M.A. to move forward with their plans of bringing a track back to Long Island.
To read more on how you can make your voice heard, head on over to LIMA’s Discussion Forum [2].
What exactly does the track offer for the Area? Revenue, publicity, and a decrease in street racing among other things, that many a town seems to be lacking in this day and age. Sure, the Riverhead Resort would bring this to the area as well, but they’ve been backpedaling for the past year when the time to show the money came. So why are Riverhead’s officials still willing to deal with just about anyone other than people inquiring about the drag strip? We wont divulge into a political mess, but we’re definitely disappointed to hear that both racer’s and fan’s plea’s aren’t enough for the town to reconsider.
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Ever since the closing of Westhampton Dragway back in 2004 (Now replaced by Westhampton Pines, , Long Island racers either have to make the travel out to Englishtown or Atco in NJ (2+ hours away), or head north to Lebanon Valley Dragway, which is roughly a 4 hour trip. Lets face it, the average Joe just looking to have some fun here and there with his street car isn’t going to make that trip on a regular basis. While the outcome of this project is looking grim, we’re still keeping our fingers crossed that the possibility of bringing drag racing back to Long Island isn’t totally out of the question.