Englishtown’s Raceway Park To Close After 52 Historic Years

The Napoliello (Napp) family, owners of the fabled Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, confirmed today the rumors swirling regarding the future of drag racing activities at its 52-year old facility. Raceway Park, as it is known, one of the sport’s most historic and tradition-rich venues, will terminate all drag racing operations, effective immediately, while all other motorsports and entertainment events will continue as scheduled. According to credible sources, the Napoliello family has reached a long-term agreement to store vehicles for a notable automotive reseller/auctioneer on the property.

“Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, the Napp family owned and operated business announced today a reorganization of the company’s business operations. To achieve this goal, Raceway Park will no longer conduct quarter mile or eighth mile drag racing events effective immediately. Raceway Park will retain and use the “stadium” portion of the facility including the VIP hospitality tower and grandstands and continue most of its operations including the spring and fall auto swap meets, numerous car shows, both motocross racing and practice, kart racing, as well as drifting, a full schedule of road course activities, mud runs, monster truck shows, musical concerts, & festival events and more. The long standing Old Bridge Township Airport, owned and operated by Raceway Park will also continue to operate as normal.”

“The new reorganization reflects the company’s plan moving forward beginning in 2018 while allowing Raceway Park to still continue to operate as it has in the past with the exception of drag racing.

“The Napp family wishes to express their most sincere gratitude to the NHRA, and the many thousands of racers and fans, without whom would have never allowed Raceway Park to become the iconic and nationally recognized drag racing facility it has over the past five decades. The Napp family would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the employees that have served our drag racing customers so well over the previous years. It is with a great sadness that the Napp family is discontinuing drag racing, however the family looks forward to continuing to provide the best outdoor events in this new era of Raceway Park.

“The NHRA issued a statement of their own, commenting, “Yesterday Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J. informed NHRA that it will no longer host any drag racing events at its facility, effective immediately. This includes the 49th Annual NHRA Summernationals, scheduled to take place this June.

NHRA drag racing events have been held at the track in Englishtown for almost 50 years,” said NHRA president, Glen Cromwell. “The Summernationals have played an important part in our heritage and we hope that fans in the area will try to make it to another one of our events. Our focus remains on making the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series a memorable experience for our fans, racers, sponsors, partners and tracks.”
The NHRA, taken by surprise with todays news, confirmed to Dragzine this afternoon that a firm decision has yet to be made in regard to either replacing the Summernationals on the Mello Yello Series schedule at another venue or moving forward with a 23-race calendar. The Glendora, California-based sanctioning body has fielded calls from parties interested in obtaining a national event date and options remain open at this time.
Dragzine has reached out to members of the Napoliello family for comment and will have more information as it becomes available.

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.
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