According to multiple news reports out of the Southern California region over the weekend, the controversial Auto Club Dragway in Fontana maybe be on track to reopen in 2014.
Respected motorsports journalist Louis Brewster reported in the Saturday edition of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin that the Fontana race track, which has been shuttered by a Superior Court order since February, could see the first phases of construction on a sound wall along the northern boundary of the facility begin as early as Monday.
The Auto Club Dragway, located an hour east of Los Angeles, between Ontario and San Bernardino, has been under fire for more than four years by local homeowners, business owners, and San Bernardino County officials, who have cited excess noise from the facility as grounds for closing its gates. The issues that have plagued Fontana are par for the course with race tracks the state of California over the last several decades. The region that gave birth to the drag racing movement in the 1950’s has seen one strip after another disappear forever to urban spawl and commercialism, leaving the once-temporary quarter-strip located adjacent to the two-mile tri-oval Auto Club Speedway as one of the few remaining active strips in what is one of the highest populated metro areas in the world.
The track was last in the news in early July, when officials announced that they had reached a settlement with a group of local citizens in the county known as CcoMPRESS (Concerned Community Members and Parents of Redwood Elementary School Students) to resume normal racing activities if a specified list of conditions were met, one of which has long been rumored to include a sound wall to cut down on noise emitting from the facility.
The sound wall, according to the Daily Bulletin, would span over half a mile between the drag strip and the Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks and could cost upwards of $1 million to construct.
Before it’s closure, the track played host to several major events, including the NHRA’s Pacific SPORTSNationals, a sportsman-only national events for the Lucas Oil drag racing series and several Pacific Street Car Association doorslammer events. Within the last couple of seasons, in an effort to appease the locals, the PSCA removed the Pro Street category from its scheduled events at Fontana due to the sound levels from the supercharged entries in the class.
The original drag strip was situated on the south end of the property behind the speedway grandstands, but was later moved to the north side of the track, just beyond the backstretch wall to accommodate the new “Fun Zone” erected for the NASCAR fans for the two Cup events held on the oval.. This was designated a more permanent location that runs a full quarter mile, capable of hosting five-second, 250+ MPH race cars. The Santa Fe railroad directly parallels the strip, with commercial and residential real estate scattered in the blocks directly north of the speedway complex.
Auto Club Speedway president Gillian Zucker was quoted in the Daily Bulletin as stating that continuing drag racing operations is vital to the speedway complex and its mission, and that the plan is to re-open the gates in 2014 for NHRA sanctioned drag racing.
Speedway officials have made no direct official statement regarding the current negations with the county and the locals, but their on-the-record comments to Brewster and the Daily Bulletin would seem to signal a very positive outlook on the future of drag racing in Fontana.
We’ll have more on this developing story as it becomes available. Like the rest of the gearheads in SoCal, we’re cheering the Speedway on in this fight.
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