Open Letter from Seth Angel

[Cliff]

An Open Letter From Houston Raceway Park General Manager Seth Angel - Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More

Ahead of this weekend’s final NHRA SpringNationals at Houston Raceway Park, General Manager Seth Angel issued an open letter to the racing community. The full letter is published below. To our dear racing family, Since the beginning, the Angel family has taken immense pride in bringing NHRA...

dragillustrated.com

 

[mick]

i wonder what the 5-10 yr. plan is for the majority of nat. event tracks? does nhra know? are they working with track owners?
phoenix: gone
houston: gone
atlanta: gone
new england: was almost gone
virginia: was gone, now seems to have great new owner/s
bandimere: suburbs & noise. today is still ok. what about tomorrow?
seattle: appears to be healthy?
brainerd: seems successful as multi-use facility. property in high dollar lake/resort area. what about tomorrow?
topeka: who knows?
reading: saved by koretskys
st. louis: saved by existing owners
pomona: lease? future?
all this assuming gainesville, indy, sonoma, charlotte, vegas, bristol, and norwalk are safe?

 

[Cliff]

I know the plan for Phoenix....... arghhhhhhhhhhh I often wonder about Pomona. Am kinda amazed the track is still running.

 

[sammi]

When you consider how close the locals live to Pomona, it is amazing that anything runs there.

 

[J. S.]

When you consider how close the locals live to Pomona, it is amazing that anything runs there.

The interesting thing about Pomona is that, as incredibly congested as that region of CA is, the adjacent area to the track has been pretty much built-out for decades, so there shouldn't be any new residential development to threaten the track, as is happening elsewhere in the country.

The biggest threat to the Pomona track, I believe, would be re-development of the Fairplex itself. This has been talked about for many years. Lots of land there to put in hundreds and hundreds of condos, apartments, and retail. And as we know, you can evidently never have enough damn condos, apartments, and retail.

 

[Cliff]

Phoenix is going nuts with so many people moving in and housing is limited. Lots of old malls that have closed will become condos, apts & retail. Cost of housing is waaaaay up.

 

[Nitro1102]

When you have the #2 (NYC), #3 (Chi-town), and #5 (#4 in some stats) (Houston) markets unable to support a drag strip......there's a problem. Houston "Spring Nationals" didn't even have a title sponsor for it's last race.

 

[rocketman]

I'm sure tired of these sweetie sweet love letters these PR specialists are writing to try and smooth over a very ugly situation. There is nothing good when a track owner sells out to land developers. Nothing at all.

 

[mltdwn12]

Yeah I moved to the Atlanta area last year and was planning on going to Atlanta Dragway to race, we’ll that didn’t work out I was hoping they’d build something at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Before Covid they we’re running some Friday night drags on the front stretch I believe. Then there’s also Road Atlanta. We have NASCAR and road racing but no 1:4 mile track closer than about 2 hours. Although I know some people would be thrilled with having to tow just two hours to race!