Track Tac

Thinking about buying an abandoned track.. Pretty overgrown though. Worth restoring the dirt, or just start over?

R

RadialFin

Member
Curious to see people's thoughts on this.

I have an opportunity to buy a 1/3 mile dirt track about 1hr from my home. I think it was last used in 2016. In our case we would start off with our rental karts on ice using some mix of the existing track, infield and grounds to form a road course. After that, the sky's the limit with 26 acres to play with.

I could pull off a dirt roval (or oval) for the rental karts and get people out here again before the ice season that would definitely be a bonus. Would have to narrow\tighten the track some to make it a bit of a challenge in karts I'm sure, but that's something we can figure out later.

Is a dirt track surface like this worth trying to save, or are we better off hauling what's there out and putting new clay in? Probably hard to tell from the single pic I have, I'll see if we took more.


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For me that would depend on how good the surface was before for racing If it was pretty good I would dig a few test holes see how deep the material on the surface goes to get rid off those weeds your gonna loose some off the top, then I would take a motor grader and skim the top just deep enough to pull the weeds roots, I'd then load all that out and see what I had.
 
Appreciate that info, helps a lot actually.
This place needs so much work I'm not sure where I would start. But damn it would be cool to get it running again.
 
RadialFin said:
Appreciate that info, helps a lot actually.
This place needs so much work I'm not sure where I would start. But damn it would be cool to get it running again.
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Very Cool but if your going to operate it like a Business it's gotta make sense cost VS reward,
RadialFin said:
Appreciate that info, helps a lot actually.
This place needs so much work I'm not sure where I would start. But damn it would be cool to get it running again.
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Maybe you can afford cool if so that's a different story !!
 
I would think that would depend on the type of dirt that's already there and if it is favorable for the type of racing you want to do there. A lot of dirt tracks failed because of poor track conditions due to the dirt used. If you don't like what you find under those weeds, how far would you have to go to get better soil? Costs a lot to have it hauled in. I would also take into consideration the available water supply on the property.
 
flattop1 said:
Maintaing Ice might be more trickey then dirt .
Ice racing would be a Nice draw for rentals .
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Can confirm ice karting is a big draw. One of the reasons we're looking at new spots is that we don't have space to add capacity and meet demand. Still have 1000's on a waitlist at this point.

Managing ice is an absolute pain, even up here in MN where it should be cold enough it takes constant care and feeding and you're at risk of losing the entire thing and having to start over. Last year (First "real" season) we were open for about six weeks of which two had to be cancelled due to the ice conditions. We had the track built in December and the entire thing melted over new years when temps when up. There's some things we can do to mitigate that, but it's pretty labor (Lay tarp and boards to form a 1800x35ft ice rink, and/or cost intensive (3.8m BTU refrigeration system).

mike97760 said:
I would also take into consideration the available water supply on the property.
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There's a holding pond adjacent to the track, best guess about 30K gallons as well as a pond in the infield. Which is good because we'll probably need 120K gallons over time if we get to build the ice track we want. How that pond is supplied I have no idea though.

racing promotor said:
Very Cool but if your going to operate it like a Business it's gotta make sense cost VS reward
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Agree 100%, that's why rental karts would be first step vs racing kart events or even bringing the outlaw\late model stuff back. I might be able to afford buying it and renovating it over time... but I can't afford to subsidize it long term. Luckily I have a bolt-on source of income from the rentals once we have something built for people to rip around on.
 
You'd be surprised at how different it can look with just a couple passes of the grader blade.
Disc it up and grade it back and forth. Cars on the track will be weed control once you get running.

Personally, I love this idea -- resurrecting old tracks. Now, you've got to consider why that track wasn't successful previously. Location, local ordinances, curfew (doesn't appear an issue from the picture.) If the track was properly managed previously, why did it not succeed? That will have to weigh into your decision should you decide to open it to karts or big cars in the future. Your ice kart deal may be just what's needed to keep the thing afloat year round (something that most big track promoters don't consider past fall.)

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Yeah the tracks up this way (The handful that exist) usually switch to winter toy storage and close for winter. Doesn't seem like ordinances or curfew were an issue, but for sure we're going to dig to find out why the previous partner bailed, even though our model is quite a bit different, these things are important to understand.

Made some progress with the city today, so that's something. We've been going back and forth over the grandstand that needs about $30K to bring it up to code, or it needs to be removed.
Problem is that in the near term, we have no use for it. Our customers will literally be on the other side of the property. But longer term, who knows maybe we'll have spectator events here, so removing it seems wasteful.

After some back and forth, they now understand what our use will look like (Operating winter, six or so weeks opening 5/6 days a week, no spectators) vs a racing entertainment venue. They are onboard with the idea and are now working on ways to make it work. We present to the board on Oct 2nd, if approved the we have to file some for amendments to the special use permit that's in place to include "other motorsport activities" per their legal counsel.

Lots of red tape as always, but we have the township on our side and that's half the battle... if not more. The process will probably take two months, which rules out dirt for this fall and puts us on a VERY tight schedule. Saving grace is that we can begin to move in and start work between when board approves the project and when the special use permit amendment is made.
 
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Fast Factory said:
Where is this located
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It's in Wisconsin. As we go through the process with the town and county, the opposition is starting to show up at the meetings.

One person setup a "serenity oriented" business less than 1800ft from the track, while it was still active. They came to the town meeting with a statement that I would describe as a list of half-truths and falsehoods from poor quality research. Probably worth noting there's also a snowmobile trail and quarry within that same distance of them. I guess they feel the town should pay for their mistake in location selection.

In any case, looks like the process will take us into 2023 to get a yay or nay. The ordinance for the track has to be changed significantly to accommodate a rental track type business, we also need to get approval from the county. This timeline more-or-less rules out us using for this winter as we need to be building the track well in advance of that.
 
Good luck keep at it. At this stage of the game there are not many folks willing to put the time in to make a track/ rental venue work. If you could only see the Go-Pro setup near Charlotte it is quite the success. Good luck and God Bless. later Chuck.
 
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Any material an be worked with unless it’s a high percentage of sand. Disc it up several inches deep and grade it. The weeds are in your favor. Don’t rid of the weeds as someone else suggested disc and grade them in. Water the **** out of it. Have fun. It takes time and laps on equipment. Most don’t get it but can talk about it.
 
Jarrod said:
Any material an be worked with unless it’s a high percentage of sand. Disc it up several inches deep and grade it. The weeds are in your favor. Don’t rid of the weeds as someone else suggested disc and grade them in. Water the **** out of it. Have fun. It takes time and laps on equipment. Most don’t get it but can talk about it.
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Did you take a good look at the picture, what your saying is ok if it's just a few weeds, what i see would not classify as only weeds looks more like underbrush with the volume of mulch that would produce after disc , trying to mix it into the top several inches only, you would never achieve enough compaction for the surface to ever be raceable. which you pretty much acknowledge in your opening sentence except it wouldn't be to much volume of sand. Now if after it was disc you could place that volume of mulch one foot under the dirt surface evenly where it would act like a sponge and hold moisture, then as karts were running over that dirt surface the motion would pull that moisture up closer to the racing surface, then you'd have something, unfortunately that would be impossible by just dragging the disc over it.
Might consider hitting reply to your own post, and then retype your last sentence.
Trust me when it comes to playing in dirt, most could learn enough to make there time prepping a track more valuable, so they might wanta listen when some JUST talk about it.
 
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