Pikes Peak International Raceway

Colorado

A rival racing company bought this speedway for eleven million dollars, shut it down, hauled the scoreboard off to Texas, and then sold it with a clause forbidding professional racing forever.

racinghistorical

In October 2005, the International Speedway Corporation paid eleven million dollars for Pikes Peak International Raceway. It did not want to run races here. Operations were suspended, and the scoreboard was carted off to Texas Motor Speedway. The company had spent years trying to build a big track near Denver instead. When it finally sold this place in 2006, the deal came with a clause barring sanctioned professional auto racing on the property. On top of that, a professional series would have needed more than a million dollars in safety upgrades. The new owners had no interest in paying for either. So the track came back to life in 2008 as an amateur venue. Autocross runs on the infield, timed trials, drifting, track days, car shows. Once, by October 1997, it had been called the fastest one-mile paved oval anywhere. The Indy Racing League ran here. So did two NASCAR series.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
The sale included a clause that prohibited sanctioned professional auto racing, as well as the need for additional safety upgrades at a cost of $1 million+ for professional racing series that the new ownership had no interest in implementing with the clause in place.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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