Atco closing ?
 

There's a few threads over at Yellowbullet with videos the shows Atco closing in the near future to make room for another car auction site sucks

Re: Atco closing ?
 

Someone shared a video this morning of a town meeting I believe it was.

Applications/papers were filed pertaining to the sale of the property and use change to an auto storage facility and auction site.....

Approvals would have to come from a number of different govt' entity's

It would really be terrible to lose another great track here in NJ and one with a lot of history......

I was there racing going back as far as 1966....

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Made my first pass ever at Atco. :(

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Sad indeed--i took my dads 1954 Hudson Hornet down the 1320

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From the things I read,it looks like a pending deal is in place. What a shame if it closes. Nobody from the track will comment on their FB page. Correct me if Im wrong, they havent been battling the community over noise have they? They are in protected Pine Barrens. Seems like a business decision $$$

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The first time I went down that track was 1978. It would be a shame if it were to close.

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NHRA drag racing in NJ just about gone

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My guess is the the lost revenue from Covid19 was just too much.

Taxes, utilities and insurance didn't stop and profit margin on a drag race facility is really minimal compared to the investment.

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We raced at and rented the track several times when Joe Sway was in charge. At one rental the Wednesday before the Keystones several Pro Stock teams were in attendance and David Reher, Buddy Morrison,, Frank Iaconio and Steve Schmidt offered some advice. We were flattered that they showed an interest in the only Stocker there that day.

The way I see it, it's inevitable that this happens in the tri-state NY, NJ, CT region, sad but true. Like Island and E-town, Atco is iconic.

I also miss Dover Dragstrip and Connecticut Dragway.

God bless Lebanon Valley Dragway and New England Dragway! May you burn rubber forever.

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Made my first pass there in 1967 in my bosses 1967 Chrysler Newport. He said here, take my car and see what it'l do. I remember they made me take off the hubcaps. I think it ran a 17 something, but I was hopelessly hooked. Went two rounds, thought I was hot stuff! Lets hope the deal falls through.

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Comrade Murphy strikes again. Isn't NJ the last state to reopen anything?

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So putting it up for sale as a race track wasn't an option . There is no compromise . Nobody, not one person in the world would consider buying it as a race track . Really .....

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Beleave it or not, but this place used to be an alright state to live in, 50+ years ago. Now it is just a lot of crooks,liars and down right theives.. John Kissel

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The first time I went to a dragstrip was Dover in 1962 and I was instantly hooked on drag racing. Where I live in extreme southwestern CT, I was closer to E-town than I was to Connecticut Dragway; so I didn't go to Connecticut Dragway very often. "Drag racing is an addiction for which there is no cure."

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My thoughts exactly.

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Does anyone know if it's up for sale or is there a sale pending on getting the use changed? It would be interesting to know what it would sell for. BP

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Damn!

Some of you are aware, I'm a Jersey boy and grew up in the land of NED before the NAVY transplanted me in California in 79... I haven't even gotten over the demise of E-town, this **** breaks my heart!

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The way it's going up there all you guys will have to move south into D2 to race in a few years.

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the july 31st divisional race might be the last time we might race there ,its usually fast
i am going to make the the trek if it works out !

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Has anyone been in contact with Dave Ley? I would think he would have the scoop. And where is Bill Bader? I would think Atco would be less $$$ than Maple Grove!

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So from rumor that i heard there was another interested party, a drag racer , and when this businessman looked at the business model said it is not worth anywhere near what auction/junkyard is talking about.

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Sounds like the description of Etown before it sold.

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Please stop the rumors. It’s done stick a fork in it.
Realize this ... you won’t get rich drag racing.
Or owning a racetrack
If you look in CarS For Sale
My STOCKER Is For Sale.
I believe the next shoe to drop is Maple Grove. It’s for sale also
This f$&@@? SUCKS

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It's like a Stock Market crash......

E-town
Atco maybe/probably
Maple Grove deal fell apart for some unkown reason and who knows where that will end up...

Cars for sale....left and right...

Maybe I should get 5-10 gallons of gas and burn all my equipment/ Racecar/Motorhome/Trailer and punch myself in the face for staying in this sport for 50+ years.....

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I guess we have to pray that the Pinelands Commission does not approve the type of development the salvage yard would require. At 60yrs old, couldn't they give the track landmark status? Wouldn't that make it harder to sell and re-develop?

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So maybe it's not as much a done deal as it appeared when this thread started? Thanks Billy for what seems to be a glimmer of hope!

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James are you going to LV ? If so stop over and we can have some cocktails
GW/ 1770/ G/SA

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Atco was fast! Back when we all ran off National Records, instead of these very soft indexes, and the NHRA World Finals were held here in Tulsa, and Div 1 cars with National Record Holder painted on their fenders that could not qualify. Most could not even run the records they held.
Jere Stahl told me to check where they had set the record. “Probably Atco” he said.
A few years later I was invited to bring the car I race now (my daily driver then) to an EFI Shootout” that GMHighTech Magazine was putting on at Englishtown. That magazine’s office was near there. One of their writers had come to Tulsa to attend Oral Robert’s University. I had no Weather Station then. Had never gone nearly as fast as I did at Englishtown. Local guy told me “You think this is fast, you should go to Atco Saturday.
Best I had ever gone was 9.96 on a cool night at Tulsa. Went 9.88 at Englishtown. Went to Atco, unloaded with a 9.66.
I was invited to leave when they found the single layer jacket was all the “fire suit” I had, and no license to go that fast.

But, I then understood why those Atco record holders were not actually fast.

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Thats not totally true Ed...

Yes Atco and E-town were pretty fast but it's more the conditions...I've seen -1000' DA at both tracks. Cecil County is another fast track even when the weather is not that great.

We are lucky around this area to have great weather in spring and fall and it makes most all the tracks pretty fast compared to may others around the country.

We set a record at Atco in 1970 and went faster than that record at Island Dragway which was nowhere near as fast as many other tracks.
We went just as fast at York much earlier that year and way more MPH....
Ran just as fast at ETown on our cars 3rd ever run......Ray Allen driving...

Cool air, good barometer and good traction.
Asphalt sucked in the hot summer and was fine in cool weather....

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They did not call Cecil County the traction capital of the east for nothing. :)


Stan

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Rich, not sure what was not true. We have No Problem raceway here in Div 4, that fast some times.
I was working at the World Finals at Tulsa when the Div 1 guys that set the records they were running off, could not even qualify at Tulsa. I know how much faster my car was at Englishtown & for sure at Atco. We don’t see 31” + Baros around here. Setting a record at Atco back then, when you can not run it in the mid-west, just to get your name in National Dragster, is dumb. We saw it all the time. If you never leave Div 1, OK. Go somewhere else, and can’t make the show?

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Etown - was already done. The junkyard thing doesn't appear to have happened. Now they are drifting, MX and road racing. Dumped drag racing for some reason(s).
Maple Grove - who is going to spend money for or finance a business you can't operate or know when you might be able to operate?
Atco - remains to be seen. Taxes, regs, expenses, not being able to open, all making it not feasible or more of a PIA than it's worth to continue.

As things "open up" - not sure how they call it that when they only allow you to have 50% of customers, if that - we are beginning to see the number of stores, restaurants, entertainment venues and other businesses who won't be reopening.

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We never went as fast anywhere else as we did at Atco. The air and traction was amazing. At one test session John Armstrong's Camaro and the Lydon & Johnson 'Cuda stood up so high I thought they where going to flip over. Ask Wes Leopold, he was there that day too. It was BAD fast!

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Ed East coast cars won all over the country in the old days.
The biggest issue I would say was you saw racers struggle in conditions they were just not used to. Setting records was a pride thing and sure some could not run on records they had set at fast tracks when they went to places they were not familiar with.

George Cureton, Bill Izykowski, Tritak and Morgan, Larry Lombardo......All East Coasters that were fast and record holders and did pretty well anywhere they went.....just to name a few....

I can recall watching the big name racers from Div 2 run in super hot weather and scratching my head wondering how they ran so well. They were used to racing in bad weather

We went to Indy in 1966 and it was hot and muggy and our car was running very slow compared to at home tracks. Being young and inexperienced, we did not know how to try and adjust for that bad weather. Carb did not like the air out there and we had pretty much nothing to try and tune it for that air. Maybe some guys you saw experienced the same kind of things.

Englishtown is indeed now a CAR storage facility. They have steadily parked cars on pavement as that was a requirement from what I have read. Yes they still have other motorsports events but drag racing is gone and is not coming back.


Atco and Maple Grove are still operating. Maple Grove to open this weekend and Atco has been open a few weeks....

What happens to those 2 tracks in the future is unclear right now...

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Biggest difference Atco vs Maple grove is location and land Value. Atco is in the most densely populated state. almost between the largest city and the 5th largest cities in the US. MAple grove in mostly farmland near by and about 1 hour farther from NY

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This (above story) is why I say HP changes or Indexes should use weather/altitude SAE correction factors in determining if it was a faster run

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Atco also falls under the control of the N.J. Pinelands Comm. though. What that means is that they will have the final say regarding what the lands use will be. Period. I doubt very much that they will allow any kind of a "dirty" business in there and when you think about it, a Drag Strip is a pretty "clean" business.