Atco closing ?

[Stan Weiss]

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


Stan

[Ed Wright]

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?

[CMcAllister]

Originally Posted by Rich Biebel

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...

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.

[Frank Castros]

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!

[Rich Biebel]

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...

[rognelson777]

Originally Posted by James Perrone

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

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

[rognelson777]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

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. Not using ET as the only item to change

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

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

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by rognelson777

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

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.