The real truth may, or may not come out. Time will tell.
We lost our local dirt track under strange circumstances. The track owner decided he didn't have to pay the bank loan back, so it was going into foreclosure. The track was operated the last year be a management team that did a great job running the track, it may well have bumped along for several more years as it was that last year. A mobile home park had moved in across from the track several years before, and the owner of that park was a constant complainer about the track to the city. Apparently the people at the bank were not paying much attention to who was paying the real estate taxes, because they found out just in time that the mobile home park had paid the last 2 years of taxes owed. 3 years in a row makes the property belong to whom ever has paid the unpaid taxes. The bank paid that 3rd year, which forced the property into the foreclosure sale.
There was a buyer in hand that would have bought the track and kept it a race track, but that new buyer was running a business that was a direct competing business with the failed owner's family business. The failed owner couldn't stand the idea that his family competitor might run "his" track. The evening before the auction, the failed owner took a back hoe to the track, and tore down the entire front straight cement wall safety barrier. The cost of replacing that wall put the price of the track out of reach for the perspective new owner. The mobile home park won the auction and the track is no more.
From what I read about Atco, the track ran well past the curfew imposed on it at that last event. The racers protested the things a perspective new owner wants to do with the track, and they didn't much like the current owner. That is 3 strikes in my perspective. The ignored the local governing body, the created an unhappy possible new owner, and they were on bad terms with the old owner. To make matters even worse, the people that ignored the local government with the curfew violation expected to be able to do it again the next year.
Wonder why the track closed?
Not sure how they ran past curfew when they quit racing and canceled the rest of the event
due to rain b4 5PM on Sunday.
That was what they were referencing with the "didn't end the way they would have liked" comment.
All water under the bridge at this point though... another track is gone.
Makes me wonder how long Maple Grove will last. It survived the last sale, but the writing is likely on the wall long term. Almost all of the land around the track has been purchased by investment groups over the last 10+ years. You know they are just holding the land until they can finally get their hands on the track, close it and start building McMansions.
