Kern County Raceway Park back on track
| Wednesday, Feb 01 2012 06:50 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Feb 01 2012 06:51 PM
An unfinished racetrack project southwest of Bakersfield appears to be back on track and gunning for a fall finish line.
A group of four business people is purchasing the Kern County Raceway Park after six months of negotiations, Dan Smith, project coordinator for the undertaking, said Tuesday evening. "It should be a done deal here any day," Smith said, explaining the purchase is in escrow.
Plans for the track were unveiled in December 2005, after Bakersfield's previous NASCAR track, Mesa Marin Raceway, closed that October, according to California archives. The new track broke ground off South Enos Lane in 2007 but the project faltered and eventually went bankrupt. The track was foreclosed on in 2010.
"Obviously the excitement's been rekindled," Smith said. "We've got to pick up where everybody left off."
Smith said local businessman James Vernon is among the track's new investors. Smith said the other local investor and partners in Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, respectively, want to remain anonymous.
The track is in disarray right now with "acres of tumbleweeds," Smith said. Once the overgrowth is cleared, the group is eager to get to work finishing the facility, he said.
Smith estimated the track, which features a half-mile paved oval with another quarter-mile track within it, is 80 percent complete. Smith said a base coat is done and the group hopes to have asphalt down and cured by mid-August, gearing toward a first race in mid- to late October.
"If everything goes like we hope, we'd like to have more than one race in the fall," Smith said. "We just want to keep it on track to make it a very nice place to go to."
