Well, it's official. Dover Motorsports announced today that they are shutting down Gateway. No surprise to many since it was announced last summer that race dates for 2011 would not be pursued.
So here's your chance to go in and knock down the walls, add runoff and turn in into a dedicated road course. Bidding is supposed to start at $1 million. This doesn't get you the entire 1.25 mile oval/1.6 mile road course and 1/4 mile dragstrip. A good chunk of the facility is leased from 2 or 3 parties. But Dover does own 150 acres of the property and construction has started on a new bridge for I-70 over the Mississippi river that will run right past the site and help on the traffic flow.
You know you hated the walls and the transition onto the front straight....... here's your chance to do something about it and set it up the way it should be!
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/article_44b5b038-e763-11df-8068-0017a4a78c22.html (http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/article_44b5b038-e763-11df-8068-0017a4a78c22.html)
This was added;
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/motor-sports/article_807b2146-7772-5d52-8128-aae74f20cc0d.html
The asking price is pretty reasonable, but it appears as though the government there has pretty much shut it down with millions of dollars worth of taxes due on private property.
Now, it's worthless to investors, the community, ownership, and employees. Nice! :err:
Dave, that track was pretty much a worthless death trap before the closure. The tax liability just gave Gateway a measurable negative value.
I can't possibly imagine why they went out of business? What with their awesome business model, like treating their customers/racers with apathy, doing virtually nothing to improve the road course in the last 10 years, and having sh$t facilities. Maybe the our local drag racers have a different view, but from my perspective it makes compete sense.
Hopefully it has the affect of pushing more local riders to HPT... where the owners have succeeded in improving the facilities/safety and actually treat their customers with respect.
Respect from HPT... :lmao:
Gateway could be nicer. So could HPT. Too many issues on so many fronts from all kinds of angles to really get me motivated too much to make a lot of comments...so much history to talk about though.
HPT makes a lot more with one big drag event. Gateway's drag strip seemed to do well too.
All this talk of Super Dave and 'drag' brings up so many memories! :biggrin:
You mean like this??
There they are!!!
I needed to UPS guys for that package... :ahhh:
I didn't need to see that... (https://www.ccsforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcraracing.com%2FphpBB3%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fpuke.gif&hash=e00b9c8c50f6c670143c009a0e7f336781225bde)
Wasn't that the bikini that K3 was originally going to wear and then some Public Decency organization stepped in and put a stop to it? :biggrin:
Quote from: Noidly1 on November 05, 2010, 01:50:33 AM
I didn't need to see that... (https://www.ccsforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcraracing.com%2FphpBB3%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fpuke.gif&hash=e00b9c8c50f6c670143c009a0e7f336781225bde)
YOU MUST LOOK AGAIN!
(it's a required part of initiation and continued membership for those of us in the rather unique Midwest Region of CCS)
:thumb:
Quote from: GSXR RACER MIKE on November 05, 2010, 11:24:48 AM
YOU MUST LOOK AGAIN!
You know, I've never seen pictures from the 2006 auction. I thought that was a better outfit.
http://www.trackdaymag.com/Articles/Goodbye-Gateway-.aspx Published November 1st on TrackdayMag.com. We didn't know for sure as it was written and went to press. I guess now it's official. Our story may be the track's only requium. I loved that place...