Fontana 2014...drag racing returns

[70aarcuda]

By Louis Brewster, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
POSTED: 10/19/13, 5:24 PM PDT |
FONTANA >> It’s quite ironic that an issue that centered around too much noise at Auto Club Dragway has quietly been settled.

Perhaps as early as Monday, work will start on a sound wall located on the northern boundary of the Auto Club Speedway that will resume in a drag race season at the track in 2014. The quarter-mile strip had been at the center of dispute for four years.

In July, 2012, the track announced it had reached a settlement with a “local group concerned citizens in the San Bernardino County area known as CcoMPRESS (Concerned Community Members and Parents of Redwood Elementary School Students)” to resume racing if a certain number of conditions were met.

The group, led by landowner Salvador Lopez, had sought to close the dragstrip.

The major part of the settlement was the sound wall, estimated to be about a half-mile in length located between the drag strip and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks. There has been no official word on the cost but early estimated were around $1 million.

“It’s important to the industry and Southern California,” said ACS president Gillian Zucker in announcing the development. She said the “intense dedication” by sponsors Auto Club of Southern California, NHRA, SEMA and K&N Filters were the foundation of the decision to return to drag racing.

“We are truly recognizing that with our oval, road course and other activities, we’ve got everything going,” said Zucker. “We didn’t feel we could truly be a motorsports complex if we didn’t have straight-line racing.

“We plan to return to NHRA racing in 2014.”

Zucker was pivotal in moving the drag strip from the original location south of the main grandstands to its present location in 2010 upon the expansion of the FunZone.

The original drag strip started with NHRA Street Legal programs but soon evolved with the addition of NHRA Lucas Oil Sportsmen events, such as the Pacific SportNationals, and PCRA events.

Zucker said the speedway had been working with San Bernardino County officials, specifically Supervisor Janice Rutherford to complete the project.

 

[Abodybomber]

Good news!

 

[cudavert]

Thank gawd for that!

 

[67Dart273]

So, we're gonna be holding elementary school classes during drag racing?

 

[crackedback]

Biggest bunch of BS ever.

I'm sure it was the attorney that latched onto the school name, etc.

Be cool if they do get it back up and running

 

[Kevin D.]

Didn't I read Irwindale property was sold and would have little time left some where?

 

[racerhog]

YA...Kevin
Irwindale was sold..... But still going to be running threw 2014...
After that who knows... TBA (To Be Announced)

 

[zhandfull]

I read that about Fontana. That's excellent news! Especially with Irwindale sold to a Developer, I'm sure the clock is ticking on that place. By the end of 2014 I'd bet money they will have a master planned Walmart supercenter approved and shovel ready

I will keep an eye on Fontana I work just up the street.

 

[67Dart273]

Best of luck to you guys. I was in the Navy down there '70 'til 74, so got to go to Carlsbad, Lions, and Orange. Never made it to Fontana

Up here in this area, admid a fair amount of controversy, Spokane COUNTY took over "Spokane Raceway Park" which has a road and 1/4m track, and justified part of it for police training (on the track.)

 

[cudavert]

Best of luck to you guys. I was in the Navy down there '70 'til 74, so got to go to Carlsbad, Lions, and Orange. Never made it to Fontana

Up here in this area, admid a fair amount of controversy, Spokane COUNTY took over "Spokane Raceway Park" which has a road and 1/4m track, and justified part of it for police training (on the track.)

Oh, that's not surprising at all......it's almost as predictable as that anti-race Fontana group including "Concerned Community Members and Parents of Redwood Elementary School Students" It's always the honorable thing to do when certain key words like for-the-children, enhanced police training, homeland security or helping the military are used. Then the public tends to just sign off on land grabs. Here's another one:

http://ultra4racing.com/the-inside-line/off-roaders-meet-with-usmc-concerning-29-palms-base-expansion/

 

[67Dart273]

Best of luck to you guys. I was in the Navy down there '70 'til 74, so got to go to Carlsbad, Lions, and Orange. Never made it to Fontana

Up here in this area, admid a fair amount of controversy, Spokane COUNTY took over "Spokane Raceway Park" which has a road and 1/4m track, and justified part of it for police training (on the track.)

Oh, that's not surprising at all......it's almost as predictable as that anti-race Fontana group including "Concerned Community Members and Parents of Redwood Elementary School Students" It's always the honorable thing to do when certain key words like for-the-children, enhanced police training, homeland security or helping the military are used. Then the public tends to just sign off on land grabs. Here's another one:

http://ultra4racing.com/the-inside-...with-usmc-concerning-29-palms-base-expansion/

I think you misunderstood----Spokane County is OPERATING the racetrack. For the first time in decades it has been brought up to meet NHRA. Otherwise it most probably would have been junked.

 

[ocdart]

So, we're gonna be holding elementary school classes during drag racing?

Looking at the map, it looks like Redwood Elementary is just under one mile from the drag strip starting line at Fontana. But that should only be a noise problem if someone is doing some weekday testing on the strip.
FYI - Fontana has a short shutoff area so they cannot run fuel cars there, not even at 1000-feet.

 

[magnumdust]

I think you misunderstood----Spokane County is OPERATING the racetrack. For the first time in decades it has been brought up to meet NHRA. Otherwise it most probably would have been junked.

That seems like a good thing because with the BS "police training", it adds legitimacy to the track.

I'm disgusted by how the tracks in socal are harassed. houses are built around the track and idiots are mad that its noisey? My parents live 10miles from an airforce base, should we sue when a loud aircraft buzzes overhead? :banghead:

 

[zhandfull]

I'm thinking with the new block wall drag racing noise maybe reduced. But with the train tracks only about twenty feet away from that wall and the trains running on the neighborhood side of it, They may be getting some additional noise off those trains after construction is complete. Good luck suing the R/R.

 

[ocdart]

I'm thinking with the new block wall drag racing noise maybe reduced. But with the train tracks only about twenty feet away from that wall and the trains running on the neighborhood side of it, They may be getting some additional noise off those trains after construction is complete. Good luck suing the R/R.

You're absolutely right about the reflected noise! Everyday increased train noise compared to once-weekly racing noise.
Classic case of "Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it"

 

[crackedback]

You're absolutely right about the reflected noise! Everyday increased train noise compared to once-weekly racing noise.
Classic case of "Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it"

Isn't that the truth. Those trains are going to drive the residents on that road crazy with reflective noise.

IIRC, it was really only 2-3 classes of cars that made a lot of noise.

 

[70aarcuda]

I worked (employed) for Nevada Dept of Transportation...we build sound walls along the freeways, the locals complained that it was noisier after the sound wall was installed due to the sound reflexing off the walls..

Sometimes you do get what you asked for..

 

[ocdart]

Here's a pic posted today on dragzine.com showing the beginning stages of soundwall construction at Fontana...

View attachment FontanaSoundWall_112713.jpg


...and here's a link to the story that goes with the pic

http://www.dragzine.com/news/fontan...ed-ahead-sound-wall-construction-set-to-begin

 

[70aarcuda]

And you wont have to look at those Ugly Trains either....and I hope someone explain to CcoMPRESS (Concerned Community Members and Parents of Redwood Elementary School Students) ,,,that the noise from the train is going to reflect back toward them...and it will be noiser and there will be no cars running down the track at the time....

Isnt it nice that sometimes you get what you wish for.............................................LOL

And I am sure the Railroad will put up there own sound walls for the concerned residents....

 

[zhandfull]

They are working out at the speedway, but it isn't on the sound wall as far as I can tell. Those cages look like they are for light standards.

 

[70aarcuda]

https://www.facebook.com/AutoClubDragway

they say they are building a sound wall...lol

 

[Darter6]

70aarcuda, You live in the Vegas area,so you remember the complaints about the homeowners around the Vegas airport.I just shake my head when people buy a home around a airport and then complain about the noise........Same thing applies to Fontana. I believe the track was there first. And you are right about sound walls not making any difference as far as repressing any noise.

 

[zhandfull]

70aarcuda, You live in the Vegas area,so you remember the complaints about the homeowners around the Vegas airport.I just shake my head when people buy a home around a airport and then complain about the noise........Same thing applies to Fontana. I believe the track was there first. And you are right about sound walls not making any difference as far as repressing any noise.

The houses were actually there long before the track was built in this case. California Speedway was completed and started running Nascar events in 1997 on the former Kaiser steel mill site. Most of the houses are 20+ years old in the area north of the speedway.

The original drag strip was set up on the south side of the property and oval track bordering California Steel and other industrial property during the initial construction of the speedway. For some reason the management decided they needed that area for other plans and moved the drag strip to the north side of the property and the oval track. That move placed it closer to residential property and schools without the oval track for a sound buffer. It's my understanding there was no environment impact report done prior this move of location to the north side,that is most likely why the speedway lost the lawsuit. If they would of left the drag strip in the original location most likely there would have never been any issues. So bottom line is speedway ownership screwed them self and the racers on this deal.

All that being said I'm kind of getting excited about some 1/4 mile drag racing in the future.

 

[Darter6]

Thanks zhandfull, I didn't know the backround story and the strip move.Many times tracks are out in no-mans-land and urban spral comes to them.

 

[Al_Alguire]

I am fairly sure that even once the wall is built there is no guarantee of the track being back up and runnin as it was before. From what I remember once the wall is built the sound studies will again be done and IF the track passes those studies they will be allowed to begin to race again. The banned blown cars there a few years before the complete shut down. So who knows what the ultimate putcome will be. I guess we will see in the hopefully near future.