New Jersey will be a lot less noisy as of this past Sunday, as Atco Dragway announced on Tuesday it was closing. That there would be no more racing at the track and the 2023 season was cancelled. The rapid closure stunned both competitors and fans, and comes after Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, aka Englishtown, closed its doors before the start of the 2018 NHRA season.
While Atco didn’t have recent national NHRA events on its calendar, it was a viable, 63-year-old quarter-mile strip and had its final contest just this past weekend. This closure mirrors that of 65-year-old Bandimere Speedway, which will shutter after a holiday event in November and December. Bandimere held its final and 43rd NHRA contest this past weekend, July 14-16.
There were rumblings of this closure three years ago, when an Illinois company stated it was considering the site for industrial usage, submitting an application to the New Jersey Vineland’s Commission in Waterford Township to redevelop the 180-acre site. The closure announcement appeared on Facebook just before 6PM ET, and was followed by conjecture that the track’s website had been hacked. It hadn’t.
“Effective immediately,” the post read in all capital letters, “Atco Dragway is permanently closed. We will not be open from this point on. The remainder of our schedule for 2023 will be canceled. Thank you all for your patronage and memories over the years. Special thank you to our 29th annual Pan American Nationals racers & crowd for making Atco Dragway’s last event the biggest and best one ever. This isn’t the end for import racing in the northeast! To all our staff, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, for sticking it out and being the best in the business.”
Atco Dragway was the oldest drag strip in the Garden State, opening with fanfare in 1965. This writer, a Pennsylvania native, spent plenty of time at the track in its early years and Atco’s drag strip, along with Maple Grove Raceway, whetted the appetite for straight-line motorsports. This move leaves South New Jersey with no viable outlet for legal drag racing.
By Anne Proffit
We share your pain, greedy developers are gobbling up land all over, here in Arizona we lost Speedworld and recently Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park that leaves Tucson the last of our NHRA Strips I wonder how much longer they will survive ? It seems to be a nationwide trend https://www.motorbiscuit.com/drag-strips-closing-across-us-phoenix-houston-arizona-wild-horse-atlanta-palm-beach-memphis/ I guess the need for speed will increase on the streets sadly. We have to ask ourselves what has NHRA done to stop this assault ?
It all comes down to money don’t know all the details but the green back dollar wins out I just hope it wasn’t a china based company that bought it. It’s the same reason farm ground is disappearing the younger generation doesn’t want to work that hard so they take the money and run!
Wow, what a shame.
ATCO was the first major drag strip I ever attended, way back in 1984 or 85.
Unfortunately, drag racing isn’t popular with the general public, mainly due to noise, so no-one stands up for them when other businesses come looking for land. SMH
I know the sound is a big part of drag racing, but perhaps racers should have looked into requiring mufflers long ago. 🙁
We have allowed this to happen because we have not taken a stand and said “NO” to
these investors and our sport is being killed off! Drag Racers and Motorsports Racers
take notice: If you don’t take a stand and if this continues, there will be no tracks
to race on, then our sports die! Do you really want that? Solution? When you
hear about a track being closed or rumor of being closed rally around the cause
and collect what is needed to save it! that is the only way to stop this!