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Copart deal for Grandview Speedway hits zoning snag | Daily 9-28-2022
An update today on the situation at Grandview Speedway and Copart's bid to buy the facility, plus schedule updates for Lucas and the Outlaws, tonight's Flo Series show and more. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, September 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
It was just about a month ago that we first talked about the future of Grandview Speedway being on shaky ground, as the facility owners had an agreement in place to sell the track to auto salvage and auction company Copart. The deal was pending township approval for zoning changes, but that then led us down this rabbit hole of companies like Copart scooping up race tracks around the country in recent years. If you haven't watched those segments, go find the two videos we did on August 31st and September 1st. As of this week we have an update on those zoning changes, but still no clarity on the future. According to the Reading Eagle newspaper, officials with the Washington Township have denied Copart's initial application because their plans included selling not just vehicles but also equipment and trailers, which is not allowed under this specific zoning area. The track is zoned commercial, and it would need to be zoned industrial to sell those other equipment types. In response, Copart has made changes to their application and resubmitted it, and now officials with the township are again reviewing it and will make a decision in the coming weeks. The sale of the facility is contingent on Copart getting the necessary approvals, so the future is still murky for Grandview. The track does have one more event on it's calendar for the season, an enduro and vintage race on October 15th. The story says that track owner Theresa Rogers had previously told the newspaper that she wouldn't sell in the track in the middle of a season, but there is still plenty of time before a 2023 schedule would get underway for this deal to be worked out. The biggest question mark here is whether the township will grant Copart the zoning changes they need. If I was a betting man, I'd say things will be wrapped up soon, but you never know. Stay tuned on this one.
In other race track news from the past few days, Selinsgrove Speedway in Pennsylvania has a new promoting group that has signed a ten year deal with the local fair board to operate the track. Stephanie Baker and her sons Ethan and Reece Stutts have formed ERS Promotions and they are taking over from the previous group that included Mike Heffner, Todd Benner, Brian Scandle, Steve Inch and others. The current deal doesn't expire until December 31st, but Baker has already started work on 2023, including reaching out to sanctioning bodies for scheduling, and working to retain current employees. She told Jeremy Elliott and sprintcarunlimited.com that she wants to work with the other area tracks and not divide cars and fans each weekend. That includes Williams Grove, Port Royal, and Lincoln. Hopefully this new deal will provide some stability to that race track going forward.
The High Limit Sprint Car Series was supposed to have their second ever event last night at Wayne County Speedway in Ohio, but a couple of rain bands rolled through late in the day yesterday and ruined the racing for the night. The event has been cancelled, and refunds will be issued. It sucks because they were going to have a very good field and it looked like fans were out to support the show as well. If you had purchased a ticket last night, you will be refunded. So barring a late season schedule addition, we now won't see the High Limit Series until it goes all out for 2023. We still don't know how World Racing Group will handle allowing or not allowing their drivers to compete with this series next season, so that will continue to be something we wait for in the coming months.
A quick update on something we talked about yesterday. Jimmie Johnson spent some time in Alex Bowman's sprint car, but it was not at Carolina Speedway, they were over at the 3/8 mile East Lincoln Speedway, which is north and west of Charlotte. Jimmie got some laps and it looks like they did some filming as well for sponsor Ally bank. Hopefully this means we'll see Jimmie venture into some dirt starts next season.
In some schedule news today, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has cancelled the Friday night show at Raceway 7 in Ohio after heavy rains have left that facility saturated. The Thursday night running of the Hillbilly Hundred at Tyler County is still on as scheduled, as is Saturday's Pittsburgher at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway. With Raceway 7 cancelled, just five nights now remain for Lucas in 2022. We'll talk about the Tyler County race on tomorrow's show.
Also, with Hurricane Ian and it's effects bearing down on the southeast, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series has cancelled this weekend's races at both Cherokee and Senoia. We won't see the Outlaws again until October 21st at Humboldt Speedway in Kansas, which begins a three race weekend in Kansas and Missouri. From there, only World Finals remains. This should make the path to the championship just a little easier for Dennis Erb Jr.
If you want some late model racing tonight, don't forget the FloRacing Night in America Series is back in action. They are headed to Atomic Speedway in Ohio for $22,000 to win and $1000 to start. We last saw the Flo series a few weeks ago at Fairbury where Bobby Pierce topped Frank Heckenast Jr. With four race nights left, Brandon Sheppard has a pretty sizeable points lead over Mike Marlar and Pierce and barring him not showing up, he should be in line for the title. If he maintains perfect attendance, that's $75,000 coming his way, if not, he'll get $30 grand. Tonight's show will have another good field and will include Kyle Larson back in a late model. We haven't seen Yung Money with fenders on dirt since the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury back on July 30th. He hasn't run a Flo show since April 27th at Brownstown. Larson won the Flo season opener at Eldora back on April 26th. Also expected to race tonight are Devin Moran, Tyler Erb, Brandon Sheppard, Jimmy Owens, Bobby Pierce, Ricky Thornton Jr., and more. A lot the Lucas teams are obviously in the area because of the Hillbilly Hundred and Pittsburgher coming up. Super late model winners from the big series races at Atomic this season include Sheppard, Tyler Erb, and Owens. If aren't headed to Atomic tonight and want to tune in, you can obviously do that over on FloRacing.
Around the world of other dirt racing podcasts this week, Winged Nation has Daryn Pittman and Jordan Goldesberry, LoudPedal has Jadon Rogers, SuaveTalk has Kyle Strickler, Passing Points has Chelby Hinton, Quicktime has Troy Renfro, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are two shows on the streaming schedule today, both again on FloRacing. They've got the Flo late models from Atomic Speedway and FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.That's it for the show today, have a good Wednesday. Please hit that like button, and subscribe to the show if you don't already.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!