Another track that was laid out but never finished was in Seminole county right near what is now the intersection of I-4 and SR 434 in Longwood… It was going to be a high banked quarter-mile paved track… I actually saw the unpaved layout on a Sunday afternoon back around 1965… I believe local driver Dick Joyce was behind the effort… They ran out of money and never finished it…
Longwood, Fl
A 1/2 mile dirt oval was listed in 1927, location unknown.
And Dickie Joyce built that 1/4 miler west of I-4 on the south side of 434.
He told me he drove around that thing a bunch. It’s now and industrial park.
Dave, I don’t know how I missed that 1st photo, I was looking way, way out in the distance, and it was right down low under my nose.
Big Coppitt Island–
Called Key West Speedway–
Was a 1/2 mile dirt oval which ran on Sunday afternoons only. Sportsman cars.
1954 to 1955, located off U.S. 1, and S.R.?
(per Eddie Roche’ Book)
The location of this old raceway is most likely, unknown.
Casselberry, Fl–
Built as a huge peri-mutual betting Raceway for horses by it’s founding father, it was built to pull in the big crowds for horse racing–all in the expectations that a new highway was going to be located right next to it.(Hwy 17-92).
So even before the new Hwy 17-92 was going to be built…(which was going to be right smack-dab next to the new Raceway)…
The land was purchased, the big Horse Raceway and Grandstands (and they were nice) were built, and it was off to the horse races and gambling we were. Ran 1945 to 1954.
However, through alot of political practices and schemes, Hwy 17-92 was constucted almost 2 miles west of it’s once planned current location. And because of that, almost no crowds came in to bet on the
horses. The demise of this Raceway was near. There is alot more to this, but…
Bummer–He ran horse races for a couple of years… and tanked.
The owner couldn’t make it financialy. So he ran motorcycle races and
stock car races off and on, here and there. Promoted them the best he could.
Dickie Joyce, a now local well driller, was the class of the stock car racing men, and photos pop up everywhere about this 1.1/4 mile red clay dirt oval with 2 by 12 wooden planks as the outside guardrail mounted on 4 by 4 wooden post’. The fence, It held a fast horse, but not a stock car.
Eventually, the entire Raceway was seemingly plowed over; a new peri-mutual dog tack was installed in front of the big grandstands, and a new oranged-clay trotters track was built around it. The massive horse stables were still intact off in the distance. Agian, financially, the now city-owned Track couldn’t make it. The City sold it.
Dogs raced on the new surface up untill about 2001, where it finally closed it’s doors forever. I still live right here behind this old Raceway.
It is now a really nice housing development. :fragend005:
[QUOTE=AB195;34168]This counts, I think,
-Jackson SpeedBowl,
It was called, in Marianna, Florida—way up in the Panhandle.
Was a small 1/4 mile dirt oval, and it was in operation from 1949 to 1952.
if you punch it up on terra-server, you can see the outline of the raceway out in the trees.
I don’t really know the history of it, but it’s still there in the woods.[/QUOTE]
I have been to the site of this track. It is still there and it is a bowl doug out in the ground. You can still walk the outline of the racing surface and the concrete grandstands are still there. But the trees are so thick you cant see the back stretch from the front stretch.
Also there is a small piece of banking left in a field off of Allison St. in Panama City that is the last remaing part of the Beaches Speedway. To the untrained eye it would just look like an oddly shaped hill or mound of dirt except for the few remaining pieces of broken up asphalt.
Danny
Cool–
DannUsg–
I can’t thank you enough for that, your the man, you bet!
Cement granstand up north, that’s pretty cool for old track chasing fans such as myself. And Panama City//Beaches Speedway, I couldn’t make out anything when I was up there except another housing development.
I’ll have to look alot closer, and alot deeper when I get the chance.
That’s pretty cool, I think, that the outer 2 banks of this old Raceway are actually still there.
Thank you for the info.:sprachlos020:
The SpeedBowl is about 150 yards from the intersection of HWY 90 and 71 in Marianna, FL. Here is an image of whats left of the layout. There is now a bowling alley and a Public Storage on the north end. If you drive to the end of Race Lane and walk about 15ft into the woods you will find yourself at the top of a GIANT concrete grand stand looking down into the Bowl. Here is an image and the white line on the west side is where the Grand Stand is located.
Enjoy Danny
One of my old Hero’s of Tamp was Buzz Barton,here is a pick of his AKA “The Roadgrader” Crosly Bug Mod,Ford power
#FlyingX.
Was thinking some would enjoy the RR Crossing the river in the background of the track.
The Game Goes On–
I probably should have prefaced this thread with an historical note, or comment or such, before plowing down this path.
I have been watching the demolitions of old Tiger Stadium, old Yankee Stadium, and old Comiskey Baseball parks, which had stood for almost a century. And the historical value of the venues cannot even be caught on a thread or two. Losing huge stadiums in Baseball is gut-wrenching, and also stadiums like the old roundy-round, multi-purpose venues in St. Louis, Cinci, Pittsburg, Philly, and Atlanta.
The funding had been in place for new stadiums to be built for all of these cities, and what are you going to do with an old Ballpark?
As big, and as grand as they are/were, they are still demolished.
Strikingly similar, what are we suppsosed to do with a local short track that closes and sits idle.
As we can see, most are developed into housing subdivisions, built into industrial parks, closed for highway/road construction, or simply urban sprawl syndrome. Others go quietly away in the woods with weed and rust infestation… with only a sparse memory of anyone who has visited or raced there at one time or another.
In my short time down here in Florida, 26 years, I have seen the closing of many Raceways, closed and shuttered right before my very eyes, and most of you have seen alot more than that.
I have seen the closing of… Hialeah, Sunshine, USA Lakeland, St. Johns/St. Augustine, Golden Gate, Jax, WeWa, Tampa Fairgrounds and Orange Co/Bithlo. Raceways.
And a short time earlier, some of you have seen the closing of a bunch. And even a shorter time before that, even more have seen the closing of some others.
In the next couple of years or so, we are sadly going to witness the closing of a couple more raceways. Whether they re-open again or not is going to be seen.
I think this old, tired thread has reached it’s end.
Unless anyone has anything else to add about Old Lost Raceways in Florida.
I have referenced books by Eddie Roach and Allen E. Brown, and used information from Mr. Westerman and Mr. Little, and without them this post/thread couldn’t be possable. Maybe someday I’ll print this out and create a small guide for historical buffs, such as yourselves.
Thank you for your time, everyone!
Rog.
A track thats gone ,but still there?
Rog,Ia’m refering to the Moroso Park.Now that the “NewTrack” is opened,…Moroso mind has well been “torn down”.
Nothing but the tower is left of the old motorsports park.If I were to blindfold a fan or racer,… and put them in the middle of the park I don’t think that they would be able to name the race track they were at.
I was asked to come out and see the new tracks being built,…and was shocked.It was nothing but sugar sand {they were doing the under ground utilities at the time}.There was a mountain of cubed asphalt about 30ft high by apoxx.100 yards lone,and the tower. All else was gone. My beloved road course that I have lapped thousands of time was gone too.
I picked up a small 2x2" piece of asphalt to remember the orginal track by and just slumped away.I would have never thought that I could get teary eyed over a chunk of land but ,… I did. And so it go’s…
Thanks for your time John.
p.s. erin crocker has committed to driving our sprinter next year.We are very relived as she has turned down some unreal $ in na$car.France is joneing for a female driver.She has already had some good seat time at Tally,Daytona etc etc.So at this time ,we will run apoxx 60 races 2010.
Collier County Raceway
Back on page 2 you asked about the track down in Naples.
After moving up from Miami to LaBelle in 1970, the Collier County track was the first one I had gone to. Located somewhere off of Radio Road next to the industrial area it now has a bunch of mobile homes (retirement community) sitting where it used to be. I doubt there is anything left of it. They have a security gate to go through to get to where it was.
It was a good little race track. I don’t remember any walls around turns one and two or down the back stretch. The pits were off the north end just behind the turn four area. I could be wrong on this layout but I’m getting to old to remember details.
My fondest memorie was when a driver got out of his race car in turn one and ran after a competitor all the way around turn two and half way down the back stretch. Every time the driver on foot, Roger Burns in the #32, came close, the other guy just hit the gas. That went on for about ten minutes. The crowd had a good ROFLMAO moment.
I wasn’t there when this happened but I remember a newspaper story about a car getting up into the front stretch fencing and taking out the flagstand. It was made out of wood and the flagman ended up with two broken legs. Wasn’t to long after that when it was shut down.
That #32 of Roger Burns sticks out in my memorie because he ran a six cylinder Chevy II Nova and was very competitive against the eight cylinder cars.
Thanks for hashing up some good ol memories.
A Couple Of Others–
We have…
Opa-Locka Speedway, a 1/3 mile asphalt cornered, sand straightaway in 1948, fully paved by 1950.
Ran on Wed. and Saturday, sportsman, modified, roadsters, and jalopy classes.
Located at the old Blimp Station/Hanger.
And Medley Stadium/Palmetto Speedway.
It was a 1/4 mile asphalt oval that ran on Friday Nights. It existed from 1950 to 1964.
It has now been returned to a Baseball Diamond/Field as requested by the Gov. Military…Baseball/softball fans.
Fotnote–
[QUOTE=AB195;35187]We have…
Opa-Locka Speedway, a 1/3 mile asphalt cornered, sand straightaway in 1948, fully paved by 1950.
Ran on Wed. and Saturday, sportsman, modified, roadsters, and jalopy classes.
Located at the old Blimp Station/Hanger.
And Medley Stadium/Palmetto Speedway.
It was a 1/4 mile asphalt oval that ran on Friday Nights. It existed from 1950 to 1964.
It has now been returned to a Baseball Diamond/Field as requested by the Gov. Military…Baseball/softball fans.[/QUOTE]
Opa-Locka survived from 1948 to 1952…5 years.
And Medley Speedway was from 1950 to 1964…15 years
Eau-Galle/Melbourne Speedway–
Here is the latest on the old Melbourne Speedway.
Just yesterday, I had grazed upon the old grounds. Here is what is left of the once former Raceway:
A power pole, and a couple of asphalt chunks, on the ready-to-be-developed flattened out grade. Even a couple of palm trees on the outside of where the no. 2 corner would have been. The main road to the industrial park now sits where the straightaway would have been.
It’s almost entirely developed into and industrial park now.
The power pole, with power still running to it, is the pole that would have been on the very back of the VIP box, lighting the common grounds, etc.
10-08-09
Thanks Jimmy Mckinnley–
Just today, I was stumbling around the ground of the old Vero Beach Raceway. Posted earlier, I won’t go into detail about that, but…
Sniffing around the grounds, the same old PressBox/Concession stand was still standing right there on the grounds. The Pressbox is mostly painted blue, some red, and the old yellow bug-lights inside of it.
I knocked on the door of a single-wide home next to it, and a lady came out to greet me. She told me that the old Raceway has long been gone, not a trace of it remaines, and the PressBox/Concession stand that I was referrencing my idea as to where the entire Raceway would have stood…had actually been relocated some 300 yards away, where it now stands.
Why they saved it, or relocated it, I didn’t know, and neither did she.
The actual Raceway would have been way, way out into where the water/pond is now.
Sadly, nothing remains of the track today, maybe a sawed-off light pole, and the entrance gate to once was was the old pit area.
Collier Co. Speedway, in Naples, Florida, way the heck down low, lower than Charlotte or Ft. Myers area. Probably the most southern raceway in Florida.
um, Stock Island? Hialeah? Fulford?
probably the southernmost track on the west coast, i wouldn’t go any further than that.
Big Coppitt Island--The location of this old raceway is most likely, unknown.
and it looks likely to remain unknown unless we can find an aerial photo from archives. from the satellite shots, it appears that every inch of buildable land on Big Coppitt has a house on it now.
new business opportunity:
AB195’s “Chasin Florida Racin” old Speedway tours
for the other mods:
AB has requested that this be taken off sticky.
Two More Old Lost Raceways–
Frass118 and myself traveled from Georgia brought us by—Jax Raceways.
And reporting back to anyone who gives a hoot, that it, along with all the other dragstrips, moto-cross, gocart tracks, and grandstands…
are all gone, completely!
Not a trace of anything is left of any of the facilities, all 4 of them…flattened out and plowed under, and a FOR SALE sign stands above the property. It is ready for any developer to have his way with the land.
And St. Augustine/ST. Johns Motorsports Complex–
was next on the list, and let me tell you folks, this Raceway is ready to go racing right now, maybe a week of sprucing up, and it will be the finest of all asphalt Raceway facilities around, at least in Florida. A super sleek, 1/2 mile D-shaped asphalt oval, still has the the great aluminum grandstands, the giant Pressox, all the light poles, pits cleared, and restroom and concession facilities all top-notch ready to go…now!
Razor-Wire engulf’s the entire Grounds now, and I don’t know why, but this is a Raceway that is ready to go again. Something has to be up, as to why this Raceway isn’t alive and thriving as it should.
Razor-Wire engulf’s the entire Grounds now, and I don’t know why, but this is a Raceway that is ready to go again. Something has to be up, as to why this Raceway isn’t alive and thriving as it should.
i’ve always been told it’s noise and zoning.
Strangely enough, there was a Mud Bog race going on at the time we were there. It’s not ON the Speedway property, but directly next to it. Now, “zoning” doesn’t seem to be the right reason, and I couldn’t see where “noise” would be a problem either… there is nothing close to there (save for 1 single house).
I’ve seen a bunch of speculation about this track, but I wonder what the bottom-line truth is.
As AB195 said, it looks like it could be open in a month or less.