Irwindale Cancels Season and Shuts Down

In a sad state of affairs, the news on the street is that Toyota Speedway, aka, Irwindale Speedway, has canceled its 2012 season and shut down. They have even taken down their own website.  Reports are that last Saturday workers were dismantling the stands and offices being emptied.

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Irwindale shutting down is a surprise to me.  This was the track where I first saw a track with different degrees of banking... long before Homestead every changed their configuration.  When they installed the variable banking, it allowed 1 and 2 line racing to become 3-wide... at a short track.  This 3-wide racing was seen during a Toyota All-Star Showdown event.

Speaking of which, this is the track that the NASCAR All-Star Showdown would be televised from each year.  This is the track that Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Joey Logano and the likes would come to.

It's also the track where I got my hands on a Legends car in a "school session" and finally learned how it felt to be a racer as that little pocket rocket would squiggle through corners as the front end would grab and skid alternately through the entire turn.  It doesn't seem like much, doing that at 60 or 70 mph, but if you saw the size of the car, the small Legends track inside of the main Irwindale track, you'd get it.

It was here I got yelled at for not sticking to the course inside the school cones.  (But damn it, I get faster lap times up against the wall people!!!)

It was here that I had to sneak out of work one day (cough, cough, I'm not feeling good!) because I had a chance to take a Custom Jack Roush Ford Mustang through its paces on the track.  (Wow!)  It's not often you stomp on the gas and go "umfph" verbally from behind the wheel.


Irwindale, sorry, Toyota Speedway... (does it matter any more?) was an awesome track to attend and hang out at. 

This was also the track me and my buddy Craig were headed to when we got stuck in a traffic jam but the guy behind us didn't see it and we got destroyed when he rear-ended us at 60mph while we were sitting still.  I remember watching the pavement fly by the front window as we bounced forward from the impact.  (That's when I learned that Kia Sportages might not look awesome, but they can take a beating and protect the occupants.)

Once the police tidied things up, Craig's wife had shown up... but we just needed to be taken to the 7-11 for some aspirin and get our butts to Irwindale.  (I think we were headed there to watch Tony Stewart race his midget racer.  We weren't missing that.)

I have a ton of good memories of that place and it's sad to see this development, as one small track after another seem to slowly fizzle out of existence.  It's a tough business to keep going as it's a specific clientele that attends Saturday night short track racing... but there you go... it is what it is.  I'm just surprised this track seemingly went under.  It was an oval, a drag strip and one of the places Hollywood would go to film various events.

Sad day indeed because this was the track that was noted to holding some of the finest short-track events in the Nation.  If dwindling attendances and participation can take a track down and have it go under, anyone can.

But there may be more to it than meets the eye.  There's a great piece on the issue over at [the Daily News on Irwindale Closing.]  There are many more details on the background issues and what not.  I recommend the read, for those interested.

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