zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Racing
/
The Utah Short Track Top Gear Raced At This Season Will Become A Bunch Of Warehouses
The Utah Short Track Top Gear Raced At This Season Will Become A Bunch Of Warehouses-November 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:11:16

If you watched the on American V8 muscle and left turns and decided to put the race track the hosts visited on your bucket list, you should hurry up with it—Rocky Mountain Raceways, which will forever be the place where terrified for life, will close after this season.

Top Gear went to America for its first episode of the new season, and it was incredible. The car show from the UK started its season by traveling to the U.S. and showing off one of its most pure, grassroots types of of auto racing: the local short track, on the 3/8-mile asphalt oval at Rocky Mountain Raceways.

Hosts Harris, Matt LeBlanc and Rory Reid did timed laps on the oval after of it from a NASCAR car, then Nürburgring queen Schmitz looked like she was about to make Harris cry in a figure-eight chain-car race.

It was great to see an episode appreciate short-track racing, and it was easy to get caught up in the enjoyment of it all. But the probably should’ve gotten more attention, since they continue to disappear and the track the show visited is about to join the list.

Rocky Mountain Raceways in December that 2018 would be its last year after opening in 1968, and that the site would be developed commercially—warehouses, to be exact, representatives from the track told Jalopnik.

Rocky Mountain Raceways, which has the oval, an NHRA-sanctioned drag strip and a motocross track on 50 acres, said in the announcement that it got a lease extension when the track was sold in 2014. The announcement said the lease expires at the end of 2018 and there’s no option to renew “due to the direction of commercial development” nearby.

reported in December that the owners of the track, Freeport West, plan to develop it commercially and that the group over Rocky Mountain Raceways tried to find a solution. They couldn’t. From the Tribune:

The Young Automotive Group, which owns RMR, explored different options for extending the life of the track, including the possible purchase of a new property, where a another facility could be built. But that plan did not pencil out, and RMR’s attempts to find a public partner also fell short. However, a spokesperson said the company isn’t giving up on racing in the Salt Lake Valley.

“We’ve invested a great deal in the racing community, and we aren’t walking away from that,” Spencer Young Sr. said in a news release. “We will continue to sponsor racers and support racing.”

Development is a common thing for race tracks, as is the closure of tracks that just sit and rot away. and even get bulldozed over for development, left behind to wither away or put in limbo for years with no clear future. It happens to the smaller tracks like and Rocky Mountain Raceways, and the major tracks like and .

That would’ve been a downer for a show like Top Gear to mention, but we can’t talk about our passions without recognizing that they are, sometimes, fading away. That includes cars and racing.

If we don’t discuss them now, it may be too late by the time we start.

The headline on this story originally said “bulldozed” and has been updated for clarity, as it wasn’t specified that the site would be bulldozed. That’s just likely, due to the warehouses moving in.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Racing
Formula One To Change Qualifying Format And Yellow Flag Rules At COTA
Formula One To Change Qualifying Format And Yellow Flag Rules At COTA
Two changes are coming to the Formula One United States Grand Prix. The FIA will change the F1 qualifying format in response to Marussia and Caterham's , and the series plans to test a yellow flag speed limit. For qualifying, instead of the slowest six being eliminated after each round,...
Nov 5, 2025
Watch Kurt Busch Jam A Ton Of Disgusting Candy Corn In His Mouth
Watch Kurt Busch Jam A Ton Of Disgusting Candy Corn In His Mouth
Considering that candy corn is barely edible in the first place, I'd say putting it in your mouth is gross enough. NASCAR driver Kurt Busch wanted to see how many pieces of candy corn fit in his mouth, and the results are hilarious. Enjoy! I can see that he couldn't...
Nov 5, 2025
Lotus Gets A Nose Job
Lotus Gets A Nose Job
Looks like Lotus plans to test out a new nose. We'll take it over the, ahem, noses that were common this year. ...
Nov 5, 2025
I Rode With Sebastian Vettel During Red Bull's F1 Donut Extravaganza
I Rode With Sebastian Vettel During Red Bull's F1 Donut Extravaganza
This week, Infiniti Red Bull Racing brought the and the prototype to do some donuts in front of the Texas State Capitol. I got a ride along with Sebastian Vettel as well as both drivers' thoughts on the Austin race, the new cars and the next season. To start off...
Nov 5, 2025
The Total Idiot's Guide To The 2014 United States Grand Prix
The Total Idiot's Guide To The 2014 United States Grand Prix
Down here in the left-leaning, hard drinking, queso-loving center of Texas, it's the most wonderful time of the year. I'm not talking about the odd game where the Longhorns might just pull off a win — I'm talking about the Formula One United States Grand Prix in Austin. Now in...
Nov 5, 2025
We're Hanging Out With Ferrari Challenge Racers All Weekend
We're Hanging Out With Ferrari Challenge Racers All Weekend
We may have accidentally made Ferrari Challenge one of Jalopnik's favorite motorsports, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. There's more to the series than "" and we're here with Carlos Gomez to prove it. We've covered why is awesome, but why should you watch Ferraris race instead of, say, using...
Nov 5, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved