While standing in the infield at East Bay Raceway Park in February, I was thinking about what a loss to history it will be once the track is buried.
While standing in the infield at East Bay Raceway Park in February, I was thinking about what a loss to sprint car history it will be once the track is buried under a mountain of phosphate mining refuse.
I have been attending races at East Bay for over 20 years, but the track has been around a lot longer than that.
The track was opened in 1977 by Jimmy Mingo, and it was one of those tracks that I always wanted to see. Some tracks just jump out at you with history the first time you see them.
Manzanita, Eldora, Knoxville and Terre Haute were all tracks where I felt like I was on hallowed ground the first time there.
I grew up with Central Pennsylvania tracks, so they were actually part of my youth memory. I had sort of the same feeling at East Bay the first time, and I think the palm trees and warm, sunny February weather was also a help.
Now I live in Florida, but my first trips there, I was coming down from cold Pennsylvania.
The first sprint car show at East Bay was a 100-lap event promoted by Rocky Fisher in 1977 and was wingless. That was one year before the World of Outlaws started at Devil‘s Bowl Speedway in Texas.
The East Bay Nationals ran every February and was unsanctioned for a few years. It was really an outlaw track, where all of the drivers showed up in February to race.
The early shows were all wingless before going to both winged and non-winged, and eventually all winged.
The World of Outlaws sanctioned the East Bay Nationals through the mid 1980s. After that, the All Stars had their name on the event all the way up to the early 1990s, and returned again this year.
I was looking at the stands for the Monday night All Star show and they had an excellent crowd and an excellent field of cars. I was thinking about how cool it would be to have a World of Outlaws show at East Bay for the final East Bay Nationals in four years.
That would be the 2024 Nationals, and I believe they would pack the place.
Maybe it could be an All Star and World of Outlaws co-sanctioned weekend, a little like Volusia does. If both sanctions worked together with the track, I think it could be a great way to close out the career of a historic race track.
Way back in 1980, Gene Marderness took a famous photo of the infield at East Bay from the flag stand. In the infield were Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell and Rick Ferkel standing by their non-winged sprint cars with World of Outlaws founder Ted Johnson standing in front of them.
Maybe the three drivers could re-stage the shot 44 years later and Gene can take the photo. The World of Outlaws even held their season-ending banquet in Tampa and Apollo Beach the first few years.
East Bay Raceway Park will have 47 years of sprint car history by the time they close the doors, and one last big event to send it off is something the fans, the drivers and the track deserve before it gets buried under a pile of silt.