Race tracks don’t make much money. If it’s family run they can make a living off it.
but a big business who’s focus is solely on profit, there just isn’t enough in it. At PBIR that closed just the other day, they released a statement about the closing. They had third party companies do a profitability analysis for them, as different investment ideas for the property. Every single one of the companies had similar answers, rezone, light industrial commercial, or residential. Not one of them made a recommendation for keeping the land in its current configuration. They also sited enormous insurance costs.
if it was your family running the track I see going the same way almost every time.
you and your family start up a race track, why? Because you love racing, and you love the people, it’s a passion. You run it your whole life, and it provides. Then you get old and the youngins take over, and they may or may not be as interested as you, maybe the run it for the lives, then the third generation is up, and they have no interest, and it’s just money that comes in to live off. And times change, the land is worth more and more. And now the third generation family is lookin at a 20-40 million dollar check for the track. Which would take 10-20 lifetimes to make that kind of money.
it’s just how it goes. As much as we love the tracks, the families that owned them did really good by their families. That old race track turned into one hell of a golden egg after all those years.