When East Bay Raceway Park concludes the 2024 season in October, it will close its gates for good. The owner and promoter of the Tampa, Florida, track, Al Varnadore, admitted the decision to sell the facility didn’t make him popular.
“I’m the most hated man in Hillsborough County,” Varnadore said. “The people on the internet are angry — real angry — and some of them from as far away as Iowa are sticking their noses into my business. They come here once a year and don’t see the big picture. The track is losing money — but I went forward with a big schedule for our last season — and I didn’t have to.”
That 2024 schedule begins as it has done for decades, the Winternationals. That starts on January 17 with the Top Gun Sprints as the headliner. The Winternationals features a who’s who of racing divisions and series. Crate Racin’ USA late models. UMP modifieds. Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. High Limit Sprint Car Series. 360 sprint cars.
The season concludes on October 12 with a $50,000-to-win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series race dubbed the “Grand Finale.”
However, in between those bookend events is a weekly racing program, just like at many other oval tracks in the U.S.
“East Bay Raceway Park does not make money in the regular season,” said Varnadore. “We do well in January and February, but the rest of the year it is a struggle to keep the place open.”
The traveling series have also played a role in shrinking profit margins for tracks, according to Varnadore.
“The million-dollar late model drivers are complaining how much they are losing,” Varnadore said. “The series promoters want higher purses. Pay-per-view is great for people who like to sit at home, but the money they are paying isn’t coming back to the racetracks. We can’t have every fan in front of a home TV set — we need to sell hot dogs to survive.”
More than four years ago Varnadore announced the sale of East Bay Raceway Park to The Mosaic Company, a phosphate mining company that owns land neighboring the track.
“When I made the deal with Mosaic, I promised our racers there would be five more years of racing,” Varnadore said. “I wanted to give them plenty of time to decide if they wanted to phase out or race elsewhere.”
Varnadore forecasted the future for where East Bay Raceway Park resides now.
“On November 7, 2024, the 28 acres the track is on changes hands,” said Varnadore. “There will be no more East Bay Raceway Park. It will be another mountain of dirt left over from mining phosphate.”
Al Varnadore also made a prediction for what dirt-track racing will look like.
“Special events will replace weekly racing at most racetracks in five to 10 years,” Varnadore said. “The companies that own the series will need to own the racetracks. They have to be able to pay the purses and do the things it takes to make it all work.”
When the gates finally close on East Bay Raceway Park, it will be a bittersweet moment for Varnadore.
“I just want to relax and spend time with my grandchildren,” said Varnadore. “I worked hard — awfully hard — for 22 years. I won’t rule out that I will still be involved in something racing. I just won’t put myself at risk by investing in a racetrack.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
