Recent developments have changed the plans for the reopening of Pennsboro Speedway in West Virginia. Instead of it becoming a ¼-mile track, it will stay true to its original ½-mile egg-shaped oval.
(For more on the initial plans for the reopening of Pennsboro Speedway, read “Pennsboro Speedway: It Returns in 2024, with a Shorter Oval.”)
“Instinctually, I felt the ¼-mile track was not right, especially when the grader operator cleaned the old track,” Pennsboro Speedway promoter Barry Braun said. “We took some drone footage and mapping, and went to the State of West Virginia and our insurance company. Come to find out [that] reopening the ½-mile track was not as daunting as we had expected.”
The biggest concern with going with the original configuration was cost.
“As we did more research, we found we wouldn’t need to spend that much money,” said Braun. “In December, we met with the Ritchie County fair board. They wanted to help us and do whatever was possible for us to make the big track come back.”
Braun now intends to widen the ½-mile track’s surface, and its iconic bridges, and add new clay. That clay will come from closer than anyone could have expected.
“The best clay we tested came from a vein of clay that is in the hillside that we were going to shape as part of our project,” Braun said, who added they tested 30 samples. “How serendipitous is that?”
For those concerned about the effect of the track’s immense size on racers’ equipment, Braun said the perimeter of the original Pennsboro Speedway measures less than many other popular big tracks. Pennsboro Speedway came in at 2,888 feet. Port Royal Speedway in Pennsylvania measures 2,906 feet. Knoxville Raceway in Iowa comes in at 3,013 feet.
Braun said he received a mostly positive response to the change of plans. He estimated that roughly 95% of racers and fans applauded the track going with its original, bigger configuration.
“Chemistry is just as important as the financial end of a project — you have to have feel for a project and its relationships,” Braun said. “Data may say a ¼-mile is a better business decision, but if it is not the old Pennsboro Speedway, fans will tell you it won’t work. Most of our fans come from within a 90-mile radius. If you don’t have those local fans, you won’t be successful no matter what the financial data says.”
Pennsboro Speedway set Memorial Day weekend as its first event, with its Race of Regions.
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.
