Santa Maria planning new track complex!

[Kala]

http://www.dragracingonline.com/agent1320/2010/1320-xii_8-31.html

Elevation is 430 ft, should be good for the drag strip. It's a few years away, but sounds great

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Group plans to build Santa Maria track complex

The old Santa Maria track began back in the 1950s and is currently known as Foster Road.  (Sherm Porter photo)

One of the really quiet drag strip construction projects, which the Agent was asked to keep under wraps as far back as last September, is the Santa Maria Motorsports Park, Inc. located in the quiet Santa Maria Valley on California's Central Coast. 

This week, President of SMMP, Inc. Steve Foster displayed plans featuring a full quarter-mile drag strip to begin with, a go-cart track, a two-and-a-half mile road course, three-quarter mile paved oval, sand drags and dirt bullring-type motocross arena as well as an on-site tech and training center.  All of complex is to be built in stages, with an eighth-mile drag strip and go-cart track to start.

Foster and his corporate board have not yet secured a site for the complex, but have four possible parcels, which could be annexed by the City of Santa Maria as part of the master plan. Once secured, the annexation by the city can take up to eighteen months. The timeframe for completion is four to five years away.

In a newspaper interview, Foster made it clear that they were not asking for any taxpayer funding and that the motorsports complex is privately funded. "We welcome investors on all levels at this time," said Foster, "but we have not approached local racer Alan Johnson."

Foster has been summoned before the City Planning Department next week, since the plans are to keep the complex within the City of Santa Maria limits. In an interview with the Agent, Foster added, "IHRA is the only sanctioning body that has come out here and offered to help."
 
The Santa Maria area is also getting ready for their 7th annual Cruzin' For Life event that raised over $100,000 to support cancer-related causes and for the Marian Cancer Center last year. 

Drag racers will be featured in a burnout and wheelstand exhibition on Sept. 26. Cars appearing there will be Bob Vance's wheelstanding "Crazy Horse" funny car and "Inferno" jet truck, Gino Ofria and his A/GS '57 Chevy, many doorslammers and Mike Halstead driving "McCain's Bomb Squad" nitro funny car. 

For more information on Cruzin' for Life go to cruzinforlife.net.  [08/24/10]