rasrboy

http://www.gatewayraceway.com/

I certainly enjoyed racing there since 1998.

Curious to see what happens with it.

Aaron

varkwso

I only ran it once - it may get added to the "lost racetrack" album.

racerbob4

I'm not familar with the property. Is it possible that somone would redevelop it for other uses or is there some chance that an angel will come and kekepit in operation but at a lower level?

63Corvette

I raced there in 1985, but it's located in EAST St Louis, so that's not exactly a garden spot

Painrace

It was not one of my favorites but it was better than nothing for those in St. Louis. I liked Mid-America in Wentzville.

Jim

DOUG @ ECS

Was there for their last drag event (LSX shootout), it's a real shame to see another track go.


Big facilty too.

BERETTA

This trend of track closings is really sad
Memphis Motorsports Park goes on the auction block on December the 14th

triple_s1x

Well there goes my excuse to visit the Hustler Club...

I did the comp school and my first w2w race with NASA last April, and had a great time. Hopefully it reopens at some point.

TmillerC5

MId America is now a subdivision Gateway was not a great roval but now we have nothing around here. I heard they are trying to sell in for around a million dollars. Boy I wish somebody would build a decent road course closer than Joliet or Topeka
Tim

bluvette79

i am (was) a corner worker there as well as a race event volunteer. keeping my fingers crossed that another buyer will step up and continue road racing venue otherwise i guess i will head for heartland once in a while at least to support scca racing. if i hear anything positive, i'll let you know.

StKnoWhere

to corner workers!!!

Bummer on Gateway, didn't get a chance to check it out.

I used to live 45 min from VIR, did over 18 track days in one year ...

Sneaking off topic off a second, as there anyplace in the area that does good/custom alignments and pays attention balancing wheels?

dfinke23

I was at Road Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and got an email from a high school classmate announcing he was looking for work; he was the PR manager there.
From what he says, it is going to be a challenge for someone to re-open because the site is split into multiple parcels owned by different entities; some owned by Gateway, some leased by Gateway. Sounds very messy.

NASCAR314

My guess is it will sit in mothballs awhile, then become an industrial park.

As for "Drag Racing".....

Mid America Raceway is Re-Openning!!!!!

Off Missouri Hwy 61 just North of Troy, MO. in 2011

NEW Mid America Raceway info

Gary04Z06

As I posted in this other thread:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/grea...th-notice.html

Had some good memories there. Sad to see it go.
But, there are rumors that there is a track being built, Rolling Hills Resort. Some info I got was:
An opportunity exists to purchase 380 acres 6.5 miles from Festus, Missouri and roughly 26 miles from St. Louis.
The option to purchase the land is contingent on gaining county approval and permits, then negotiating a price per acre.
A preliminary plan of the road course and facility is in the design process.
The plan is to build a premium road course with one large course or two smaller courses, go kart track, auto cross, country club and banquet facilities, car storage, camp grounds, and future condominiums.


Trying to do a country club type thing, like Autobahn. Not sure what phase they are in now, might still be trying to get zoning and funding. I'll update as I hear more.

dfinke23

Has MAR gotten by their issues with neighbors complaining? They should have gone 3 miles north to Pike county (open zoning there).

The old road course at the original MAR, with 100ft in elevation changes (if anyone had a chance to run on this, please give details, it closed when I was 11):

bowtiguy

Back in 99-01 I participated in the F-body.org events held at both memphis and Gateway. I met a great group of guys that I only knew by "screen names"...remember E-mail lists???

I ran my B4C Z28 there as participant/instructor and had a great time!

Thats back when the rules were a bit "laxed" and remeber a partuclar green LTX firebird spraying down the front straight during instructor hot laps..

Here is a shot with some of the buds I met at these tracks. Most are still into cars and now drive vettes.....including me.

Nele22

Living in Columbia, MO I had the chance to visit it often. Really sad to see a nice park close.

Gary2KC5

MAR was a 2.5 mile course and was the home for SCCA in St. Louis until Gateway was built in the early 1990's. It was a 2.4 mile road course which was the new home for the STL SCCA. It did host some other events such as the Playboy Showroom stock series in 1986 which saw the new C4 Corvettes kick *** early but eventually fell in the 24 hour race to the new Porsche 944 turbos which were debuted at Gateway by Porsche.

AJ Foty was said to have raced at MAR in the early 60's. I saw Paul Newman race there and of course it was where Dorsey Schrader got his start in a Datson B210.

My fondest memory though was in 1981 watching formula fords on the hill in the T7-8-9 area. Bobby Unser's son was in the feild and he got clipped in T8 by someone and they both crashed.

Some cowboy boots stomped by where we were sitting and some tall dude wearing them made his way down to the fence and climb over it. Soon he was in the face of the guy who crashed Bobby Jr.

Later that month that dude was drinking the milk at Indy.

Eventually the people that owned MAR cared more for $$'s than racing and history and sold out.

Now some more a-holes tha somehow own a small part of the land @ Gateway are holding out for major $$'s. My info is the the Sheik of Katar made an offer and planned to make Gateway home of his mega NRHA teams but the a-holes declined the Sheik's offer wanting more.

MAR has turned into a subdivision for starter homes...given the location of Gateway I don't think it has the same option.

Gary2KC5

I went to MAR to watch a friend run his yellow rabbit in Showroom Stock C, before that he ran a Gremlin.

I did get on the track there once. The only real spectator spots were @ T1 the end of a mile long straight and a 90 degree right hand turn ( it was also the begining of the drag strip too so it had a big concrete staging area for run off).

T1 was a heavy braking area, then the cars headed off for T2 slightly downhill where they made T3 and came back slightly up hill for T4. You could see T4 from the paddock but not a big spectator area. From T4 is where you dropped 100' as the T7-8-9 section was pretty much flat. T10 started the 100' climb back up the mile front straight (kind of like the front straight @ Road America only 700' longer).

T1 and the T7-8-9 hill was the only spectator areas.

Gary2KC5

That's kind of funny since the people that are holding out on the sale of Gateway to the Sheik are the ones that owned (I guess they still own it) the property that was a titty bar that was just outside the old drag strip that Gateway was built around. (someone help me out on the name)