Pssst fella, Wanna Buy A Race Track?

mazdeuce - Seth said:

It's fun to drive, but you'd have to buy it priced on revenue potential. If I spend $500k, I need to make 3-6% of that, or $15-30k a year after facility costs. Winter happens in that part of the world, so you've got what, 35 weekends? What does it cost to mow and maintain that facility? How much do you need to put away per year for maintenance/repaving? 

My crazy plan is.....worm farming. You can't believe that number of worms that come out after a rain. Big worms. There's got to be money there, right? 

There are things you could do cut costs. Why mow when you can have dirt and gravel? Or just dead grass. 35 weekends? Of good weather. The other times it’s impromptu ice racing/ learn to rallycross. Anyone that’s been to PARC in the PNW knows they do a decent job of staying alive and keeping costs down. Same with the tracks in japan. 

L5wolvesf said:

This would be a project where thinking somewhat outside the proverbial box would be useful.

 

Inside the box there are the typical road course usages. Someone brought up rally cross which brought up in my mind “stadium”-ish off road and mud bog (if that is still a thing). Those are somewhat dependant on the amount of open land there. I had also thought about a dirt oval but there is already one nearby.

 

Outside the box would be an automotive business park (manufacturing not retail), again depending on how much open land is part of the facility. The track could serve as “their” test track. The county would likely help, some, in attracting businesses there – tax “incentives”, zoning (keep residential far away) etc. Then there would be some jobs for locals.

 

Then attracting events and marketing, marketing, marketing

in that part of the country you could probably draw more people for tractor pulling.

Why are there tracks built way the berkeley out in BFE and nobody wants to build one near my house?

Interesting track location, it is RIGHT next to the town.  It's only about a mile from the middle of the town and the nearest housing development is only about 2000 feet away.

If that town grows at all, that track will be gone.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hastings,+NE/@40.5869083,-98.388915,8034m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8799a160c173111f:0xd94dd803fd57865a!8m2!3d40.5862583!4d-98.3898726

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Why are there tracks built way the berkeley out in BFE and nobody wants to build one near my house?

Well I suspect it is because of cheaper land, less building restrictions and noise issues. Always amazes me when people buy houses next to airports, sporting facilities, race tracks and other noise producing facilities and then complain about the noise or worse yet file lawsuits demanding they be put out of business. Just look at subdivisions built next to interstates and then the state is forced to build walls to cut down noise. Or people who build house at the end of aircraft runways and then demand noise abatement laws. How many Circle tracks, drag strips or road courses have been put out of business because of noise issues even though they were there before house started being built. Nobody wants to live at the end of a runway or landing approach so why would you buy a house there and expect not to have noise.

In reply to aircooled :

Sadly it’s true. PIR faces this every year. The morons that built developments nearby screwed the track over. Many petitions have been made to try and shut the track down due to noise complaints. The best part is that the Portland airport is also RIGHT THERE. They too get a ton of noise complaints. Lol. Unfortunately, the airport has the brass to say Berk off. PIR doesn’t. 

In reply to pirate :

 Somebody should start a website where you can list your house and its location, and why you would like to move away from there. Then you can work some sort of deal with some bozo that lives next to the race track, by trading him your house out in the middle of the boonies, and then you get his house near the race track.