Oregon town still hopes to get NASCAR track

BOARDMAN, Ore. – Promoters of putting a NASCAR racetrack in this Eastern Oregon town remain optimistic, despite the recent announcement by International Speedway Corp. that a Northwest track will be built in Bremerton.

“The ISC announcement was so generic and filled with lots of ifs,” Jim Schilling, a member of a group trying to bring NASCAR to Boardman, told the East Oregonian. “It’s subject to legislative approval, the permitting process, and they have no funding.”

Plans for the Bremerton track call for 80,000 seats, to be built on 950 acres south of the city’s airport.

ISC officials are eager to build a racetrack in the Pacific Northwest because other areas of the country are saturated, while the nearest West Coast track is in Sonoma, Calif., about 40 miles north of San Francisco.

The Boardman group contends that the Bremerton site has “significant access problems.”

To reach the Bremerton site, race fans would drive on two-lane highways, take one of four different ferry routes or fly into the airport. Plans to reconfigure the transportation system to accommodate increased traffic could take years to negotiate, Lloyd Brown, communications manager for the Olympic Region of the Washington Department of Transportation, told the Associated Press.

The Boardman site, in contrast, would be fed by two freeways, Interstate 84 and 82, which intersect near the racetrack site, and the adjacent Boardman Airport, which can handle 737s, supporters note.

It’s also not clear whether the Bremerton track will get legislative approval. Washington state Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlach, has given the proposal 50-50 odds.

The Boardman speedway, on the other hand, has earned county and state approval and could begin construction within 60 to 120 days of announcing financing, according to Morrow County officials and speedway supporters.