Speedway closes

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PRINCETON — The Bureau County Speedway raised the red flag on the 2008 race season on June 18. Last week, they made it permanent.

According to the speedway Web page, the majority of the membership present for the annual meeting on Wednesday voted to permanently close the Bureau County Speedway Corporation and liquidate all assets in order to satisfy it’s debt on a bank loan.

Vice president of the speedway, Denny Headley, said Monday afternoon speedway officials had no comment, right now.

Wednesday’s decision came as no surprise to longtime race supporters like Kathy Costerisan, but it still hurts just the same.

“It feels like you’re losing a family member out there; we’ve been out there so long,” said Costerisan, a past board member.

Costerisan, who is on the Bureau County Fair Board, said the loss of the speedway will be a big blow to the fair board’s budget due to the loss of income from track rental.

Racing has been a fixture at the fairgrounds dating back decades to the old-time big cars in the 1920s. It was the fall of 1980 when Tom Gustafson of Princeton, a member of the Bureau County Fair Board, returned from watching stock car races in Moline and came up with the idea of bringing the races to Princeton.

The races started in 1981 with a full house of 1,800-plus fans, a common turnout in the grandstands. The announcer would urge the race fans to “scoot to your left to let more people find seats.”

The fair board ran the races for seven years before turning operations over to promoters. The promoter canceled the 1987 season before the first of July due to financial problems.

In 1988, Speedway supporters bought memberships at $100 each to get the track up and running again, and officers and directors were elected. The board of directors operated the track for 19 years

Ramer Promotions of Mendota took over as the speedway promoter this year. The speedway faced poor attendance from the very start of the season, attributed to the poor economy and rising gas prices that kept drivers at home Friday nights instead of racing.

The June 12 races were canceled due to what promoters called, “for reasons beyond our control.” The next week, the membership voted to suspend the races for the rest of the season.

It was requested that two of the 4-by-8 signs from the Speedway be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The signs are the Bureau County Speedway Winners Circle signs and the memorial sign that has the names of deceased members and friends of the speedway.

Bids will be accepted for these signs until 9 a.m. Oct. 15, via e-mail, telephone and mail. The signs will be auctioned off “silent auction” style, where bids and bidder names will be available for viewing online.