BAKERSFIELD NEWS GOOD AND BAD

Source: Dave Grayson
Date: 05/15/2008

Bakersfield's own Kevin Harvick will be coming home to attend "Kevin Harvick Night" hosted by the Bakersfield Speedway on June 19th. For those of you who have already looked at your calendars you're reading it correctly. This event is really on a Thursday night. The track is running a special night of racing to accomodate Harvick's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule which will be at the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma that week. Harvick will race an IMCA Modified on the Bakersfield Speedway's one third mile clay oval that night. The support divisions include racing from the American Stocks and Mini Stocks. Advance tickets for this special night have already gone on sale. You can get yours by dialing up www.vallitix.com or by calling 1-888-825-5484. The gates open at 4 pm and the racing begins at 6 pm.

Harvick will also be making an appearance the night before at Stramler Park where he'll participate in a fundraiser for his alma mater North High School. The school is presently trying to raise funds for a new athletic fieldhouse that will be primarily used by the wrestling team. That's a subject near and dear to Harvick's heart. When he wasn't spending his Saturday nights driving his race car at the former Mesa Marin Raceway, he was busy grappling as a member of North High's wrestling team. The evening includes dinner, live music and a silent auction. Tickets are $55,$15 for children 3 to 10, and can also be purchased through vallitix.

SPEAKING OF RACING IN BAKERSFIELD

While optimism remains high, the news is still not good regarding the new NASCAR sanctioned half mile oval in Bakersfield that was going to replace Mesa Marin Raceway. As we told you last month the Kern River Raceway, located on 83 acres of land where Interstate Five intersects with Enos Lane, is experiecing some problems obtaining financial backing due to a land sale that collasped last April.

The half mile super track, being built by the Collins Family, the original operators of Mesa Marin Raceway, and the Destefani Family, a highly successful farming family in Bakersfield, was the subject of a much hearlded ground breaking back in February of last year. But the $30 million needed to finance the project was dependent on the sale of some agricultural zoned land owned by the Destefani's. The potential real estate buyer entered escrow on the property but was unable to obtain the financing needed to complete the transaction. That left the track developers in a position of having to scramble to find the financing in the midst of a mortage lending crisis that has impacted the entire country.

In a case of hind sight being 20/20 track President Larry Collins admitted that trying to finance the track based on a real estate deal was probably not the way to handle things. In a recent statement Colins said "we went down some paths that we shouldn't have. This is our first time doing this sort of thing and we stubbed our toes a little bit." However, Collins and company remain optimistic that they will be able to turn the situation around and noted they now placed the process of obtaining the needed capital in the hands of a reputebal financial investment group.

There is a slight possibility that the new race track could be operational by late in the fall just in time for a spectacular grand opening such as the annual October Classic that the Collins family used to present at Mesa Marin. However that window of opportunity is rapidly closing. With approximately five months of constuction still remaining to be completed, the financing would have to be secured by late May or early June for a fall opening. This is not likely to happen meaning the opening of the Kern River Raceway will probably be in the spring of next year. Collins made it clear that "no one has given up, no one is abandoning the ship. We do not give up that easily around here."

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