GIBSONTON, Fla. (Jan. 26) — It’s no secret. The end is near for East Bay Raceway Park. With its scheduled $50,000-to-win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned grand finale on Oct. 12 now looming as large as the ever-growing mountain beyond the track’s backstretch, the historic speedway’s days are clearly numbered.
Race teams and race fans were put on notice in Sept., 2019, when track president Al Varnadore confirmed hat speedway management had reached an agreement to sell the track to the Mosaic Company, a Tampa-based phosphate mining firm. The 2019 intent-to-purchase agreement gave Mosaic five years to purchase the facility outright.
Those five years are up, and competitors are flocking to the Tampa-area oval to get in one last lap. Several in the 91-car field of Rogers-Dabbs Performance Parts Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series drivers on hand to kick off this year’s Winternationals are in Florida to check the historic track off the bucket list before it’s too late.
“We’ve always wanted to come down here, but it’s a long way for us,” said Jeremy Wonderling of Wellsville, N.Y. “I heard this was possibly the last year at East Bay and I’ve always wanted to come down here and I told my wife, “This is probably our last chance to do so, let’s do it.’ One of my big sponsors said that he'd help out quite a bit, so that made our minds up.”
It took Wonderling almost 20 hours to make the trek to the Gibsonton-area oval, and with never seeing the track previously, he had no idea what to expect when he arrived.
“I told my wife there's probably gonna be 100 [cars] down there,” said the 2023 Hovis Auto & Truck Supply RUSH Crate Late Model Series champion. “We might go down here and suck the whole time we're there, but at least we'll be in some nice weather while we do it. “It’s kind of a little bullring, some of the stuff we're used to back at home,” said Wonderling. “I ain't used to the tide (from the nearby bay) affecting the racetrack like seems to happen down here. It's nice weather, and a lot nicer than it is back home.”
Fellow New Yorker Andy Michael has been to East Bay a number of times, but the Allegany native had never gotten to test his mettle at the famous “Clay by the Bay” until this year. Not only did he expect a big car count, he also came prepared for the track’s tricky, ever-changing surface—as much as he could be at least.
“I figured there was going to be 100 cars here,” said Michael. “I’ve been here to watch. The track changes all the time. It can change in an hour out there on the track. I’ve been here with my brother before with a UMP Modified. I’ve been here probably 20 times and watched. I’ve always wanted to come here and race, and this being the last year I figured I probably should get down here to race before they don’t race here. It was a bucket list track to run here. I like short tracks. I don't like big half-mile tracks. That's why I didn't go to Volusia this year.”
Michael, who also competes with the Vicki Emig-directed RUSH Racing Series, said when the Mideast-based tour’s four-track Battle of the Bay was not scheduled this season, he decided to mark East Bay off his list.
“They have that Battle of the Bay back home for the RUSH Series and I always go run that for four days, but she’s not doing that this year, so we thought we’d come down here,” said Michael. “You’re either spending money now or spending it later.”
Dalton Jacobs, a 20-year-old from Reidsville, N.C., racing at East Bay for the first time is optimistic—likely hopelessly—that somehow the 46-year-old track will survive.
“Maybe they'll figure something out and keep it around another year because it’s a cool little place,” said Jacobs. “We've never been here (to race). I've been here and watched the Super [Late Models], and it seemed like a pretty cool little racetrack,” said Jacobs. “We planned on coming down here a couple years ago, but just didn't have a chance to make it. We finally made it this year.”
Unfortunately, it seems this will in fact be the final Florida Winternationals at the facility unless there’s a drastic change of plans.
Mosaic, which employs more than 13,000 people worldwide, owns land on both sides of US Highway 41-S, with the track sitting between the two properties just to the east of the highway. One of the massive sites where the company stores waste material from its manufacturing process sits just on the east side—directly on the other side of the backstretch—of the track property. With each passing season, when drivers and fans return to the Florida gem for another version of the Winternationals, the mountain containing the waste materials has noticeably grown larger.
With the five-year agreement nearing its end, it’s only natural to see an influx of competitors each time the gates swing open. A historic track built in 1977, East Bay hosted its first Winternationals event for Late Models on Feb. 10, 1978. Local standout John Berg won the race. Since then, East Bay has hosted nearly 200 Winternationals races for Super Late Models. This marks the fourth straight season the Rogers-Dabbs Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series has been part of East Bay’s Winternationals.