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MOTOR RACING
Irwindale Speedway closing up
Dwindling attendance, number of racers force facility to shut down. One driver calls it `devastating.
By Keith Lair, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/11/2012 11:39:29 PM PST
Racing scenes such as this at Irwindale Speedway will be a thing of the past after it was revealed the facility will be closing. (Jeff Gross / Getty Images)
Irwindale Speedway, considered by many to host the finest short track racing in the nation, appears to be history.
On Saturday, workers appeared to be closing down the facility, which has had the biggest NASCAR short track races on the West Coast for more than a decade.
Workers were dismantling the pit grandstand, which is adjacent to the first turn. They also were taking apart storage areas. A large billboard bordering the San Gabriel Valley River Freeway was not lit up for the first time in its history, barring power outages, and the track's web site was taken off the Internet.
"They went out of business," said a prominent Irwindale racer who did not want to be identified.
Vice president and general manager Bob DeFazio and some staff members were in the locked administration building Saturday morning, with a moving truck backed up to the office's side entrance and a moving box stacked outside. DeFazio, through track operations director Bob Klein, refused to comment. Klein only would say an announcement would be made Monday.
Efforts to reach DeFazio were unsuccessful.
The track's eighth-mile facility remained intact on Saturday, but according to a source workers were given final paychecks after last Thursday's regular street legal session. The elimination of the pit grandstand is significant because teams usually put their crews in those seats so that if there is a problem on the track, they quickly could get to their
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