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Zeke, I was intimately involved in the Buttonwillow project from it's beginning in the late 80's, to opening day in 1995. A friend & I wrote the private placement (and placed it) for $1.5 million. The track cost about $2.3 million to build. The 360 acre site cost $90,000. That wouldn't have bought you one acre in Santa Clarita back then.
Anyway the track was owned by Cal Club Properties, a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Sports Car Club. I managed the track for the first six-months after we opened.
The site was less than ideal, terrible dirt compaction and 140 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The over-riding advantage was there were no neighbors, and the dirt was cheap. The County was difficult to deal with and it took several years and thousands of dollars the gain a Conditional Use Permit (albeit with 56 conditions of approval).
The track has survived and prospered because of a conservative construction and operating budget
and it's remoteness. Those qualities eluded every permanent so. Cal racetrack since the 1920's including Gilmore, Ascot, Irwindale, Ontario, Paramount Ranch, countless drag strips, and even Cal Speedway, which opened the same year as Buttonwillow.
Anyway, the one thing that separates Laguna Seca from all the other failed race tracks is the County, so far, sees economic value in the track. If Riverside County had the same vision in 1980, Riverside Raceway would be a County park (like a golf course), run by a concessionaire for the benefit of the public.
Anyway, I could write a book on the subject. I hope this explains a bit about my comments above.
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