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I knew Bill Huth back from the early '70's. Quite a character. He reputedly built the track with his own motor grader back in the late '50's I believe. No plans. No blue prints. No permits. Man, there was nothing on the six-mile road from the freeway to the track, except a run-down convenience store next to an equally derelict trailer park.
Initially the big track was just oiled desert gravel/sand, but it was paved pretty early on, at least for the Ken Miles scenes in the movies in the early '60's. When I showed up in '71, you could just rent the track from Chet Kastner who ran the resident driving school from a garage in Rosamond. $20 bucks and it was yours for the day with a $10 deposit for return of the key.
There were no fences back in the day. The security was a chain stretched between two posts across the dirt entrance road. The paddock was just graded desert with a lot of sharp rocks that could easily puncture race tires. There was no pit lane, so you just drove off the desert onto the track near the current S/F line. You got off the track by driving back into the desert near T-9.
There was no snack bar, no restrooms, no garages, no pavement, no communications, just a 20x20, two story "tower" for the stewards. I think that's still there.
Ford vs. Ferrari was filmed there, but Ken Miles beat the crap out of the Cobra trunk lid on the lonely desert floor in a dust storm. Ken was an interesting character as were many of the Cal Club participant back in the day.
In the '60's Ken was the Cal Club Driving School instructor for a friend of mine, a story for another day.
There aren't many comps for used race tracks. The value is a function of raw land value and cash flow. Based on my experience at Buttonwillow, I'd say $7 to 8 million.
Sorry, rambled enough.
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