Do you happen to be shopping for a race track? You’re in luck; the market has been hot lately, especially in Southern California, where another track with a name you’ve heard of has been listed for sale. This time around, it’s Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. Despite being located a minimum of about two and a half hours from civilization, Chuckwalla attracts racing, driving school and event traffic from Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego. Now, it’s hoping to attract a buyer who can afford the $26 million asking price.
As race tacks go, Chuckwalla is modern and well-maintained, but has only one track with no provisions for alternate configurations. There’s no dedicated kart track (just a skidpad with configurable barriers) and limited paddock and garage facilities. Even compared to Willow Springs, which was renowned for being somewhat dumpy before its recent purchase and renovation, Chuckwalla’s facilities are fairly limited. But it does have one thing many tracks don’t: its own paved runway.
Immediately adjacent to the track (and included in the sale) is a full-fledged airport. Its mile-long runway isn’t going to attract full-blown commercial traffic, but like the raceway itself, the surface is in good shape and based on what we can see in satellite images of the facility, the runway pulls double-duty as a drag strip, complete with staging lanes. Standing mile events are probably off the table, however, as the runway’s runoff space is limited and ends just ~20 yards from the track itself.
As the listing page notes, the site is conveniently located just off I-10 almost smack-dab in between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Apart from the airport directly adjacent to the track, it has virtually zero neighbors for miles, save for a small community of manufactured homes on Lake Tamarisk. Its remaining neighbors are the desert, a few palm farms and quite a few solar arrays. The odds of being shut down over noise complaints are between slim and zero.
$26 million feels like quite a bit of scratch for either a small airport or a basic race track, but bundled together? We’ll see how this plays out.
Got a news tip? Let us know at tips@thedrive.com!