Drag racing tracks all over America have closed in the past decade.

Now, supporters of Palm Beach (Fla.) International Raceway are trying to do what they can so PBIR can avoid becoming the next track to be shutdown.

In a memo filed with the county this past September, a firm called Portman Industrial has agreed to buy the property and essentially locked out any more potential buyers. Portman Industrial has plans to redevelop the PBIR property into a huge warehouse complex.

Before Portman Industrial can move forward, their plans must be approved by the Palm Beach County Zoning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners. 

At an April 7 Zoning Commission board meeting it seemed liked it was just going to be a formality for the announcement of PBIR to be closed and Portman Industrial would move forward to build a warehouse complex. Supporters of PBIR were able to sway the council about keeping the track open. 

The Board of County Commissioners was set to review Portman Industrial’s application at an upcoming board meeting on April 28, but the application has been postponed by Portman until a September BCC meeting, according to Facebook posts by PBIR supporters. 

Prior to pushing the meeting back until September, the plan was for PBIR to close the track to the public on April 23. Private events will be permitted until early May.

“The commissioners were listening,” said South Florida racer and NHRA announcer Joe Castello, who attended the April 7 meeting. “They were really listening and watching how many people showed up (April 7). and were waiting to see if you get more people to show up and then get a traffic study. The board was very concerned that rolling those big rigs way out to where the track is and back and forth was going to be a problem for PGA Boulevard, for the people out there, for the wetlands, for the wildlife and finally, (this is a) historical landmark, that track has been part of the community for (nearly) 60 years.”

PBIR includes a dragstrip and a 10-turn, 2.2-mile design, state-of-the-art road course.

The facility opened in 1964, costing a reported $1.5 million to build. The track was originally named "Palm Beach International Raceway" and was owned by local contractor Joe Bucheck Jr. and his brother Edward. In March 1965 the inaugural race was held at the track.

In April 1971, the Grand American Series of Professional Drag Racing had one of the first major drag racing events held at the track.

Dick Moroso the owner of Moroso Racing Parts, purchased the track and renamed it "Moroso Motorsports Park" in 1981. The following year Moroso spent a reported $100,000 to upgrade the facility to host the opening event in the SCCA Trans Am Series. 

The track was also host to several IHRA and NHRA special events and the "Super Chevy Show" which drew more than 100,000 spectators over the three-day event for several years. The event was later replaced with the "All Chevy Show" which generally occurs in March. In 1996 Moroso considered spending $2 million on a one-mile oval track for stock car racing, but those plans fell through. In 1998, Moroso died from brain cancer and his family inherited ownership of the track. 

In 2008, a group of local motorsports enthusiasts purchased Moroso Motorsports Park. The new owners closed the track, remodeled it into a state-of-the-art motorsports facility and changed the track's name back to Palm Beach International Raceway.

The old facility was completely altered, adding a new road course similar to the original but with some minor modifications. Low-glare lighting was added to the track along with brand new safety barriers and a number of other upgrades. The track hosted an ARCA REMAX Series event and several drag racing events.

The facility again hosted the show "Pinks All Out" on March 6, 2010.The facility also host a wide variety of motorsports events, including "Mud Bog" – an event for ATV and off road enthusiasts – CCS, Radical East USA's racing school, Skip Barber Racing School, the Ferrari Cavallino Classic, Porsche BMW Owner's Club (PBOC) and the Florida Sports Car Championship - Street Survival which teaches teenagers the driving skills necessary to survive on today's roadways.

The storied history of the track isn’t lost on legendary racer Darrell Gwynn, a Miami native, and former racer at PBIR. Gwynn is former NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster World Champion and was voted one of NHRA’s “50 Greatest Drivers of All-Time.”

“I’m there fighting too, and we are all going to fight and get our act together and fight at the September meeting,” Gwynn said in an interview with CompetitionPlus.com. “Myself, and (Joe) Amato everybody who can. I was there when PBIR opened in the 1960s with my dad (Jerry). My dad raced race there for years and years. I’ve seen everything at West Palm over my lifetime. 

“The saddest thing, (is) between Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties there are probably 10 million people down here. For all these people to not have a place to go because (they want there to be a massive warehouse) where PBIR is.”

Gwynn elaborated on his concerns of the possibility of PBIR closing.

“I have several thoughts on it,” Gwynn said. “You can buy these 900 horsepower cars off the showroom floor now. Everybody makes their own high-horsepower car and all you have to do is have a driver’s license to drive one. They didn’t sell those kinds of cars when I was a kid. You had to really soup one up to get it to go fast. What I wanted to say to the commissioners (at the April 7) meeting is you people drove up here in cars that probably are 200 horsepower. Do you want these kids with 800 to 1000 horsepower cars off the showroom floor driving in the streets? I certainly don’t.”
    
Gwynn’s driving career ended when his Top Fuel dragster crashed during a practice run at Santa Pod Strip in Bedford, England on April 15, 1990.

Gwynn was paralyzed from the chest down, had to have his left arm amputated and easily could have died from his numerous injuries.

“Basically, just leave us alone. We're not hurting anybody, and we're saving lives,” Gwynn said about PBIR. “We do have the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department on our side because they know what the alternative will be if they close that place down. They are going to have lots of deaths, so they don't want it.

“(Also) forget about the passion that everybody has for motorsports. It's (about) safety, its environmental. You're (also) taking away livelihoods and an industry of small businesses down here in racing that sell everything from transmissions to safety equipment. We got RJS down here, we got a trans company down here. We got a lot of people who service the racers down here that would just go out of business.”

Castello concurred with Gwynn.

“The track is still a beautiful facility,” Castello said. “They still do events, and this place could make money and be a real estate investment for the next person down the road. It's on 186 acres. This is Florida. This is a real desirable location. To lose this facility is going to be a big problem for the community. There's a lot of fast cars, there's a lot of stuff going on.

In Miami, it takes an hour 45 minutes to go anywhere. It's like, ‘Oh my God, we're going to go an hour 45 minutes.’ but people do and did for 60 years (to PBIR). When we had Miami Hollywood Speedway, you didn't have to go because you had a track closer. We lost that track in 1992.”

Gwynn concluded with these simple thoughts:

“I go back to why drag racing was founded,” he said. “It was founded by Wally Parks, and it was because people were street racing. You know, bandits in California and all these people. So, they organized to get these guys off the street. And now it's like full circle, 60 years ago. It's like some of this stuff's getting taken away. If it made sense 60 years ago, it's going to make sense today.”