Additional changes, purses planned for Redwood Acres Raceway

By barstoolfanatics on October 8, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Photo by Sherie Bialous

By Ray Hamill — The Redwood Acres Raceway recently closed out a very successful 2021 season, and track officials are already planning for next year, with some big additions in the works.

Most notably, the pit area will be expanded to include an additional 30 cars in time for 2022, and a massive $10,000 purse will be up for grabs in the new Rhododendron 100.

“It’s really, really going well,” said board member Jim Redd, who is a part of Redwoods Acres Raceway LLC, which took over operations at the local track in January of last year. “We ended up with a bang. We had so many cars in the pit (on the final weekend), we had overflow parking.”

The pit area accommodates 70 cars, but with increased purses and interest this year, 85 cars singed up to compete on the season-ending weekend.

The track will increase the capacity to 100 cars in time for next year’s season opener in April.

A late purse of $5K was also offered in the Late Model division for the final weekend, with a sizable field of 16 cars showing up.

According to Redd, a businessman has already put up a purse of $10K for next year’s inaugural Rhododendron 100 for the Late Models.

“That’s exciting,” Redd said. “That will bring cars from all over the West Coast for that purse.”

Other improvements planned for the offseason include adding bleachers between turns one and two, while the track will officially take over the pit area shop and will be adding a new set of bathrooms and showers in the pit area.

The planned improvements are just the latest round of changes Redwoods Acres Raceway LLC has implemented since taking charge, changes which have also included a new state-of-the-art scoreboard installed last year.

“We’re not taking a dime out of it,” Redd said. “Every bit of money we make we are putting back into the race track.”

And that’s something that local fans and drivers seem to appreciate.

“The response is overwhelmingly positive,” said Redd, who added that a number of visiting fans have told him Redwood Acres is now their favorite track. “(The drivers) all love it. They loved having fans back this year and they like what we’re doing and how we’re putting the money back into the race track.”

They also seem to like the additional purses being offered, with all five divisions benefiting from that this year.

While there was limited capacity for some of the events this season because of COVID protocols, the 2021 season featured 3,000 spectators in attendance for one night late in the season and more than 2,000 showing up for the season finale.

The local raceway will officially close out the season at the annual awards banquet on Nov. 7.

The event will be held at the Elk Lodge in Eureka and will get under way at 4 p.m.