Ghost Tracks
By Peter Hylton
As “civilization” begins to encroach more and more, on what were once rural areas, racetracks in those areas are often driven to closure by a combination of noise problems and elevated land values. As a result, a great number of road racing facilities in the United States have opened and closed over the past 50 years; sadly, with many more sure to fall by the wayside. Recently, several books and magazine articles have begun to examine and analyze the history of many of these now-forgotten facilities.
Peter Hylton, as archivist and historian for the SCCA, was asked to do an article for the SCCA club magazine Sports Car, on this very topic in 2001. The result ended up becoming a series of articles chronicling these lost American circuits. In Ghost Tracks these articles have been collected and reprinted with a few additional chapters on the history of purpose-built racetracks and safety. Overall, the book does a good job of recognizing the vast majority of dead road racing facilities in the U.S. But since the book has been produced as a collection of individual articles written over a number of years, it lacks some of the organization and consistency that might have been given the subject had it originally been intended as a bespoke book. As a result, some tracks receive fairly in-depth histories with reasonable supporting photography, while some receive more superficial histories and suffer poor supporting photography.
If you’re looking for a broad overview of lost American tracks, this book will be a welcome resource, but you may be disappointed if you’re looking for more in-depth histories or photographs of your favorite “ghost track.”
Available for US$31.45 directly from the publisher at www.legacyinkpublishing.com
