Riverside Motorsports Park was a proposed , motorsports-themed family entertainment park to be built in

Merced County, California Merced County ( ), is a county located in the northern San Joaquin Valley section of the Central Valley, in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 281,202. The county seat is Merced. The county is named after ...

. The name "Riverside Motorsports Park" was not derived from its location (which was miles from the nearest river). Instead, the name was derived from the configuration of the park's -mile Road Course, which would have replicated, as closely as possible (given current track safety requirements), the road course at the

Riverside International Raceway Riverside International Raceway (sometimes known as Riverside, RIR, or Riverside Raceway) was a motorsports race track and road course established in the Edgemont area of Riverside County, California, just east of the city limits of Riverside ...

(

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...

) that closed in 1989. The RMP site was next to the former

Castle Air Force Base Castle Air Force Base (Castle AFB, 1941–1995) is a former United States Air Force Strategic Air Command base in California, located northeast of Atwater, northwest of Merced, and about south of Sacramento. The Central Valley base in uni ...

, which is now operated as

Castle Airport Castle Airport is a public airport in unincorporated Merced County, California, northwest of Merced. The airport is operated by the Merced County Department of Commerce, Aviation, and Economic Development. It is owned jointly by the city of Me ...

Project cancellation

In February 2008, a lawsuit filed against RMP and Merced County by the Merced County Farm Bureau and three environmental groups resulted in the cancellation of the park's 2006 construction approval. The suit alleged that the county violated the

California Environmental Quality Act The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California statute passed in 1970 and signed in to law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), t ...

when the Board of Supervisors approved plans for RMP in December 2006. The groups claimed the county failed to adequately study how the project would affect the environment. On July 15, 2009, track officials told investors that RMP had "ceased operations", citing that the property was in foreclosure and that the company owed more money on the property than what it was worth at the time.

Project scope

The park would have featured multiple racetracks for every form of automobile, truck, motorcycle and kart racing. With multiple venues, the facility would have offered simultaneous, weekend-long motorsports events, meeting the needs of professional and club racing sanctioning organizations across the United States. The Park would have been a landscaped environment complete with RV facilities, picnic grounds, family restaurants, video and game arcades, playgrounds, and clean, attended restrooms. In addition to motorsports events, the park would have featured technical motorsports schools, music concerts, car shows, and business center events.

Proposed tracks

* multi-configuration

road course Road racing is a form of motorsport racing held on a paved road surface. The races can be held either on a closed circuit or on a street circuit utilizing temporarily closed public roads. Originally, road races were held almost entirely on publ ...

(closely resembling the former

) * World class 7/8-mile paved oval

speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta *Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a motor raceway in Speedway, Indiana Types of races and race cours ...

* Integrated 1/3 and 1/2 mile paved oval tracks * 1/4 mile;

dragstrip A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing. Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201&n ...

* World class 3/4 mile

karting Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on f ...

course * off-road circuit * 3/8 mile dirt oval track * 1/2 mile

motocross Motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The sport evolved from motorcycle trials competitions held in the United Kingdom. History Motocross first evolved in Britain from motorcycle trials competi ...

course, with integrated 1/8 mile BMX track

RMP founders and supporters

The Riverside Motorsports Park, LLC was founded in 2000 by John Condren, an entrepreneur and businessman whose background also includes more than 30 years in amateur and professional motorsports racing. The Riverside Motorsports Park development proposal was submitted to Merced County in August 2003, approved for development in December 2006, and cancelled in February 2008. Condren was the subject of a feature article in the ''

Merced Sun-Star The ''Merced Sun-Star'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper printed in Merced, California, in the United States. It has an estimated circulation of 20,000 copies. The newspaper is published every day except for Sundays. History The ''Merced Sun-Sta ...

's'' January 27, 2007 issue. The ''Sun-Star'' reported that Condren's biographical information on the RMP website was exaggerated. The ''Sun-Star'' also reported that Condren had a history of bankruptcies and unpaid debts. In April 2007, the 1989

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...

Premier Series Champion,

Rusty Wallace Russell William "Rusty" Wallace Jr. (born August 14, 1956) is an American former NASCAR racing driver. He has won the 1984 NASCAR Cup series Rookie of the Year and the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship. Over the course of his successful care ...

, joined the project to provide track design enhancement engineering to the eight world-class motorsports venues within the RMP facility. Wallace commented:

"Riverside Motorsports Park is definitely one of the most distinctive design concepts in recent motorsports history, and ... definitely a project with which I am very excited to join forces."

The project also had the support of Stone & Youngberg LLC (

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

), the Fluor Corporation (

Aliso Viejo, California Aliso Viejo (Spanish for "Old Sycamore") is a city in the San Joaquin Hills of southern Orange County, California. It had a population of 47,823 as of the 2010 census, up from 40,166 as of the 2000 census. It became Orange County's 34th city on ...

), Granite Construction Company (

Watsonville, California Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, located in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 according to the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Predomi ...

), Golden Valley Engineering (Merced, California), Rex Moore Electric (

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

), and Wood Rodgers Engineering (Sacramento). The Environmental Impact Report (EIR), completed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and certified by the Merced County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors in December 2006, was completed by EDAW, Inc. (Sacramento). Architectural engineering (including racetrack design) was being coordinated by Paxton Waters, AIA (

Carmel, Indiana Carmel is a suburban city in Indiana immediately north of Indianapolis. With a population of 100,777, the city spans across Clay Township in Hamilton County, Indiana, and is bordered by the White River to the east; the Hamilton-Boone county ...

), with additional racetrack engineering support from Alan Wilson (Monument, Colorado).

References

External links