Go Fund Me to Save Yakima Speedway Only Needs $9,999,915 More

A local man is doing his best to help save Yakima Speedway by staring a fundraising page online at GoFundMe.com.
Organizer John J. Ryan stated his plea on the page, "With sadness Doug Betteral has informed us race fans and race families that the track is closed for good. No way am I going to let that happen. I want to raise the 10 million needed to buy the property for Doug. Let's all chip in no amount too small. Let's save our home track from being demolished and turned into hotels and shopping centers. I have learned so much about racing here and I want to teach my grandkids and take them so some food small town racing."

Dating back to the Summer of 2018, track owner Ted Pollack was actively searching for a buyer and was asking $9 million even then.

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With a goal of generating $10 million via grassroots donations, the effort, created on March 5th, 2021 -- as of this writing -- is short by $9,999,915.
If you would like to chip in, click on the widget below for further directions.

Yakima Speedway has quite a storied past to be sure. Opening 64 years ago in 1956, besides hosting regular racing action and demolition derbies, the half-mile oval also hosted a jump by legendary daredevil Evel Knievel back in 1970. It was also a concert venue at times with such iconic acts like Heart, Motorhead and even Pablo Cruise. I don't recall that era but many others do as evidenced by some of the comments on our Facebook page.

Definitely a bummer if it does, indeed, stay shuttered for good as the state of Washington has a great tradition in its own way of producing top-notch auto racers, like Greg Biffle (Vancouver), Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope, Kasey Kahne (Enumclaw), Chad Little (Spokane), Indianapolis 500 champion Tom Sneva (Spokane) and even Olympic skiing gold medal-winner Phil Mahre and TV/movie star Craig T. Nelson.