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Lol “moto journalist”.
Don’t hold your breath on the industry protecting places to ride.
RacerX will surely sell a story about Lake Elsinore history one day…
https://www.instagram.com/p/DB_-es0xYmC/?igsh=MTAzdGE2eDdtZzc2cg==
The people in the link you posted have absolutely zero to do with the track and have not for many years. Pat Fowler is the current lessee, along with Jeanette Livesay Chennette and Dennis Rickets.
Pat Fowler along with Jeanette Livesay Chennette and Dennis Rickets.
Yeah like i said, i don't have all of the facts. I came across that earlier today and wasn't sure if the track had been sub-leased to the current lessee.
The rest of it makes sense, though. I know someone that's been working their ass off on the flat track the last few months, i doubt the track operators would bother doing that knowing they were going to shut down... It's common knowledge that Fowler was running things as of late.
If you know them so well, why don't you call and ask them wtf is really going on then??
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One "Guess" I read was the water bill wasn't paid for 9+ months and the landowner is over it. Lots of guessing going on though... "If" that's true I could see the death of a child being the final straw. All guesses though.
Having a 9yr old killed by a 13yr old on my land or track is a very good reason to throw in the towel. Everyone else can go ride somewhere else. Let it go!!! Its none of your business. Put yourselves in the peoples shoes whose lives will never be the same. Geez!!
Wasn’t Dennis the person operating before Pat and Jeanette? Btw Jeanette and Paul haven’t been involve in the track for over a year I think.
It might take a while until we really know what really happened.
The land owner is South Point Casino I’m pretty sure and they want to sell the land to a housing developers but they can’t get permits to build unless they raise the ground because it’s in a flood zone. It can only be filled with local dirt and there isn’t enough dirt to do that and it’s a costly process. When they build summerly they dug all the dirt out of the golf course but it will not be possible to do something similar apparently.
The amazon project will probably never happen either because of the dirt thing and also the road infrastructure isn’t adapted to have trucks 24/7. It would be too much traffic, there is a school nearby. Their other option was to bulldoze some old homes and build a new freeway exit but doesn’t seem like it will happen either. The city and neighbors didn’t want that.
But anyway we hear also of things/rumors but it’s hard to know what’s right or wrong.
Wouldn’t they just shut the water off long before it got to 9 months of not being paid?
This morning when I pulled in to pick up more equipment and meet Aaron from swap there were attorneys and people taking video and pictures of the track. It was never my intent for the family to be harassed and if they are it needs to stop immediately I could not imagine the pain of losing a child
Its not South Point Casino
Isn't this like the third time it has closed? Hopefully it comes back again.
Oh yes sorry I got confused with the names north point, south point. So it’s North Point Development right? I remember reading something like they bought 300 acres in that area.
Yes North Point, they are a real estate development company, they are not affiliated with Amazon although Amazon does rent some of their warehouses from them
Hopefully if you’re still willing to operate a track the city of Elsinore can offer a relocation plan if they find the appropriate land. Seems like it’s important for the city and the mayor agree.
This whole situation is sad. Condolences from the moto community to the family of the little girl who passed away. They sound like enthusiasts and I am not convinced they are the reason the track has closed... Davey wrote a good overview of the story thus far in this week's Racerhead: https://racerxonline.com/2024/11/08/racerhead-45
The Lake Elsinore Saga (DC)
"The past few years have not been kind to the Lake Elsinore track (LEMX), as seemingly constant rumors swirled around SoCal that it was closing for good. Earlier this year a terrible tragedy occurred at LEMX when someone on a full-sized motorcycle rode out onto the kid's pee-wee track and fatally struck a 9-year-old girl who was out riding on her 50 (this after he was apparently told to get off the kids' track twice). That seemed to be the beginning of the end. There was one more race weekend set—this coming weekend—for the 56th and final Lake Elsinore Grand Prix, plus the Jeremy McGrath Holeshot King event, which was set for today, and then the place was to be closed for good. Unfortunately, the track operators posted last Sunday that the whole weekend was a no-go due to pending litigation over the death of the young girl.
The whole saga then took a turn for the worse when the Editor-at-Large of Roadracing World (which is located not far from LEMX) named Michael Gougis posted, “An electronic search of the civil cases filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Riverside (where Lake Elsinore is located), revealed no litigation with the name of the deceased child. There were no civil cases with the child’s last name and the name of the track, and the last case with the track’s name was filed in 2017.”
A follow-up by Roadracing World stated that the LEMX operator contacted them to say that they had been served papers, but a friend of the girl's family posted on the Vital MX Forum that they had not sued anyone, leading to more confusion.
This past Tuesday it was posted on social media that the upcoming Lake Elsinore Grand Prix had been canceled completely, which led the Mayor of the Lake Elsinore, Steve Manos, to post on Facebook that the city did not know about the sudden closure, and they were not party to any lawsuit involving the girl's family, and that there was no plan to put anything else on the site for the foreseeable future (an Amazon warehouse project had fallen through a couple of years ago). He closed his message with his: "Motocross is part of the DNA of the City of Lake Elsinore. It’s part of the reason we adopted the 'Dream Extreme' motto. Not a good day.... This is a loss for the operator, land owner, City residents, and… most of all… the family for the little girl that lost her life. Just a tragedy all around."
Jeremy McGrath, who like a lot of people growing up in the area spent a lot of time riding at Lake Elsinore, posted on Instagram, "We are extremely disappointed that the 2024 Elsinore GP will be canceled. The landowners cannot come to terms with management. We were blindsided by this information, we just received this notification days ago. We did absolutely everything in our power to make arrangements and proceed with the event. We cannot put our riders in a bad situation or have families traveling to an event that’s not 100% to our standards. The city of Lake Elsinore has nothing to do with this situation, it is strictly the landowners. We will start issuing refunds immediately to those that pre-registered. We apologize, but there was nothing we could do to save the (Lake) Elsinore GP."
McGrath's close friend Lawrence Lewis was helping organize the whole event and posted a similar message on his @elsinore_gp account. The track itself seems to have closed their @lake.elsinore.motorsports.park account.
What a strange, confusing and just plain sad ending to one of the best-known motorcycle events in the history of our sport.
The whole Lake Elsinore saga was picked up by national news outlets, including CBS News and USA Today."
I’m sure we’ll never hear the real story. I have no idea who operated the track at the end, but I do know that there have been some shady characters involved in the past.
Ya they also didn’t pay rent or equipment rentals. There’s a lien on the property from Sunbelt. Even though it’s reportedly been sold.
Give it a month or 2 and it will be back open.
This is from Bob Magee, a Lake Elsinore City Council member:
I would like to take just a minute to address the recent closure of our Motocross Park and last weekend’s cancellation of the Historic Grand Prix race. As is often the case the internet has been filled with misinformation, wild accusations and even threats in the aftermath of the closing of our park. I would like to set the record straight and talk about the future.
The Park was operated under a lease agreement with the property owner, this is the fourth owner and third operator since the park was permitted in 1999. The property owner is in escrow to sell the property and has terminated the operator’s lease. As part of that termination, the property owner also cancelled the Historic Lake Elsinore Grand Prix.
Motorsports and the Grand Prix have been a part of our history since the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) sanctioned their very first race, right here in Lake Elsinore in 1968. Inspired by the event and the 1971 film On Any Sunday, the Honda Motorcycle Company created the Honda Elsinore motorcycle. The Gold Standard for motocross at the time.
Over the years the Grand Prix has struggled to maintain consistency as our population grew, property owners began developing vacant land and environmentalists sought to protect scrub land that had been ridden on for decades. The City of Lake Elsinore has always sought to partner with event promotors to keep this classic alive, and on four separate occasions the event was run entirely within the confines of the Motorsports Park. After last years’ race both myself and the Chamber of Commerce reached out to the promotor to offer our assistance in planning the next event. I even provided a map illustrating a race route that would allow for some street racing outside of the Park. Our overtures were rebuffed and the promoter did not want to expand the footprint of the race.
The closure of the park and cancellation of the race were both private sector business decisions that did not involve City staff or the City Council. We have always supported this activity and feel the loss along with so many others. Since the closure I have been contacted by a number of operators who would like to keep the venue alive. Once escrow closes and I am introduced to the new landowners I will make the case for continued active outdoor recreation – Including motor sports -- in the back basin. While the permit is still alive, the City cannot force a landowner to reopen the park.
This Council respects property owner rights, but we also have a high regard for our City’s history and a deep desire to maintain that history. Anyone with an interest in promoting, permitting and running our Grand Prix next year should contact anyone of us on the Council or our staff and we will work with you to preserve and protect this historic event. As to the Track, we will wait to see what the new owners want to do.
Pit Row
Randy Hiner operated the track in the early 2000's - That guy was whacked out.
I'll never forget the water truck drivers they hired, blew through the pits at 30 to 40 MPH, not even watching where they sprayed water - peoples pits, their cars, their bikes, just about everywhere but the track. Rumor was one of them hit a kid on a mini with the truck, but I never saw it myself.
I was there the day a skydiver was killed when her chute didn't open and she landed on the vet track while riders were on track, 2002 or 2003 I believe?
Broke my Tib/FIB in 12 places there in 02 - Crashed on the wet clay, and tried to get up before noticing that my foot was turned completely backward 😵 - I think Guy B did the same thing to his leg in the same spot a month later...
It was the wild west back then at that place, you really had to keep your head on a swivel. If you have been around long enough in SoCal, you probably have an Elsinore story...
I'll say it again - that track is like a radioactive cockroach - you simply can't kill it off, it will come back one of these days for the fifth or sixth time...
Wow, almost sounds like you want the track to never come back, sad…
Raise your hand if you ever thought you'd hear government fighting for a riding area to stay open...
That was my buddies grandma, jumpin Judy.
I feel you bro. Elsinore is motocross mecca, too iconic to go away forever. The track will be back and better than ever soon.
Sounds like it has more to do with it being an undevelopable floodplain preventing it from being useful for anything other than MX.
You are incorrect, that land is zoned for development with the main criteria being that the area that will have buildings on it must be elevated above the flood plain just like all the houses are by the truck track, but the cost to do this is high which eats up all the profit for a housing developer or for anyone else to develop it and make a reasonable profit on it. Amazon has money to burn and wasn't buying it to build on it and sell it so they dodn't care so much about having the expense of elevating the land to build on it.
That’s the owner I was referring to without mentioning their name. I haven’t been in the area for over a decade now, so I don’t really know what’s going on currently, but it obviously wasn’t Kosher.
The cost to develop being greater than the return = undevelopable, from a numbers standpoint. Also, it was stated earlier or in a related article that the amount and type of approved dirt required to raise the level literally does not exist. Again = undevelopable. Therefore, it is in the city's best interest to keep some money generating business there that can be in a floodplain, such as MX.
...from my understanding, the City of Lake Elsinore denied a permit for large warehouses on that property, primarily due to the roads in and out are not adequate to handle high volume truck traffic, and that the roads that do exist pass through residential areas.
Cheers to the Lake Elsinore city management for understanding the legacy of their city as it relates to off road dirt bikes.
No he speaks the truth. LE was wild when Hiner ran it but, if you rode there in the early days and remember those huge combo tables they were built by his kid Brandon. He built some massive hits that were actually safe...as long as you were comfortable jumping in a 20 mph cross wind.
Thats where I learned what it sounds like when spokes break from landing hard.
I remember those jumps, completely stayed away from them but had a lot of fun on the GFI track.
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