Shangri-La Speedway
Shangri-La Speedway was a half-mile oval race track in Owego, New York. The facility also included an eighth-mile drag strip and a tenth-mile oval track for microds. Its formal name was changed to Shangri-La Motor Speedway and to Tioga Motorsports Park, but most racers and fans still referred to it as "Shangri-La".
Overview
Over a span of fifty years, Shangri-La hosted automobile races of various kinds, AAA Championship Cars, stock cars, Modifieds, Supermodifieds, and supporting classes. Shangri-La's weekly racing was widely considered among the best in the sport during several different periods, including years when nine-time NASCAR National Modified Champion Richie Evans and six-time NASCAR National Modified Champion Jerry Cook were regulars.The speedway hosted one NASCAR Cup Series event in 1952 and the race was won by Tim Flock.
In August 1991, longtime NASCAR independent driver J.D. McDuffie won a celebrity race at the track. This occurred just one day prior to his fatal racing accident in the Bud at the Glen at Watkins Glen International.
Track history
Shangri-La Speedway was opened in 1946 by Bill Owen, who planned and built the track with help of family members. It was closed in 1956 due to neglect and small crowds but then briefly re-opened in 1959 by a group of area drag racers; after a few events it closed in the same year. It was again re-opened in 1962 by Fran Gitchell and operated by the Zacharias family from 2002 until 2005 when it was shut down to allow gravel mining from the property. Nothing remains of the track itself, and the grandstands and buildings were demolished.A replacement track in nearby Tioga Center, known as Shangri-La II Speedway, opened in 2009.
Weekly featured division and sanctioning body
- 1946–48: ESRA Sprints
- 1949: ESRA Sprints and unsanctioned Stock Cars
- 1950–56: unsanctioned Stock Cars
- 1959: NASCAR drag racing
- 1962–64: unsanctioned Supermodifieds and Modifieds
- 1965–72: unsanctioned Modifieds
- 1973–75: NASCAR National Modified
- 1976–78: NEARA Modifieds
- 1979–2000: NASCAR National Modified
- 2001–2005: unsanctioned Modifieds
Visits by major touring series
- 1946–48: AAA Championship Cars, AAA Sprint Cars
- 1952: NASCAR Grand National Series
- 1970: All-Star Racing League
- 1979–91: ISMA Supermodifieds
- 1987–88: American Indycar Series
- 1987–88, 1995–97: NASCAR Busch North Series
- 1985–89, 1994: NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour