NASCAR: What happened to Canadian Motor Speedway?

Many years ago, there were plans to announce a race track in Fort Erie, Ontario for NASCAR and other forms of motorsports. What’s going on with it today?

If you’re someone who follows NASCAR and live in the Western part of New York like me, it is likely that if you do go to at least one race a year, you go to Watkins Glen International for the Go Bowling at the Glen weekend.

Depending on where you live, it is usually a two to three-hour road trip down to the 607 in the famous wine country to one of NASCAR’s few road courses.

But just over 10 years ago, you would’ve had a chance to make a quicker trip north of border in Fort Erie, Ontario, just a few miles outside of Buffalo, New York, to Canadian Motor Speedway.

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In 2009, the project was introduced to the public, with approvals and recommendations by the Town of Fort Erie Council and Regional of Niagara coming just months later.

The track’s design was led by four-time Cup Series champion and Fox analyst Jeff Gordon.

It was supposed to be a four-turn, 0.75-mile (1.207-kilometer) oval, like Richmond Raceway, with progressive banking and the latest innovations in design and safety, including seating for 65,000 spectators and your vital necessities in a NASCAR race track: garages, an infield care center and a media center.

A road course was also planned to meet FIM/FIA specifications with multiple configurations of up to two miles that featured the track going through tunnels, taking drivers into the infield and outside of the race track.

Configurations could fit many forms of racing besides NASCAR, such as open-wheel racing, karting, motorcycle racing, etc. If NASCAR were able to race there, it would be the first time a Cup car has touched tires on international pavement since 1998 when the sport went to Japan for an exhibition race at Twin Ring Motegi.

So what’s up with it? Why is it taking so long to develop this race track?

The track is currently stuck in development hell. The term is jargon for a concept that means that it has remained in development for a long time. These projects haven’t been officially canceled, but progress has slowed, changed, and/or stopped completely.

That is what is going on with Canadian Motor Speedway.

In 2016, there was a failed land purchase that delayed the speedway project so that they could not officially break ground. Reports stated that the developers would have a building permit in 2017 without a completion date.

Fort Erie mayor Wayne Redekop told Buffalo radio station WBFO that a chance for the speedway to open would be in 2018 or 2019.

But in April of 2018, development stalled again. Developers refused to build the track unless a new exit ramp was constructed for the track off of the Queen Elizabeth Way. The highway would be adjacent to the racetrack. But the Ontario government opposed the idea.

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So now what’s next for the track? The speedway doesn’t have that much time to file for a building permit. According to James Culic of the Niagara This Week, they have until Sunday, September 13 to file for a permit, or the speedway’s zoning waiver will expire.

If nothing is filed, the project will be canceled and the land used for the track will return to agricultural purposes. The project would officially be declared dead.

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