New Jersey’s Raceway Park Shuts Down Drag Racing Track

Phil Stilton

OLD BRIDGE-Drag racing at one of the country’s most famous tracks will be no more according to a press release issued this week by Raceway Park.

“Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, the Napp family owned and operated business announced today a reorganization of the company’s business operations. To achieve this goal, Raceway Park will no longer conduct quarter mile or eighth mile drag racing events effective immediately,” the family said in a release.

Raceway Park will retain and use the “stadium” portion of the facility including the VIP hospitality tower and grandstands and continue most of its operations including the spring and fall auto swap meets, numerous car shows, both motocross racing and practice, kart racing, as well as drifting, a full schedule of road course activities, mud runs, monster truck shows, musical concerts, & festival events and more. The long standing Old Bridge Township Airport, owned and operated by Raceway Park will also continue to operate as normal.


The new reorganization reflects the company’s plan moving forward beginning in 2018 while allowing Raceway Park to still continue to operate as it has in the past with the exception of drag racing.

The Napp family wishes to express their most sincere gratitude to the NHRA, and the many thousands of racers and fans, without whom would have never allowed Raceway Park to become the iconic and nationally recognized drag racing facility it has over the past five decades. The Napp family would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the employees that have served our drag racing customers so well over the previous years. It is with a great sadness that the Napp family is discontinuing drag racing, however the family looks forward to continuing to provide the best outdoor events in this new era of Raceway Park.

Raceway Park has been a family owned and operated business since its opening on July 4th 1965. For the past fifty two years the Napp family has focused on presenting the very best in fast family fun that includes NHRA sanctioned drag racing events, AMA sanctioned motocross racing, motocross practice, auto swap meets, auto shows, top rated drifting events, competition karting events, alternative motorsport and lifestyle events, athletic endurance events, history making concerts and music festivals and much more.

Yesterday Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J., informed NHRA that it will no longer host any drag racing events at its facility, effective immediately. This includes the 49th annual NHRA Summernationals, scheduled to take place this June.

“NHRA drag racing events have been held at the track in Englishtown for almost 50 years,” said NHRA president Glen Cromwell. “The Summernationals have played an important part in our heritage and we hope that fans in the area will try to make it to another one of our events.  Our focus remains on making the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series a memorable experience for our fans, racers, sponsors, partners and tracks.”

You appear to be using an ad blocker

Shore News Network is a free website that does not use paywalls or charge for access to original, breaking news content. In order to provide this free service, we rely on advertisements. Please support our journalism by disabling your ad blocker for this website.