NJ Town Wants to Build 600 Houses on Historic Race Track’s Land
We see it all too often these days, but yet another local racing institution is under threat of being dismantled for housing expansion. This time it’s Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey. Due to the state’s affordable housing directive, the township must identify sites to develop new homes, and one of them is a southeast tract of the 534-acre Raceway Park venue.
A plan under consideration would raise as many as 600 units on the property, which first opened in 1965 and is historically best known for drag racing. Raceway Park ceased drag racing in 2018 due to rising costs, but still operates a road course and motocross track, and holds karting and drifting events, including a round of the Formula Drift championship. Just 50% of the land is considered viable for development due to environmental factors, MyCentralJersey reports, and the proposal would supposedly leave behind space for some kind of motorsport facility, as well as other commercial and retail uses.
This is not Raceway Park’s first brush with redevelopment. Back in 2023, the Old Bridge Township Council attempted to move forward with a plan to rezone a portion of the land for single-family homes. The track sued the town, with Raceway Park’s attorney at the time telling MyCentralJersey that the “ordinance is looking to rob them of their use of that property and basically zone it into disuse.” A small public airport also sits beside the track.
