Auto Racing
While Philadelphia does not currently host any professional automobile racing, midget car racing was popular during the 1930s and '40s. The two major tracks were Yellow Jacket Speedway, which closed in 1950, and National Speedway, which closed during World War II as a result of fuel rationing. Races were sanctioned by the American Automobile Association.
In 2005, the Champ Car World Series began negotiating with the city to organize a race. Several locations for a street course were discussed including the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Fairmount Park, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, but no agreement could be reached.
Philadelphia is in close proximity to Dover International Speedway, Pocono Raceway, and the defunct Langhorne Speedway, Nazareth Speedway and Flemington Speedway.
Read more about this topic: Sports In Philadelphia
Famous quotes containing the word racing:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)