Whiteland Park has been around since 1958… Not long after the first kart appeared at the Rose Bowl parking lot in 1956
A team including former IndyCar driver Sarah Fisher has acquired Whiteland Raceway Park in a last-ditch effort to prevent the karting track from being bulldozed.
Fisher, her husband and business partner Andy O’Gara, and businessman Willis “Wink” Hartman announced Friday that they bought the aging track from Mike Swails and plan to renovate it. Hartman has been a longtime investor in Fisher’s racing efforts.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The new owners said a real estate developer had been prepared to buy the property for another use.
“When Andy called to tell me that Mike had offered us the purchase of WRP, we immediately agreed that investing in the karting community by reconditioning the facility was an obvious decision,” Fisher said in a written statement.
WRP, founded in 1958, bills itself as “America’s oldest kart track.”
“First and foremost, please know that our ultimate goal is to restore Whiteland Raceway Park to its former glory,” the new owners said on Facebook. “We want to preserve the history and heritage of WRP while bringing new life to the facility.”
The owners said WRP will continue to operate throughout the remainder of the 2018 season. Three races and a number of open practice days remain on the schedule. The Sept. 22 race will be rescheduled so renovation efforts can begin.
Fisher and O’Gara also own Speedway Indoor Karting, just blocks from Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, which opened in 2016.
Whiteland Raceway Park is now under new ownership! We know you have a lot of questions and we will do our best to answer them, but please be patient with us as we work through everything.
First and foremost please know that our ultimate goal is to restore Whiteland Raceway Park to its former glory. We want to preserve the history and heritage of WRP while bringing new life to the facility.
We can’t thank everyone enough for their support through this process. We are hopeful to have open practice days by the end of the month and have every intention of keeping the final two races on the schedule as is! We want to start with our best foot forward. That being said we will have to reschedule the Sept. 22 race as we begin the revitalization process but will have a new date coming soon.
In the interim we will be making the following enhancements to WRP:
Filling cracks in the track, resealing and striping all surfaces throughout the pits and the racing areas.
Painting all entry and exit curbing.
Rebuilding the banked turn wall.
Replacing all flags.
Clearing weeds and overgrowth with a multi-person crew.
Expanding parking to include the back straight.
Adding multiple triaxle loads of new gravel to clean up parking near the main building.
Scrapping multiple loads of metal and misc material to clean up around the main building and track entrance.
Removing all white tire filled bags and properly disposing of several thousand tires and installing newer, cleaner crash structures throughout the facility.
Repairing and painting fences.
Repairing bleachers.
Repainting flag stand.
Installing new light bulbs around track as needed.
Installing multiple new picnic tables & umbrellas for more seating options.
Installing a newer electronic timing system
Working to build a new in-ground, roll-on kart scaling system
Working to build a solid supply of on-site and in-house kart parts for our racers.
Updating all sponsorship logos and graphics throughout the pit area.
This is just the beginning! If you see us out and the gates are open please feel free to stop by and check it out for yourself!
Details on the Oct 13th and Oct 27th races will be released in the coming days but there is some very exciting stuff in the works here!
We will posting prices and other details soon but be on the lookout for discounted standard rates for the remainder of the 2018 season.
We will do our best to keep everyone posted and to answer any questions throughout this process. Please be patient for us though. We are working very hard and want nothing for the best for Whiteland Raceway Park.
Wow! We are so overwhelmed and amazed with all of your kind words and comments over the weekend! We ask that you continue to be patient with us as we sift through all of them and try and answer as many questions as possible.
We have answers to a few of the most commonly asked questions below. If we haven’t answered your question yet, please feel free to comment again or send us a message. We may or may not have a concrete answer for you yet, but we promise we are working on it.
Also check out some updated photos of the track after it was seal coated over the weekend.
Open practice schedule as of now:
9/29 from 10am-10pm
9/30 from 10am to 8pm
10/6 from 10am to 10pm
10/7 from 10am to 8pm
10/14 from 10am to 8pm
We are racing on 10/13.
We unfortunately have a conflict with the 10/27 endurance race date so that will be rescheduled for 10/20 or 11/3. We will post an updated schedule to discuss the potential rescheduling of the 9/22 race and other open practice dates.
We are looking to host SuperMoto bikes again as well. Still ironing out the details with the insurance, etc - but stay posted. We’d love to have you all for open practice and non-conflicting race dates!
We are working on restrooms and lighting! This is a priority for us. We want everyone to feel welcome and want a clean, safe, family environment everywhere around the facility. We will likely do this in 2 stages. One, a quicker measure to get through the remaining 2018 season and then a full refurb prior to the kick-off of 2019.
The remaining events for 2018 will start mid to late Saturday afternoon and the racing for the night will be under the lights just like they did it back in the day!
We are looking to host separate 1/4 Midget events on the oval, just working thru everything, again please stay tuned for details.
Classes of all ages and size will be welcome! We want and need everyone to come back to the facility that we all love! Entry forms and class details for the 10/13 race will be posted soon!
Rental Karts will definitely be returning to the facility. We are hopeful to have a newer CRG / Honda fleet in place within the next 4-6 weeks. But again we want to do it the right way. We are focusing primarily on 2019. We want you all to have the best, safest equipment possible!
We welcome the vintage karters as well! That is where our family started and we love to see those machines on track!
We hope this brief post of info helps everyone. Again, thank you so so much for all of your support and encouragement. Please be patient and we will continue to share as much as possible, as quickly as we can! Stay tuned and we will see everyone very soon!
From the looks of it they resealed the whole track. Has anyone ever ran on a reseal? Curious what the grip level is like. I know the drive way gets stupid slick when its done. Could be the low dollar product I used too
Yamaha can, kid karts and i believe clone for sure. im assuming before fisher bought the track the turnouts were horrible. I was one of two people to show up to the august 25th race. That would have been my first race at whiteland but it was canceled. I live 10 min away so ill update back after the practice on the new sealed track this weekend. I have a feeling there will be quite a few people there
Hoping for the best but they are competing against two other well established programs within 90 minutes that get good regular attendance. Interested to see if it effects KRA or OVKA fields next year.
My home track, Circleville Raceway Park, is starting back up a sprint series next year and while I’m happy to have something closer to home (45min) the OVKA and KRA programs are such well oiled machines it’s going to be hard to pry me away from them.
From what I’ve gathered, Whiteland will run a cooperative schedule with KRA.
That said, I ran open practice today and it is slick. Three more open practice days before their first race under the new owners. $1000 to win 206 and Yamaha Can.
Looks like a class structure of KRA with 80cc shifter thrown in.
Theres only like 4 KA’s that show up. First race if the year i was thinking Yamaha would have 12-15 karts like last year. Nope there was 6 of us and one was Masters. Yamaha is basically dead
