Keep Mansfield Speedway The Way It Is

Quick notice about the website:

Mansfield Speedway is a dirt race track located in Mansfield, Ohio. Track at Mansfield hasn’t however been a dirt race track throughout its existence. Since 2000 and up until 2017, this was an asphalt track. Purpose of the Mansfield Speedway website is to make the voices of those who want asphalt on the track in Mansfield back heard. We’re a minority sadly, those who prefer asphalt over dirt, so we don’t expect that our little initiative will get us anywhere. As an alternative we recommend people to find and visit other race tracks near them that have asphalt. On my recent travel I visited some great looking tracks in Italy. It’s a ways off from Mansfield, but I was there and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I also made an amazing boat trip from Split to Blue Cave organized by Zentravel.hr, but let’s not get into that right now. What you need to know is that there are other options if you love asphalt race tracks and Mansfield just doesn’t feel the same with a dirt track.

Our little movement here at the website never really caught on, you can see that from the poll in the sidebar to the right. It kinda makes sense that people prefer a dirt track, Mansfield had a dirt track before it had an asphalt track, so a dirt track coming to Mansfield surely felt like a long lost friend coming back home in town after almost 20 years has passed. If you need to say something, vent, complain, we’re here for you. We’ll leave the pages that we put up initially the way they are. And we’ll make posts here and there.  That’s it from us. Cheerio.

Welcome to the pages of the “Keep Mansfield Speedway The Way It Is” movement. We are are unofficial group of fans of the Mansfield Speedway who want to keep the asphalt track which was there since 2000. We realize that the racing track at Mansfield Speedway was a dirt track for much longer than it was an asphalt track, but for most of the younger fans it was an asphalt track for as long as we remember, and we would like to keep it that way. Checkout some of the great moments from the 2005 Late Model A race in the video linked down below. It’s not a high quality video drone footage, but it still perfectly captures the kind of magic that racing on the asphalt track at the Mansfield Speedway had to offer and we don’t want to lose that.

Mansfield Speedway history

Track at the Mansfield Speedway was first opened back in the 1959, as a 3/8 mile long dirt track. That’s what the track at the Speedway was at the beginning and for the majority of the tracks existence. Conversion to an asphalt was only done back in 1999 and from the start of the 2000s and up until the 2017 Mansfield Speedway was an asphalt track. Members of the “Keep Mansfield Speedway The Way It Is” movement are young fans of racing who grew up with the asphalt track, and asphalt racing, and we don’t want to lose that.

Here’s another video, from way back when, of dirt racing on the Mansfield Speedway which is what I’m guessing most of the people who visited the racing track have probably gotten used to. Quality of the recording isn’t that great. Keep in mind that there weren’t any high quality drones back then for making HD videos like some of my friends and me have done for the past few years that we have been visiting the Speedway. So in essence, from 2017 and onwards, with the return to a dirt track, Mansfield Speedway is basically returning to its roots.

Short stint as an asphalt track 1999-2017

Like we have already mentioned in the previous paragraph, Mansfield Speedway has spent a short stint as an asphalt track, from 1999 until 2017. Stint was short, at least compared to its previous history as a dirt track, which was from 1959 until 1999. During these 17 years as an asphalt track, the Speedway was known for hosting ARCA RE/MAX Series, and it also hosted NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Track was actually pretty much closed since 2010. It was only after it changed owners in 2013 that it started to show signs of life and work began of reopening this historic race track. During this practically decade and a half as an asphalt track, the Speedway has been known to attract crowds of over 20,000 visitors, which is rather impressive if you ask me. Even though we here at the movement want to see the track dressed in asphalt again, we do hope that the dirt track will also have the same kind of success like the asphalt has had.

Goals of the “Keep Mansfield Speedway The Way It Is” movement

Well our primary goal is to make our voices heard, and to let people know that there is still interest in seeing asphalt racing in Mansfield. We realize that this might not be how everyone feels, but like we have already mentioned, the movement members have grew up with asphalt at the Speedway and we don’t want to lose that. We also realize that the chances of seeing asphalt return to our beloved track are pretty slim, but we still want to make some noise towards that goal.

Just to clarify, we still love and visit the Mansfield Speedway and are avid fans of “Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series” which is the type of races that are currently being featured at the track. On a recent race we even took to the sky with our camera drone and made some footage from way up there in the air, which we plan on posting soon, so stay tuned. We hope we don’t get into any kind of trouble for posting this, 🙂 .

Join us and make your voices heard

So to end our manifesto here, we would just like to invite everyone who visits our website to make your voices heard. If you share our opinion that we should at some point in the future see the Mansfield Speedway in all its asphalt glory, then make sure to do one of three things here on the website. There is a poll that you can vote on in the sidebar on the right. That’s the easiest thing that you can do.

You can also get in touch with us and show us your support, along with your reasons why you would like to see Mansfield Speedway dressed in asphalt again by sending us a message here. Third thing that you can do is not really something that you can do here on the website but rather on the new owners of the Mansfield track. You can reach out to their social networking team on websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (all of which are linked down below) and tell them that you would like to see asphalt on the Mansfield Speedway in some way, shape or form. That’s about it from us.