Checkered flag falls on East Bay Raceway for final time

TAMPA, Fla. - Since 1977, the East Bay Raceway Park in Tampa has been a haven for race fans around the Bay Area. 

"We do have some characters out here, I'll tell you that," said Mike Horne. 

For the last 15 years, meanwhile, Horne has captured every moment on track and in the pits as the track photographer. 

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"We've had weddings out here, believe it or not," Horne remembered. "We've had proposals on the front stretch."

But, Horne's camera shutter clicked at East Bay Raceway for the final time as the 48-year-old track officially closed over the weekend. 

"The economy of racing and the business of racing is just killing itself right now," said the track's owner, Al Varnadore. 

As a young race fan, Varnadore remembers attending the first ever race weekend at the track and 22 years ago bought into it as an owner. But over time, the economics of weekend racing has plagued the aging track. 

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"It's getting to where it's hard for anybody to play in the game anymore," Varnadore said. 

Now, the little boy who watched the first race weekend at East Bay Raceway was forced to make the difficult decision to usher in its last. 

"I hate it more than anybody, and I'm the one who ultimately had to help pull the plug on it," he said. 

The track's final sendoff, meanwhile, was, perhaps fittingly, a memorial race in honor of a late East Bay racer, Rusty Dixon. 

"It's always been just home away from home to us," said the race's promoter and Dixon's sister, Diane Nosbisch. "We've always enjoyed coming out here. Our whole family is out here, so it just feels right for us." 

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After the final checkered flag fell on the 1/3rd of a mile dirt track, those that were apart of the track's last race can't help but remember all the others. 

"It's really special to us," Nosbisch said. "We've had a lot with this track."

With Varnadore selling the track to the Mosaic company, the grandstands will soon be gone and the grounds raised. But, the stories that the cracked walls lining the track could tell will still be told by those that called this track home over the generations. 

"It's just something you don't ever forget," said Horne.

Now, after nearly 50 years of racing, stories are all that those who drifted around the dirt track will have to remember East Bay Raceway Park by. 

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