Victor Alvarez Announces Next Round of Upgrades at Bradenton Motorsports Park with New Entrance-Exit Road as the Highlight!
Since its opening in 1971, Bradenton Motorsports Park (formerly known as DeSoto Memorial Dragway) has hosted a lot of solid racing, including ground breaking events, world records and even teamed up with their next-door neighbor, the Freedom Factory.
Recently, co-owner of Bradenton Motorsports Park (BMP) Victor Alvarez announced some updates that will affect both tracks, and we talked with general manger Josh Dauta to expand on them.
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These upgrades don’t come as a surprise to some, as both tracks have seen some major changes in the last five years. “You have two owners that are motivated to bring motorsports at these tracks to the next level,” said Josh. “We always have ideas in the pipeline, and we also talk to the public about what they think.”
This project is the latest in a line of updates to both properties. “The conversation about the entrance-exit road (to both BMP and the Freedom Factory) has been discussed a good bit for a while, even before the partnership deal (between Victor and Cleetus),” Josh said. “Once we agreed it was on the short priority list, it’s a big enough project that we need to find the right time to do it.”
Even though a lot of tracks are in full swing during the summertime, it’s not uncommon in Florida for tracks to throttle back a bit on the number of events their run between June and September.
“During summer, we can see brutal temperatures, and a good chance of rain nearly every day in Florida,” said Victor. “Since we host a lot of events during the fall-winter when other tracks are closed, it made sense to do the updates now.”
The entrance and exit road, which was barely wide enough to accommodate a pair of semi-trucks going in opposite directions, will now be expanded to three lanes to use for both BMP and the Freedom Factory, to allow for quicker in and out of the facilities.
After some discussion about also moving the current entrance into BMP, there will be a new gate further down the proposed entrance-exit road, as well as double the ticket booths. This will allow more vehicles on the access road without spilling onto the main road, State Road 64.
The area behind BMP’s burnout box is also getting upgraded with fresh asphalt, as the existing area had become cracked and uneven after years of jet car shows where the extreme temperatures had broken down the asphalt.
There be some additional freshening up in area of BMP as well, including updates to the bathroom and concessions, plus a boost to the audio system.
These upgrades follow the lineage of several upgrades that BMP has done over the last few years. The fifty-year-old track surface was replaced with fresh concrete and asphalt in the spring of 2022, and the grandstands were updated with aluminum versions the same year.
The facility has continued to evolve with more lighting, increased paved pit parking, and an enclosed tech building was completed in time for last year’s Snowbird Outlaw Nationals. Moving the tech area, and the scales off the main road, allowed for tech to be an easier and more expedited process.
Watch the announcement on the project, as well as the progress and changes to partnership, as well as some of the latest upgrades, in Cleetus McFarland’s latest video below:
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine, Bradenton Motorsports Park, Freedom Factory, Cleetus McFarland, Victor Alvarez and John Sears.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com