72 Laps End 72 Years Of Five Mile Point Speedway

KIRKWOOD, N.Y. – The drive up I-81 Saturday (Oct. 29) was full of fall colors, foliage going dormant until spring would bring a return to green conditions.

But unlike all the natural beauty to be seen in the Southern Tier of New York this weekend, Five Mile Point Speedway will not be returning to green in 2023, with last weekend’s Southern Tier 72 modified race ending 72 years of racing on the dirt quarter-mile.

A property visibly surrounded by warehouses and development, the track has been sold for development, with an announcement on the track’s website advertising a November sale of the track’s equipment.

But just as it was a season ago when I attended the Final Race at Oglethorpe Speedway Park in Georgia, my first hours on-site at Five Mile Point were not marked by urgency or anything else that would distinguish this Saturday from any other race day. Perhaps the only detail worth noting as the track crew ran pack laps and crews parked and unloaded trailers was seen at the concessions stand, where seemingly every patron stepped away from the counter toward the backstretch fence, taking a glance or three before biting into whatever they bought.

Saturday’s (Oct. 29) program started nearly 15 minutes ahead of schedule, with competitive racing going green in the afternoon with the sun still shining. Ironically, the first division to hit the track on this final race day was dubbed the Futures class, with youngsters and inexperienced drivers seeking to move into modified racing as the first to contest the bullring. 

It was a beautiful day at Five Mile Point Speedway Final Race day ever after 72 years of racing pic.twitter.com/PeF378icjd

— Clayton 🇺🇸 (@claytonmjr64) October 30, 2022

If there’s any silver lining to the closing of Five Mile Point, it’s that there are plenty of places for displaced racers to keep turning laps next season. Penn Can Speedway is literally only 20 minutes away from Kirkwood, running regular Friday night races. Also this week, Afton Motorsports Park, 30 minutes removed from Five Mile Point, voted to move to a Saturday racing schedule for 2023. With both tracks regularly running classes similar to Five Mile Point, including the headline modifieds, racing isn’t saying goodbye to the region.

But while it was great to see the future literally on the track, that doesn’t change the fact that Saturday marked the end of a great deal of racing history. Built in 1951, Five Mile Point was host to no…