The Scoop On San Diego’s Pala Raceway – Dirt Rider Magazine

http://palaraceway.com/hours-a-directions. If you take one thing from this, please take my advice on the directions!An hour after departing from Orange County, we were getting photos taken in the office for our hardcard membership cards. Pretty sweet, official-looking cards for a motocross track. Brad parked alongside the freshly revamped Vet track, before Courtney & I could get our gear out he was on the track! It looked like Courtney & I were the only female riders around. We geared up and started our bikes, at least tried to in the morning dew while our engine were cold and didn’t want to wake up. To our on-lookers that were laughing at us with hopes of failure, “We waited for your buddy at the entrance to goon ride with him, but he rode off the track every time he saw us anxiously awaiting his company.” Boys, don’t laugh at the girls unless you know you’re fast and even so, don’t laugh at us we’re having our own fun! Our bikes finally gave the go-ahead for a long day of moto. The Vet track was clean and groomed; we rode for hours putting our own marks on the rutted lines.After the water truck made a lap and some homemade turkey sandwich lunches, we headed back onto the well-ridden terrafirma. Yellow-numbered desert racers also started to populate on the track, there were a few times Courtney & I had almost been taken out when caught in between some guys “racing”. The sun had caught up with our state of exhaustion and started to sink low in the sky creating shadows on the track. We decided it would be best to turn in and save our bodies from stupid, foolish errors. Following the long, exhilarating day of riding, I sat down with Kirk Chandler, Vice President of Pala Raceway, to find out a little more about this weekend’s first annual Holiday GP and the future of Pala.Lindsey Lovell: How did Pala Raceway come about?
Kirk Chandler: A lot of planning. Started off about 8 years ago, Ryan Ouellette contacted Pala Band of Mission Indians even before the casino had been built. He was looking to build a motocross track in San Diego county. At the time, Carlsbad Raceway was on its last leg and reality was there wasn’t many motocross tracks in the county besides Barona Oaks and Amago. We contacted the tribe and over time we took over the site that was formerly Vulcan Mining site, a rock & sand quarry. In 2006, we were approved to start working towards building a motocross track. In order to build, we had to have the mines shut down and clean up any problems that the site had. It took about 3 years to basically get done and to get to the point where we could open up motocross tracks, which we were able to do in April of 2009.LL: Who designed the tracks?
KC: Ryan Ouellette, Chase Ballard, our operations crew and myself. The tracks are constantly changing, we change one of the tracks almost every week. Every one of the equipment operators has a little touch to the track. There are a lot of people that get involve in doing the whole thing.LL: Is a Supercross track in the future?
KC: We want to as far as an AMA-Pro track for testing and stuff like that. We’re going to be missing this season since the testing has already begun. Our dirt is more of a sand-base, so we will have to import some clay to make the jumps last longer. We do have some clay on-site, but it does have to have the rock screened out of it. One of the biggest things that we’ve had to do is screen rock out of all our dirt for the last 2-3 years. We’re working on the upper portion of the site right now so we can build the race track and hopefully have it open by Spring 2010.LL: Any plans for Pala to add lights for some of its tracks?
KC: Yeah, we want to. We’re working with the Palomar Observatory because we’re within a 10-mile dark sky ordinance. We have some lights that we could install that would work, but are very expensive to do. It’s something we want to do, there is not a lot of time after work to ride during the week. But we have to look-out for our neighbors and that’s a big thing with what we’re doing. Sound studies, noise studies, dust studies, pollution studies. We collect a lot of data here as far as what we are putting out into the environment. It’s important to us being a new race track, we are coming into an area where there is existing neighbors. A lot of race tracks around have already been around for a long time and the neighbors have moved in around them. We’re trying with Pala Raceway to mitigate any off-site impact and that includes dust, noise and pollution. There are a lot of claims out there that aren’t true and we just have to educate people as best as possible so we try and do that.LL: Private Garages!
KC: Yes, we have a few 10×10 model units. People will be able to rent a garage out here to keep their bikes and tools. Cut back on commuting cost for some guys. A lot of people that work can’t take their bike to work or can’t get off in time, if their bike was already here they don’t have to go back home to get their bikes. They can get out here in less time and it allows the guys to ride more often. That’s the goal to have more fun, more track time and more people having fun in the sport.LL: Campground. Is it open yet? Will it be a full-service campground?
KC: Campground is not open yet, it’s still in planning. We do camping on race and special event weekends. We’d like to do full hook-ups. With the soil we have here, we’ll have to work on a system to be able to get rid of the waste the proper way.LL: Victory Suites; what are these and who will they be available to?
KC: Victory Suites are going to be a part of the garage rentals. It’s basically “sky box” or something you might see at an Anaheim Supercross or other stadium events. A suite that will feature a private kitchenette, bathroom, deck and will be trackside for big events. We’ve got a couple in the works that will be built. Some of our corporate sponsors have already signed up to own a Victory Suite.