Had some great times at Arena Essex watching speedway. Such a shame it went to the wall. To outsiders it was just a place that made traffic jams around their trips to the shopping centre but to some it was not only their fix of sport (be it the bangers or the bikes) but also there chance to be with friends and have social interaction. So sad to see these venues closing down.
What happened to the speedway team? Did it find a new home? They used to always beat my team when they came up to Glasgow. It would be a pity if they didn’t exist anymore.
Arena Essex Raceway is my local home track just a mile away from my home going every meeting filming banger racing and uploading videos it still hurts me today just looking at it. It still makes me feel heartbroken. This was my place to get out on weekends and bank holiday mondays but now my place i go to gone.
If the Cowdenbeath Racewall up here closed I'd feel exactly the same, mate. No wonder there's a mental health crisis when so much of what we value makes way for profit.
Naughty......NO mention of the Arena Essex/Lakeside speedway team that raced there!!!! Speedway always mentions other sports that are held within the same venue whether it's defunct or still in operation. We all work together to try to keep venues viable & this mustn't be forgotten. Sad to see the land laying dormant after all the years that it provided entertainment for people including myself.
Yep, I visited once, as a very young King's Lynn fan! Glad to see his more recent video about Coventry's Brandon Stadium does indeed mention, and show clips of, the speedway!
Arena Essex and Wimbledon Stadium. Lost. Gone forever. So sad. The relentless demand for land for housing and property development is absolutely disastrous for our Assets of Community Value (ACV) which suffer and disappear as a consequence.
@@AutoShenanigans Another deciding factor was lots of the racing drivers were deterred because they still have old tow vehicles and coaches and their diesel engines didn't, and still don't, comply with the London anti-pollution zone rules so travel expenses rocketed with the inclusion of the prohibitively expensive surcharge/penalty/whateverthedamnthingiscalled 'anti-pollution' fee.
A awesome track that will never be forgotten. The Granada meeting was awesome 🏁. There's another abandoned track Coventry stadium another track we won't for get is well.
I was sad when Arena Essex closed; I remember many good days out there, and watching the Caravan demolition derby at Easter was brilliant. The venue had a great mixture of those sort of last man standing events, as well as the more "sensible" circuit racing in the Minis and saloons. Sadly missed.
I live just across the Thames in Dartford. When I was a kid, I used to ride my BMX down to the tunnel crossing and get a free lift to the other side and take myself to the Arena more or less every weekend. That was my 1st taste of motorsport and the obsession never left.
I first heard of Arena Essex because of Top Gear. Specifically, it was where Richard Hammond got a group of (at the time) established Touring Car drivers, and James May, to race various motorhomes against each other
I'm shocked ! I work half a mile away from this place & had no idea it had closed, use to go there a LOT in my youth. 8 million !!! Yeah someone deff got shafted
Had some great memories at Arena, bit depressing looking at those images now. The first time I ever went to arena essex was in 2001, firecracker 10. I remember it so well. me, my mum and my dad had missed the first race so we waited for the second race and we were astonished how many classic cars were coming in the track; limos, hearses, American muscle cars etc… My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw an american limousine getting buried by four other cars, it was insane. Great memories. Nice video. 👍
Was my local track ( man and boy) Sunday Banger Racing with good old Rob who told us about the drivers , a life time or Crashing fun just a distance memory, thankfully some peeps recorded the races to be viewed again on RUclips 👍🏻
Yes, it closed, though the actual fate of the site was actually sealed in 2017 as PRI only ran the 2018 season to see if the season could be successful. The buyer said that they didn't need the site for at least 3 years and with the whole Covid thing a couple of years after Arena closed, some might say that PRI got out at the right time. For the period around Covid, the site was used to handle lorries stopping for vaccination and the like but is now completely unused. It is patrolled though so don't go there unannounced! Seriously though, it was a bit of a shock when I got the email that said that the circuit had been sold not long after the end of the 2017 season and it was sad when I heard that all was shutting after the last Firecracker meeting. I wrote my last programmes and retired from the whole scene after that. I still make occasional visits to places like Kings Lynn (Adrian Flux Arena) and Mildenhall (no longer RDC but Spedeworth - never did find out what a Spede was worth!) and one trip made up to Skegness but I'll always remember the 30 or so years I spent trackside or on the circuit at The Action Track, Arena Essex! - CJ, PRI and Proud!
A great video to watch thank you, brings back very fond memories of watching speedway and bangers over the years. Also to the Southend-Basildon cruise scene, it really was something special 👍
Should never of sold this was a great place used to go all the time generations of family , stared with my grandad when I was 4 in the early 90s then all the way to closure , miss it a lot on the sundays, can’t beat the arena sun with that breeze in late July august sept
Sadly gone :( Most Friday evenings with my Dad and Grandads was spent watching the Speedway. Was genuinely heartbroken when it closed as it was a massive part of my childhood.
Well Done! great little documentary, yes Arena essex was Legendary, the videos from the track will always live on. How about a film of the now closed Birmingham oval?
I used to park my truck at Thurrock services for the night and walk to watch the speedway at Arena Essex raceway. It wasnt a great circuit for good racing, the corners were far too tight with no outside racing line to speak of.Its still a shame that there is no speedway there anymore.
My friend, forgotten Face Tracks! What about Crystal Palace in South London? In the 50s to 60s I used to live in Beckenham, about 1 to 2 miles from the Park, on race days, I could hear the cars and bikes going the track! As I was born in '48,, so I was very young but managed to persuade my dad or elder brother to take me to watch the racing, both cars and bikes. Drivers who frequented the track were Sir Sterling Moss, Graham Hill, my favourites being Ian Raby and Alan Stacy who used to race their sports cars neck and neck race long never giving a quarter! On bikes you had Surtees, Hailwood, Geoff Duke et al. In the 70s it was closed when the GLC built a swimming pool right across the track!
Developers got it for a song, with covid almost driving lakeside into bankruptcy i don't think it will end up as a retail estate, it will probably be over priced housing.
Raced my national hot rod there in the 80’s,first world championships qualifier of the season I think,my car went really well there until getting wrecked in final! Good times!
Had a few visits there for major banger events while I lived in London, somehow I never liked it as much as Cowdenbeath Racewall where I learned to love the various Stock Car formula. Racewall was tighter and a faster track, but Arena the banger drivers were simply insane in the hard hits they went for. In terms of costs to make the arena meet modern standards I can understand the issues. Modern rules on toilets, accessibility etc are fine, but for the majority of the crowd, probably not needed... The race promoter at Cowdenbeath bought the football club who's football pitch they raced around, and stadium they used to protect the racing investment. (Club sold of 1/2 the land the "pits" were on)... Oddly 5,000 fans on a Sat evening for racing brought in more than 500-1000 on an afternoon for a match.
surprised you didn’t mention the speedway track, the pic you showed of the track with a busy crowd was even from a speedway meeting as the safety fence was up!
Was a great track, you could walk the pits and meet the teams, which wasn't possible at a lot of tracks, spent many a Southern Swap Meet there during the '90s and '00s, always marked the start of the car calendar for us. Someone is obviously maintaining the site, otherwise it would be far more overgrown than it is.
We went all the way from Manchester to watch the Bexley Suicide Squad v Custard Creams team race and the big Fire cracker unlimited meetings Well worth it
@@AutoShenanigans find cliff en Howe road and about halfway down on the north side looking just below i the large wood in that large grass area near some static caravans and you you can make out the track. There are some downloads here on RUclips of the racing that went on
Sounds abit like what happened to the old Ashby ville stock car track in Scunthorpe the council made it unsustainable to continue as they wanted to sell the land to developers which they did and unfortunately we got the hideous lakeside retail park
I went to the very first meeting there back in the day, a bit rough rather than ready but that's Essex for you! Later on they tried to add a MotoX circuit that I tried to ride my CZ 250 around but got stuck halfway due to a lack of ground clearance. Later still there was a Kart track built but I guess the costs outweighed the income and it went to the wall.
I went there once as a child, to see the motorcycle speedway. It's always a huge shame to see a speedway track close down... although as far as speedway tracks go, this wasn't a very good one.
Not sure what the state of the site is at the moment but I assume that as the footage of the track was captured by drone, there is no access to it 'on foot'?
We should be able to roll up to an event, get the vehicle scrutineered, sign an insurance waiver (nothing stopping anyone having their own private insurance) and waive the right to sue the organisers (gawd this get tiresome, yawn) (insurance blah blah, litigation yawn) and go have fun. It may go some way to reducing certain crimes or inspire some in to something other than being a secretary in customer service
Why is oval racing so unloved in the UK ,in America and Australia it's huge. Think of NASCAR Indycar World of outlaws migets oval racing in the US is huge , it's similar in Australia with migets ect , so why is so unloved, we need a huge championship. Even Corby oval failed, I just don't get it
Brisca stockcars are still going it's more grass root underground though. They race on dog tracks and attract a similar crowd good night out. Shame its dying my local track closed when I was a kid was gutted it was a free day out
@@jay-rk1ve yes I've seen it on RUclips, the tracks are so narrow, if they were wider than they could go a lot faster like modifies & midgets in the US
I used to ride at the MX track (which you can see to the left of the arena on the Google Map shot). It was called the Milk Run. It was a great track for its compact size. I believe when it shut down they bulldozed the track so people couldn’t ride it illegally.
Arena Essex will never be an Abandoned forgotten Race Track. Just like Wimbledon. It fell to the property Developers. But the Great memories live on. Oh for a Euro millions win. Lol
Also a new sub , good topic of content , and yes I miss the car days of the early 2000s lakeside Basildon Southend , type r/ skylines supras so many people , what on earths gone on as I look out the window now it’s dead on the road Romford town Saturday night ? Everything’s dead now
In about 2003, I drove there on two separate occasions on test days. A group of us were testing Baby Grands, 2/3 size NASCAR-style stock cars imported from the states. Spaceframe chassis with a one-piece fibre-glass body that fit over the top, a bit like a massive R/C car. We couldn't run with any of the other cars as they were left-hand drive, so we had to run anti-clockwise, whereas the local stock cars (mainly Sierras at the time) were obviously right-hand drive and ran clockwise. The stand-out thing I remember about the track was that there is a sunken grid at the far (A13) end, right up against the inner kerbing, slap bang in the middle of the turn - apparently a lot of drivers used to drop a wheel into it to help pull the car round the turn. You can make it out on the drone footage. I had a fun time there and it was where I got to experience what driving on the 'marbles' was like in real life - bloody scary as the car heads towards the outer wall with full lock :O
Went there for many years as it hosted the National Street Rod Association’s swapmeet which was, still is, the UK hot rodding scene’s traditional opener. Always a pain to get in and out of, dusty, scruffy, steps everywhere, bitterly cold even on a sunny day but we loved it anyway.
I’ve never been to that race track but it makes me sad how it’s abandoned. I go to Hednesford Hills raceway it reminds me of arena essex a bit because of its red and white barrier colours and it’s oval
Fond memories of racing there back in the 80, with the likes of Barry wilsher, Chalkie Douglas, Steve putcher to name but a few RIP Barry Wilsher, Shame the place had to close,
@@Tabazan The karting track is separate to the speedway track, owned by completely different people. Karting is still going strong but the speedway track has been closed for several years now
![Cody Johnson - I'm Gonna Love You (with Carrie Underwood) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yy9PuYMU29g/mqdefault.jpg)
Had some great times at Arena Essex watching speedway. Such a shame it went to the wall. To outsiders it was just a place that made traffic jams around their trips to the shopping centre but to some it was not only their fix of sport (be it the bangers or the bikes) but also there chance to be with friends and have social interaction. So sad to see these venues closing down.
For me the car scene will always be about that social interaction. It's indeed a shame but I suppose there just wasn't enough money in it :(
What happened to the speedway team? Did it find a new home? They used to always beat my team when they came up to Glasgow. It would be a pity if they didn’t exist anymore.
Good morning @@AutoShenanigans
Arena Essex Raceway is my local home track just a mile away from my home going every meeting filming banger racing and uploading videos it still hurts me today just looking at it. It still makes me feel heartbroken. This was my place to get out on weekends and bank holiday mondays but now my place i go to gone.
To hear that from a local is really sad.
If the Cowdenbeath Racewall up here closed I'd feel exactly the same, mate.
No wonder there's a mental health crisis when so much of what we value makes way for profit.
Property developer might have had a heart attack when they found 4 million tyres to dispose of at £2each
Haha.
Naughty......NO mention of the Arena Essex/Lakeside speedway team that raced there!!!!
Speedway always mentions other sports that are held within the same venue whether it's defunct or still in operation.
We all work together to try to keep venues viable & this mustn't be forgotten.
Sad to see the land laying dormant after all the years that it provided entertainment for people including myself.
Yep, I visited once, as a very young King's Lynn fan! Glad to see his more recent video about Coventry's Brandon Stadium does indeed mention, and show clips of, the speedway!
Arena Essex and Wimbledon Stadium. Lost. Gone forever. So sad.
The relentless demand for land for housing and property development is absolutely disastrous for our Assets of Community Value (ACV) which suffer and disappear as a consequence.
And Walthamstow. It was the equivalent of Old Trafford or Lords shutting.
It's a shame but the costs vs profit was the big issue from what I understand.
@@AutoShenanigans Another deciding factor was lots of the racing drivers were deterred because they still have old tow vehicles and coaches and their diesel engines didn't, and still don't, comply with the London anti-pollution zone rules so travel expenses rocketed with the inclusion of the prohibitively expensive
surcharge/penalty/whateverthedamnthingiscalled 'anti-pollution' fee.
A awesome track that will never be forgotten.
The Granada meeting was awesome 🏁.
There's another abandoned track Coventry stadium another track we won't for get is well.
I have my eye on that ;-) Thanks for watching mate
I was sad when Arena Essex closed; I remember many good days out there, and watching the Caravan demolition derby at Easter was brilliant. The venue had a great mixture of those sort of last man standing events, as well as the more "sensible" circuit racing in the Minis and saloons. Sadly missed.
I live just across the Thames in Dartford. When I was a kid, I used to ride my BMX down to the tunnel crossing and get a free lift to the other side and take myself to the Arena more or less every weekend.
That was my 1st taste of motorsport and the obsession never left.
I didn't realise you get a lift! Mind you, im not known for my bmx or cycle riding.
@@AutoShenanigans When the Dartford Tunnel first opened there was a bus, converted to take bicycles, ran back and forth...
Absolutely loved going to Southend sea front 20 years ago, those were the good old days 💙 nothing like it these days!
I used to go down their regularly in my red Ford Escort, complete with massive rear spoiler!
@@bincident6428 probably saw you down there! 😄
Many good times there takin my kids over the water from kent . Smuggling them in to see all the action . Many good memories...
I first heard of Arena Essex because of Top Gear. Specifically, it was where Richard Hammond got a group of (at the time) established Touring Car drivers, and James May, to race various motorhomes against each other
Same. Surprised that wasn’t mentioned.
What a beautiful song to end with.
I'm shocked ! I work half a mile away from this place & had no idea it had closed, use to go there a LOT in my youth. 8 million !!! Yeah someone deff got shafted
Gone but never forgotten
Use to visit for bangers and Stock in the day. Shame its gone.
Had some great memories at Arena, bit depressing looking at those images now.
The first time I ever went to arena essex was in 2001, firecracker 10. I remember it so well. me, my mum and my dad had missed the first race so we waited for the second race and we were astonished how many classic cars were coming in the track; limos, hearses, American muscle cars etc…
My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw an american limousine getting buried by four other cars, it was insane. Great memories.
Nice video. 👍
Fantastic memories... thanks for sharing!
Will be missed, spent a lot of my child hood there, sad to see it gone
Was my local track ( man and boy) Sunday Banger Racing with good old Rob who told us about the drivers , a life time or Crashing fun just a distance memory, thankfully some peeps recorded the races to be viewed again on RUclips 👍🏻
You cant forget when Top Gear went there a couple of times
Yes, it closed, though the actual fate of the site was actually sealed in 2017 as PRI only ran the 2018 season to see if the season could be successful. The buyer said that they didn't need the site for at least 3 years and with the whole Covid thing a couple of years after Arena closed, some might say that PRI got out at the right time. For the period around Covid, the site was used to handle lorries stopping for vaccination and the like but is now completely unused. It is patrolled though so don't go there unannounced!
Seriously though, it was a bit of a shock when I got the email that said that the circuit had been sold not long after the end of the 2017 season and it was sad when I heard that all was shutting after the last Firecracker meeting. I wrote my last programmes and retired from the whole scene after that. I still make occasional visits to places like Kings Lynn (Adrian Flux Arena) and Mildenhall (no longer RDC but Spedeworth - never did find out what a Spede was worth!) and one trip made up to Skegness but I'll always remember the 30 or so years I spent trackside or on the circuit at The Action Track, Arena Essex! - CJ, PRI and Proud!
Got to love the fact that property developers have bought a sandpit which you can’t build on
Bet its retirement homes that go bust after 5 years.
They'll simply put piles in and build on concrete platforns
Another thing you can also mention about Arena Essex is that the song 'Cry' by Take That was filmed there back in 2016. :)
A great video to watch thank you, brings back very fond memories of watching speedway and bangers over the years. Also to the Southend-Basildon cruise scene, it really was something special 👍
I made these videos for that reason... to hopefully trigger a few memories for some. I spent a lot of time in Basildon... remember Paycocke road?
Should never of sold this was a great place used to go all the time generations of family , stared with my grandad when I was 4 in the early 90s then all the way to closure , miss it a lot on the sundays, can’t beat the arena sun with that breeze in late July august sept
I have happy memories of this track. I particularly liked the rollover competitions.
Sadly gone :( Most Friday evenings with my Dad and Grandads was spent watching the Speedway. Was genuinely heartbroken when it closed as it was a massive part of my childhood.
These sort of places are full of memories aren't they.
My brother used to be a regular there. Now living in Welsh Wales, He will be devastated when I tell him it is no more.
Arena Essex. Never Forgotten.
That's kinda weird because it's actually featured in the popular demolition racing videogame wreckfest
On wreckfest, its called Kingston Raceway
It’s a tribute to Essex with the garnarda, hearse and Brisca v8 stock car
The All Wheel Drive Club and Essex Land Rover Owners used to race in the cement quarry behind it. Tons of fun
Well Done! great little documentary, yes Arena essex was Legendary, the videos from the track will always live on. How about a film of the now closed Birmingham oval?
Christ, I live 5 mins away and didn't know it closed.. the karting track next door is still going strong
Went twice, both on firework nights each year. Was a good show. Didn't even realise this place had closed
It's a bit wrong to call it forgotten. We all remember it, and are quite bitter.
That's fair, its perhaps more abandoned than forgotten.
I used to park my truck at Thurrock services for the night and walk to watch the speedway at Arena Essex raceway. It wasnt a great circuit for good racing, the corners were far too tight with no outside racing line to speak of.Its still a shame that there is no speedway there anymore.
My friend, forgotten Face Tracks! What about Crystal Palace in South London?
In the 50s to 60s I used to live in Beckenham, about 1 to 2 miles from the Park, on race days, I could hear the cars and bikes going the track!
As I was born in '48,, so I was very young but managed to persuade my dad or elder brother to take me to watch the racing, both cars and bikes.
Drivers who frequented the track were Sir Sterling Moss, Graham Hill, my favourites being Ian Raby and Alan Stacy who used to race their sports cars neck and neck race long never giving a quarter! On bikes you had Surtees, Hailwood, Geoff Duke et al. In the 70s it was closed when the GLC built a swimming pool right across the track!
Had some good Hotrod races at this track. Another one lost . . . Broken Britain
I used to spend many a Sunday afternoon there back in the 80's
Developers got it for a song, with covid almost driving lakeside into bankruptcy i don't think it will end up as a retail estate, it will probably be over priced housing.
Raced my national hot rod there in the 80’s,first world championships qualifier of the season I think,my car went really well there until getting wrecked in final!
Good times!
It ain’t forgotten and it never will be so change that title mate.
Had a few visits there for major banger events while I lived in London, somehow I never liked it as much as Cowdenbeath Racewall where I learned to love the various Stock Car formula. Racewall was tighter and a faster track, but Arena the banger drivers were simply insane in the hard hits they went for.
In terms of costs to make the arena meet modern standards I can understand the issues. Modern rules on toilets, accessibility etc are fine, but for the majority of the crowd, probably not needed...
The race promoter at Cowdenbeath bought the football club who's football pitch they raced around, and stadium they used to protect the racing investment. (Club sold of 1/2 the land the "pits" were on)... Oddly 5,000 fans on a Sat evening for racing brought in more than 500-1000 on an afternoon for a match.
"This is Essex Raceway.... in Essex."
Fantastic upload. Cheers
Thanks for watching!
surprised you didn’t mention the speedway track, the pic you showed of the track with a busy crowd was even from a speedway meeting as the safety fence was up!
Ah, another one of those property developer sites which are bought and then they let it rot!
Was a great track, you could walk the pits and meet the teams, which wasn't possible at a lot of tracks, spent many a Southern Swap Meet there during the '90s and '00s, always marked the start of the car calendar for us.
Someone is obviously maintaining the site, otherwise it would be far more overgrown than it is.
You chose perfect music for this video, IMO.
Thank you for this.
☮
Raced there once in a 3 wheeler a year before it closed. Had a brilliant time
The footage I've seen of 3 wheels looks hilarious! Thanks for watching.
Looks like a good scale model with the drone
We went all the way from Manchester to watch the Bexley Suicide Squad v Custard Creams team race and the big Fire cracker unlimited meetings Well worth it
cant watch wants to make me cry
Pott row in Norfolk had a grass track oval and it's where Martin Brundall learnt his racing trade
Lovely part of the world... I cant see where the grass oval is/was?
@@AutoShenanigans find cliff en Howe road and about halfway down on the north side looking just below i the large wood in that large grass area near some static caravans and you you can make out the track. There are some downloads here on RUclips of the racing that went on
It's so small! There seems to hardly be a straight section.
So sad to see it like this used to go most weekends
You must have had a blast!
It's always sad to see a raceway/circuit close.
Indeed I have many great memories of drift nights and it was home to Propper Droppers the ultra low bass compertition.
I presume you won whatever "sound off" comp there was? :D
Did many proper droppers bass comps there
Sounds abit like what happened to the old Ashby ville stock car track in Scunthorpe the council made it unsustainable to continue as they wanted to sell the land to developers which they did and unfortunately we got the hideous lakeside retail park
I went to the very first meeting there back in the day, a bit rough rather than ready but that's Essex for you! Later on they tried to add a MotoX circuit that I tried to ride my CZ 250 around but got stuck halfway due to a lack of ground clearance. Later still there was a Kart track built but I guess the costs outweighed the income and it went to the wall.
Wow... back in it's prime no doubt. It would seem that the Kart track is still open and running!
No mention of speedway?
Probably doesn’t know what speedway is 😂
I live a couple of miles away from this track. I thought it was gone years ago.
It always was A good race track God bless arena Essex always to be remembered kind of like a roof coat coat raceway
My Grandad race at the roof coat raceway his race number was 421 his name was Shauna Everton and race for Team V
I lived in bulphan I could hear the cars every Sunday and loved it
I thought it went years ago when the A13/M25 junction was remodelled
I went there once as a child, to see the motorcycle speedway. It's always a huge shame to see a speedway track close down... although as far as speedway tracks go, this wasn't a very good one.
Didn't realise it had closed. Know they used it for a time for boarder control for the foreign travelling
It was used during the 2020 pandemic for that sort of thing as well as vaccination and so forth for HGVs coming through the area. That's all gone now.
My dad raced here all the time 🥲
Did this with couple of mates 2 years ago
slagging off TOWIE ... how dare you ...... go so lightly on it.....there is not a dark cavern deep enough to throw it down ! 😂
It is awful isnt it.
my dad raced a ka round Essex and did his gear box
Malmesbury was the first capital of England
If I remember correctly I went there during the jubilee, the last one. I couldn't go there this time.
If only some RUclips car nerd would have bought it and turned it into a "Freedom Factory UK"
That's the trouble over here, land costs so much it's literally impossible to do such a thing. I've looked into it :D
I’ve driven there before was a good track
Cars..... Meh. You neglected to mention it was a well respected Speedway track and featured on Sky Tv often.. Sad days
In 2017 I raced my ninja kart for the European championship
Until your comment I'd never heard of ninja karts. It looks like a lot of fun.
So sad to see.
Another of our rapidly disappearing ovals gone.
Sounds like the land is absolutely useless to build on and the cost of making it so is prohibited so it may stay that way for a lot more years
Is this actually Jago Hazzard?
I'll take that as a compliment :D
If Mr Hazzard did car videos...
Jago on F-bomb steroids 😁
As we all now know, Jago Hazzard is Harry Beck!
it will make room for more rabbit hutches
Not sure what the state of the site is at the moment but I assume that as the footage of the track was captured by drone, there is no access to it 'on foot'?
With all the equipment we carry etc. it's not always possible for us to get in on foot.. but it's certainly not impossible ;-)
I've heard a strong rumour that this is going too open as a race track again?? anyone else know anything??
I can only hope so!
We should be able to roll up to an event, get the vehicle scrutineered, sign an insurance waiver (nothing stopping anyone having their own private insurance) and waive the right to sue the organisers (gawd this get tiresome, yawn) (insurance blah blah, litigation yawn) and go have fun. It may go some way to reducing certain crimes or inspire some in to something other than being a secretary in customer service
Why is oval racing so unloved in the UK ,in America and Australia it's huge.
Think of NASCAR Indycar World of outlaws migets oval racing in the US
is huge , it's similar in Australia with migets ect , so why is so unloved,
we need a huge championship.
Even Corby oval failed, I just don't get it
Brisca stockcars are still going it's more grass root underground though. They race on dog tracks and attract a similar crowd good night out. Shame its dying my local track closed when I was a kid was gutted it was a free day out
@@jay-rk1ve yes I've seen it on RUclips, the tracks are so narrow, if they were wider than they could go a lot faster
like modifies & midgets in the US
a great shame that it went
Such a shame and waste forcing car fans back out onto tue roads to enjoy theor cars to to the max
I used to ride at the MX track (which you can see to the left of the arena on the Google Map shot). It was called the Milk Run. It was a great track for its compact size. I believe when it shut down they bulldozed the track so people couldn’t ride it illegally.
Cleetus needs to go international!.......release some bald eagles! 🙂👌🇳🇿🍺
Arena Essex will never be an Abandoned forgotten Race Track.
Just like Wimbledon. It fell to the property Developers.
But the Great memories live on.
Oh for a Euro millions win. Lol
Also a new sub , good topic of content , and yes I miss the car days of the early 2000s lakeside Basildon Southend , type r/ skylines supras so many people , what on earths gone on as I look out the window now it’s dead on the road Romford town Saturday night ? Everything’s dead now
what a shame. someone needed to round up clarkson, mays, & ham..d to get a fundraiser, or rules relief going
This track exists in a lot of games through community mods, such as r-Factor and Wreckfest.
It's definitely not forgotten by the racing community!
So..... use it or lose it
This goes for everything from cash in society to the local pub.
In about 2003, I drove there on two separate occasions on test days. A group of us were testing Baby Grands, 2/3 size NASCAR-style stock cars imported from the states. Spaceframe chassis with a one-piece fibre-glass body that fit over the top, a bit like a massive R/C car. We couldn't run with any of the other cars as they were left-hand drive, so we had to run anti-clockwise, whereas the local stock cars (mainly Sierras at the time) were obviously right-hand drive and ran clockwise. The stand-out thing I remember about the track was that there is a sunken grid at the far (A13) end, right up against the inner kerbing, slap bang in the middle of the turn - apparently a lot of drivers used to drop a wheel into it to help pull the car round the turn. You can make it out on the drone footage. I had a fun time there and it was where I got to experience what driving on the 'marbles' was like in real life - bloody scary as the car heads towards the outer wall with full lock :O
Thanks for sharing.. thats awesome!
My family used to own arena essex used to love watching cars get destroyed as a kid good times.
Went there for many years as it hosted the National Street Rod Association’s swapmeet which was, still is, the UK hot rodding scene’s traditional opener. Always a pain to get in and out of, dusty, scruffy, steps everywhere, bitterly cold even on a sunny day but we loved it anyway.
I don't get it, these big conglomerate real estate organisations just buy land and do fuck all with it.
World Economic Forum anyone? :'D
I’ve never been to that race track but it makes me sad how it’s abandoned.
I go to Hednesford Hills raceway it reminds me of arena essex a bit because of its red and white barrier colours and it’s oval
Now that's a gem of a track... completely hidden away!
I used to play/truant there, in the early to mid-seventies!
Fond memories of racing there back in the 80, with the likes of Barry wilsher, Chalkie Douglas, Steve putcher to name but a few
RIP Barry Wilsher, Shame the place had to close,
Would be great to see an episode on Rye House Speedway, whilst it's still there.
Looks like they still use it for racing? At least it's open.. that's a good start!
@@AutoShenanigans It was used for training for a while, but the speedway track was torn up in January
Ah that's a shame.
The Speedway went but, I think, the Kart track is still there?
@@Tabazan The karting track is separate to the speedway track, owned by completely different people. Karting is still going strong but the speedway track has been closed for several years now