After nearly 30 years of operation, the Hythe Motor Speedway is looking to do roughly a million dollars in upgrades to the facility.
The hope is to fund the project through money the Speedway has already raised, government grant funding, and launch a GoFundMe campaign. Promoter and Announcer at the Hythe Motor Speedway, Ian Burgess, says the volunteer-run group has gotten estimates regarding the upgrades and proposed the project to the County of Grande Prairie and the Province of Alberta.
“We are working on a two-phase plan; first is repaving the infield that will allow us to host other events, other than just stock car racing, like drift events, autocross, monster trucks and concerts. – Then our second phase is to resurface the actual track we race on as well,” Burgess says. “In the infield, we have to do a whole bunch of subsurface work. We have to pull out a bunch of the base that was there and redo the base. That is going to be just over $700,000, and the [work] on the track itself is just over a quarter of a million dollars.”
The facility, which includes a 3/8 mile track, currently operates with four race weekends a year, with Burgess saying some of the 2023 events saw over 1,000 people in the stands each day.
“Our goal with redoing the speedway is that we can expand from just being able to run for four weekends, we can host different types of events on other weekends, and beyond just motorsports.”
Burgess explains the goal is to raise $150,000 through the GoFundMe page, and donors will receive their money back if funding for the project cannot be secured. As of late afternoon on October 11th, the campaign was at $1,250 of the $150,000 goal.