Collins family breaks ground on new track

By Dave Grayson
It’s been 14 months since the announcement that a new race track was going to be built in Bakersfield to replace the former Mesa Marin Raceway. That 14 month period was spent dealing with the lengthy and complicated issues that comes with a major commercial development.

But all of that is behind us now, the i’s have been dotted, the t’s have been crossed and the bases have been covered and now it’s time for “Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR,” the new track’s temporary name, to officially host the much anticipated ground breaking ceremony. That ceremony is set for Wednesday, February 7th, 10 am at the track’s location, west of Bakersfield, on Enos Lane where Interstate 5 intersects with Highway 43. The ceremony is very much open to the public.
Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR is a joint effort between two of Bakersfield’s most prolific buisness families: The Collins family, the builders and operators of Mesa Marin Raceway, and the Destefani Family who are extremely well known for their participation in the Bakersfield and Kern County business climate.

The new track will sit on 85 acres of land and will feature a one half mile, high banked, oval very similiar to the original Mesa Marin Raceway. Integrated inside of the half mile track will be a smaller one quarter mile oval. The facillity will also be home to an adjacent one eighth mile drag strip. The new track will also house many special amenities including 20 corporate skyboxes above the grandstand and a state of the art electronic timing and scoring system. Adjacent to the track will be a children’s playground as well as an industrial complex.
To fully appreciate the significance of the new track’s groundbreaking ceremony one has to be aware of the chain of events, and the time line, that led to the ceremony to begin with. Marion Collins opened Mesa Marin Raceway, in East Bakersfield, in 1977 and for approximately 29 years the track was highly acclaimed as one of the premiere motorsports facilites in the nation that had a huge, positive, impact on the city of Bakersfield as well as Kern County.

While in the process of building Mesa Marin, Collins practically needed a high powered telescope to even find his nearest neighbor. But a population boom in east Bakersfield brought a serious need for more residental housing units and, by the time the 2005 racing season began, new home construction was practically on the edge of Mesa Marin’s parking lot.

Making the situation even more intense was the fact that the land in east Bakersfield was more and more being rezoned from its original agricultural/commercial status to residential that was going to have a negative impact on  Mesa Marin Raceway’s Conditional Use Permit with Kern County.

The Collins family was now looking at a fight for survival that was going to be lengthy, expensive and with no guarantee of winning. In the summer of 2005, they made the painful decision to close Mesa Marin and sell the bulk of their property to a housing developer.

The last ever race at Mesa Marin came in October of that year and, following its conclusion, thousands of racing fans stood on the famed track’s frontstretch with tears streaming down their faces. It was the end of a major motorsports era that no one believed would ever happen.

In December of 2005 the sadness turned to jubilation. The afternoon of December 3,2005 was originally planned to be Mesa Marin Raceway’s last ever awards banquet.It was, instead, the celebration of the announcement that the Collins and Detesfani families had joined forces to create an even bigger and better version of Mesa Marin.

The original plan was to have the new facility built and operational by the spring of this year. But the wheels of commercial development often turns slow in the state of California and the new race track developers soon found themselves dealing with the many obstacles of land development that were slow in resoloution while the pages of the calendars quickly turned.

Some of these delays involved modifications on the new track’s site plans. Still more delays came from enviromental concerns presented by the area Air Pollution Control District, area wildlife agencies as well as concerns from a local water agency. All of this came to a grand conclusion, on the evening of December 14th, when the Kern County Planning Commission unamimousily approved the new track’s final site plan.That approval came with no opposition during the meeting simply because everyone wanted to see this happen.

Now it’s finally time for the Collins and Destefani families to officially break ground and bring racing back to Bakersfield. To many this signifies the beginning of a brand new era.

But the big difference, between this new track in Bakersfield and any other new track construction around the country, is the fact that Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR will be building its foundation on the legacy, and successful programs, from Mesa Marin Raceway.

What a legacy it is. In 29 years of operation four million fans sat in Mesa Marin’s grandstands. Local economic agencies speculated that the track brought in as much as $55 million in tourism dollars per year to Kern County although many disputed that figure as being somewhat conservative.

Mesa Marin averaged approximately 25 NASCAR sanctioned race dates per season and eventually had to raise its grandstand seating to 12,000 to accomodate ticket demands. The track frequently featured non stock car events such as special motocross and monster truck weekends as well as concerts featuring some of the giants of the recording industry such as Garth Brooks and George Strait just to name two.

Additionally, Mesa Marin events were televised nationally on six different networks and the track was used to film many television commericals featuring a wide variety of products.

Mesa Marin Raceway also played a huge role in what is now known as the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Marion Collins was part of a small group of businessmen who conceived the idea of a NASCAR sanctioned national touring series for racing trucks. It was Gary Collins, one of the most reknowned race car fabricators in the country, who builit the first prototype of a full sized racing truck. An exhibition of the truck, on a winter morning in 1994 at Mesa Marin, convinced NASCAR that it was indeed a good idea and the rest became racing history.

But Mesa Marin was a lot more than just a place for good racing. The track was a good neighbor to its community and participated, as well as created, programs that present its community in a very positive light. One of those programs was the ACE Awards a youth educational program that provided recognition for exceptional performance in adademic effort and positive lifestyle recognition. This program was later honored by the ESPN Network for being the best program in the nation that incorporated children and sports.

The track’s annual October Classic was named as the premiere event of the year by “The National Speed Sport News”. Mesa Marin’s programs was often the recepient of numerous awards from NASCAR for their excellence in racing quality. The track also received the Beautiful Bakersfield Award which honored them for bringing national attention to that city.

As the Collins and Destefani families begin a new era towards a new racing legacy, they will be able to use the legacy of Mesa Marin, and its  successful programs, as a foundation to create something even bigger and better. That new racing legacy will begin in the spring of 2008 when the first green flag officially drops on Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR.

A very large crowd gathered on 85 acres of vacant lot, on the morning of February 7th, west of Bakersfield. Some of them were taking a little time off from work or school but it was for a very good reason: they all wanted to be a part of the jubilation from an official groundbreaking they had been waiting over a year for. With the turning of some earth, from gold shovels, Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR is now officially ready to start its construction phase which will return NASCAR sanctioned motorsports back to Bakersfield.
Brian Olsen, the track’s Director of Marketing and Sponsorship, was thrilled with the turn out for the groundbreaking and said “it’s ten o’clock in the morning in the middle of a work week and for people to want to come out, and be involved with this important day for each and every one of us as well as motorsports here in Kern County and the Collins and Destefani families, is just an awesome outpouring of  support for the project.”

Olsen was equally thrilled that the long year of taking care of business administration was finally over and it was time for the bulldozers to officially start their engines and added “our permits have all been issued and now it’s just a matter of getting after it. Hopefully, this time next year the facility will be complete and that will give us a couple of months to get ready for our first race.”

All throughout the morning there were a lot of smiling faces, hand shakes and hugs. It was somewhat of a racing homecoming and the people there were using the groundbreaking as a ways and means to say hello to old friends and catch up with each other. Larry Collins, the track’s General Manager, said not seeing those familiar, friendly, faces over the last year was one of the things he missed the most about not being at Mesa Marin Raceway. “We were excited about today”, he said adding “but to see this turn out of these people who came out to support the groundbreaking was unbelievable.

One of the things that we missed the most, about not having Mesa Marin, was seeing the people that we met through auto racing and the events we put on. Today I got to see a lot of those people and it felt really good and a year from now I’m going to get to see them a lot more often.”

During his years at Mesa Marin Raceway one of Larry Collins’ favorite part of the job was travelling to other race tracks to promote his events as well as getting a look at what the other guys were doing with their programs. He said he had planned to visit at least six or eight tracks in 2006 but only managed to hit two of them. That was perfectly understandable because Collins was a little busy last year. With a big smile on his face he said “my wife and I welcomed a new baby in February of last year so I took the opportunity to be at home quite a bit. But this year my schedule’s picking up where I’m going to be on the road going to some of the events and making sure I’m keeping my finger on the pulse of what’s going on while visiting some of the other race tracks. That’s how we learn. For nearly 30 years I was at Mesa Marin nearly every weekend so I’m really looking forward to going to the other tracks and seeing how they do things and learn a little bit before we open the gates for our new raceway in 2008.”
All throughout the groundbreaking area were displays of literally every form of race car that you could name: everything from Legend and sprint cars all the way up to full size super late models. It was perceived to be a display of the large variety of motorsports Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR plans to treat its fans to. This also includes regional touring series. It’s well known that Mesa Marin Raceway was a huge supporter of regional touring series such as NASCAR’s Grand National Division West Series and the NASCAR Elite Division Southwest Series.

When NASCAR decided to discontinue its Elite Division Series, at the end of 2006, many of its teams were forced to look at future options. Two viable ones are moving up to the Grand National Division, which could be cost prohibitive for some teams,  or racing with the SRL Late Model Series which features cars that are virtually identical to the former NASCAR series. While the SRL is busy setting up a 2007 schedule, they have already received the good news that said the new track in Bakersfield plans to fully support them when they open in 2008.

On the subject of SRL racing specifically, and regional touring series in general, Larry Collins said “that type of race car is so exciting on a half mile race track. I believe we hosted more touring car events than any other track anywhere and we want to keep that going.We have told the SRL that we want to be behind them and host their series as much as we can.Those race cars on this new race track is just going to be outstanding.”

All during the groundbreaking ceremony Marion Collins and Allan Destefani, the patriarchs of the two racing families, were looking on with broad smiles on their faces. They later showed just how enthusiastic they were when they climbed aboard two CAT dirt movers for what many said was the new track’s first official race. With the crowd chanting a countdown from five, and Mel Destefani waving a green flag, the two mighty CATS took off for an impromptu drag race much to the delight of the crowd.

The roar of the crowd’s enthusiasm was even greater moments later when the two families stood together with their gold shovels to officially break the ground for the new race track. This ceremony officially ended a very long year of dealing with business administration, as well as enviromental, issues that comes with a major commercial development. Now it’s time for the actual construction to hit high gear. Gentlemen, start your bulldozers.

We can’t wait until its time to drop the green flag on the first race at Kern County’s New Home To NASCAR.