Atco Dragway’s grandstands go on sale. What’s next in the dismantling of a drag-racing dream?
The big mystery remains: What is the South Jersey raceway going to become?
Things move quickly in the world of fast cars, but even hot-rodders have been shocked by the speed of the Atco Dragway’s demise.
And now, just days after the storied South Jersey raceway’s abrupt closure, there is this: The grandstands are already up for sale.
Joseph Fazzio Inc., a Glassboro-based metal and industrial surplus supplier, is selling the 5,000-seat grandstands of the dragway at the request of dragway former operator and owner Leonard Capone Jr., according to a Fazzio representative.
The asking price for the whole setup: $390,000. A bargain, the website states, from $2.5 million if purchased new.
But the surplus operator also noted on its website that it is not the new owner:
***FAZZIO’S DID NOT BUY THE TRACK***
We do not know who the new owners are. We are working with the previous owners, any questions regarding the track should be directed towards them.***
“Any questions regarding the track should be directed to Mr. Capone,” the representative Zach Viscounti wrote in an email.
Except Capone hasn’t been giving interviews. His attorney M. James Maley Jr. declined comment.
Waterford Township officials also did not respond to requests to discuss the matter.
“The mayor, Tom Giangiulio, wants to make sure that the Waterford Township Committee is unified in our voice before we issue any comments,” said Committee member Joel Thompson in an email. He added that the dragway situation is tentatively planned to be discussed at this Wednesday’s Township Committee meeting.
For now the mystery of the abrupt ending of a 63-year-long chapter in hot rod history is still that: a mystery. With a lot of heartache thrown in, too.
This much is known. In 2020, Insurance Auto Auctions, an Illinois-based company with offices nationwide, put in an application with the New Jersey Pinelands Commission to redevelop the 180-acre Atco Dragway as an automobile auction facility. Not long before, Capone was the subject of court action for over $55,000 owed to a bank. That matter appears to have been later resolved.
The Pinelands Commission did not issue an approval for the auto auction application, finding inconsistencies with the Waterford Township land use ordinance and the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan. However, this step allowed the project to be reviewed and acted upon by the municipality. If approved, it would have come back to the Pinelands Commission.
But Waterford Township’s Joint Land Use Board didn’t approve the development, based on environmental and other concerns. Atco Dragway Enterprises sued the township. In May 2022, Maley, Atco Dragway’s attorney, informed the judge in the case that the two sides were going to try to work the matter out between themselves.
Whatever happened with that, the proposal was never refiled with the Pinelands Commission and therefore never got approval to proceed, according to commission spokesperson Paul Leakan.
Social media is rampant with rumors about who a new owner might be, if there is one. But those for now are just rumors.
Leakan said the Pinelands Commission has received no new or revised applications for the property. Any type of development or redevelopment of the land would require commission review and approval, he said.
The exception would be if a new owner wanted to get the raceway going again.
“An application would not be required if the new owner simply wants to reopen the property and operate it exactly as before,” Leakan said.
The manner of the closing has a lot of people scratching their heads. The weekend before, Atco Dragway hosted the 29th Pan American Nationals which even the raceway closing announcement called “the biggest and best ever.” And sometime before the fateful news was posted on the dragway’s Facebook page at 5:49 p.m. Tuesday, an earlier Instagram post that day said the dragway would be closed that night for a clean-up from the weekend event but would reopen Friday, July 21.
The Atco Dragway was the oldest dragway in New Jersey. Island Dragway in Great Meadows is still operating.
Kyle Rosner, the grandson of Edwin Rosner, one of the dragway’s founders, said he had reached out to Capone a few years ago when it looked like the property might have become an auto auction. As someone who worked in digital marketing and raised funds for business, he said he started a Facebook page Save Atco Raceway and offered Capone his services.
“He wasn’t too happy with me and gave me some flack,” Rosner said. “He cursed me out on the phone.”
Rosner said he also tried to start an effort to get the dragway historic landmark status, “but again, I got a really hard pushback from Len Capone. He was not interested in preserving the legacy.”
Still, Rosner said he’s proud his family was a part of it.
“I’m proud to have a connection to the dragway,” he said. “I’m proud of my grandfather for starting it. The fact that it lasted this long and has a dedicated fan base speaks volumes.”
Staff writer Jason Nark contributed to this article.