California’s Irwindale Speedway Will Close To Become A Shopping Mall In January (Updated)If things go to plan, Irwindale Speedway won’t be around long enough to see its 2. Like too many other tracks in California, the speedway will become the state’s newest 7. Jan. 3. 1, 2. 01.

Employees at Irwindale weren’t expecting it to happen so soon. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports that a development company bought the track in 2.

The track’s website still calls it a “brand- new, state- of- the- art, motorsports [and] entertainment event facility,” and the Tribune reports that the developer said it would allow racing to continue there until construction began on newer and more state- of- the- art mall. While it might not be as brand new as its website makes it out to be, Irwindale is a fairly young track. The Tribune reports that it came around in 1. Irwindale, California area, which the Tribune says has had five different racing facilities.

Things didn’t start out well at Irwindale, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that the first fatal wreck at the speedway happened opening day on March 2. Casey Diemert, 2. A later LA Times column, which will quickly turn your day somber, claimed that Diemert’s death wasn’t announced when all the fans arrived a few hours later.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports that a development company bought the track in 2013, two years after the speedway’s operator declared bankruptcy. · related Shia LaBeouf's New Tennis Movie Lets Him Be the A-Hole He Was Born to Play.

· · written by lady gaga. executive producer: vincent herbert. directed by nick knight. choreography by laurie ann gibson. lady gaga / joanne new album / out. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Before an ambulance blocked pit road in Saturday’s NASCAR race and stacked up unsuspecting cars, there wasn’t much outside attention on medical transport at tracks. Today, Volkswagen’s former head of U.S. regulatory compliance, Oliver Schmidt, pleaded guilty for playing a key role in the Dieselgate emissions scandal. We knew.

Most read about it in the paper the next day, the column said, and the director of communication at the track reportedly told the LA Times there was “no need to say anything that night” because the crash happened before the crowd came. Three more drivers died between then and June of 2.

LA Times reported. The track currently has a banked half- mile oval and a one- third- mile oval in use, according to its website. It also has parking for more than 3,0. In its track- info section on the website, the part explaining the reasoning behind Irwindale’s existence is particularly sad: In the past ten years motorsports has enjoyed phenomenal success and growth across the country .. While, at the same time, the Los Angeles area lost its last 1/2- Mile oval short track in 1. Irwindale Event Center is committed to bringing all the action, color, and excitement of close- up, paved oval racing back to Southern California.

It did do that, for a few years. Local racing, major drifting events and NASCAR’s feeder K& N Pro Series West series all raced out there. The K& N Pro Series ran a doubleheader at Irwindale in March of this year. Irwindale Speedway’s operator, Irwindale Speedway LLC, filed for bankruptcy in 2. Motor Authority reported at the time that track owner Nu- Way Industries was on a search for a new operator for the track, and decided on Team 2.

Entertainment at the end of 2. The company doesn’t have much of an online presence, but its records in California say that it does event management and officially registered as a company in May of 2.

Curbed reported a few years ago that a developer bought the track at the end of Team 2. October of 2. 01. The developer, Lindom Company, announced that it planned to pave over the 6. Lindom said racing would continue through December of 2. Racing continued for a lot longer than that, if there are any positives to take away from the news that another race track will soon become a huge mall. Even still, the announcement was so unexpected that Team 2.

Here’s what Team 2. CEO Jim Cohan said in an emailed statement, via the Tribune: “In all honesty, we were here and in it for the long haul. In fact, we were in the process of putting out our complete schedule for the 2. Cohan said in the statement. All that made this news very difficult for me to hear, and very hard on our whole team.”But it won’t be hard on the shoppers, or the bulldozers coming in to uproot the entire thing. Irwindale will be nothing more than a memory, slowly fading as each new generation files into the stores for another year of the latest fashion trends.

What a sad, unfortunate way to go. Watch A Woman, A Part Online Freeform. Update, Aug. 1. 1 at 8: 4. ET: Irwindale’s Vice President of Communications, Doug Stokes, responded to Jalopnik with some comments about what a great run it had. He also included the lovely photo you see underneath his comments with the email. What a cool dude. Yeah, the other shoe, after 5 years, has dropped, and we’ve been given a firm (0. I’ve been told that the Outlet Mall plan has been scotched; but really don’t know what the “official” plans are for the property … an easy (and in my case uneducated) guess is something of an industrial nature.

We had a hell of a good run here, the fans loved the place, a number of drivers got famous here, and Jason Torchinsky had naughty words on his race car that scared me for life …In all seriousness (which I can only maintain on a momentary basis) the team here did their best to put on a great show every time that we opened the front gates. Working under one of Damocles’ sabers was never a easy nor healthful deal anywhere anytime … having to constantly indicate that we were still here and operating was tiring. Expecting this news was always out there in the fog just beyond the property line. Here’s what he said his next adventures are, after Irwindale: Why Penske did not buy Saturn (at a fire sale price) is beyond me … Spring Hill would have made a great condo complex.

Khloé Kardashian Celebrates Halloween As Mother of Dragons from HBO's 'Game Of Thrones' Rosanna Pansino Creates Spooky Treats That Anyone Can Make! I’ve known about Hoonigan Racing, Ken Block’s motorsport team that competes in FIA World Rallycross as a Ford factory backed team. I even saw them compete at.

Me? I’m going to take up spelunking (I’m starting small with the crawl space under my house, but have full expectations of Jalopnik carrying some of my personal tales of adventure as I progress to deeper and darker places). And here’s the photo.

VW Exec Pleads Guilty, Faces $4. Fine And Up To Seven Years In Jail. Today, Volkswagen’s former head of U. S. regulatory compliance, Oliver Schmidt, pleaded guilty for playing a key role in the Dieselgate emissions scandal.

We knew the 4. 8 year- old German native would take a plea deal, but now, thanks to Reuters, we know the approximate damage. Schmidt pleaded guilty today to a single count of “conspiracy to defraud the U. S., to commit wire fraud and to violate the Clean Air Act,” and also to one count of violating the Clean Air Act. His plea involved spilling the beans on his involvement in the scandal.

The Department of Justice says Schmidt admitted to meeting with other VW employees to devise a way to carefully answer the California Air Resources Board’s questions about VW TDI emissions discrepancies. The aim, there, was to convince CARB to approve the sale of vehicles Schmidt knew utilized a defeat device to circumvent regulations. Schmidt’s plea also involved him admitting knowledge of two reports sent from VW to the Environmental Protection Agency that were “fraudulent and misleading,” and he professed that he was aware that VW’s “Clean Diesel” marketing campaign was all a bunch of bogus. Though, upon his arrest in Florida, Schmidt faced 1. Reuters reports that the plea agreement will put Schmidt behind bars for up to seven years, cost him between $4. Jean E. Williams, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Deputy said her organization isn’t playing around with sentencing violators of clean air laws, saying: Schmidt participated in a fraudulent VW scam that prioritized corporate sales at the expense of the honesty of emissions tests and trust of the American purchasers.. Schmidt along with each and every official involved in this emissions scandal will be held fully accountable for their actions by the Department of Justice as this investigation continues.

Schmidt was indicted earlier this year along with five of his peers. He now joins VW Engineer James Robert Liang and a South Korean VW exec by the name of Yun in the club of VW employees staring down the barrel of multi- month prison sentences. We’ll know the full extent of Schmidt’s punishment when Judge Sean F. Cox of the Eastern District of Michigan sentences him on December 6.

Until then, watch the pre- dieselgate video above of Oliver Schmidt discussing his role at Volkswagen, and actually providing quite a lot of insight into the world of fuel economy certification.