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Singer Vehicle Design, the famed Porsche 911 gurus, just became a co-owner of Willow Springs International Raceway.
Singer bought the Southern California track along with CrossHarbor Capital Partners, a private equity firm, which has plans to not only keep the track open but also invest in it. The track has been open since 1953 and has hosted NASCAR races, one of the first motorcycle endurance races, and early kart road racing. Drivers including Ken Miles, Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Bob Bondurant, and Carroll Shelby have also run the course. The Ford GT40 also spent time testing there before winning at Le Mans.
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For over five decades, owner Bill Huth kept the track going. Huth died in 2015, but ownership of Willow Springs stayed within his family, despite many reported offers over the years, including a £500,000 offer from Miles, a $30 million offer from foreign investors, and a $100 million offer from land developers, and other potential big-money deals, according to Racingcircuits.info. Finally, Willow Springs was put up for sale last year, and many feared the worst for Big Willow, which calls itself “the fastest road in the west.”
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A 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL at Willow Springs International Raceway
But reports emerged this week of what could be a happy ending: ownership by Singer Vehicle Design and private equity, which means that Willow Springs will stay open as a track at the very least.
“No, we don’t intend to have any permanent closures here,” Sam Byrne, a managing partner of CrossHarbor Capital Partners, told Motor1. “In the short term, we’re going to make safety improvements immediately. We have more ambitious plans, but those require a longer process.”
Singer, meanwhile, will oversee the design of changes at the track, while the new owners are putting together a team to build out facilities. All of this likely comes at a price: Motor1 says that it can be as cheap as $200 to do a track day at Willow Springs, a cost which will likely go up. But, for now, events scheduled for the rest of the year will go forward as planned.
Willow Springs having a track club element—something in vogue at tracks across the world—also seems inevitable. Still, the new owners sound less like they have big profits in mind and more like they are realizing a passion project.
“This isn’t going into our private equity business, this is all being done with permanent capital,” Byrne told Motor1. “This is a huge personal passion of mine, and the equity is being aligned from people with a like-minded mentality… passionate motorsports enthusiasts.”
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