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Punta Gorda businessman Joe Gentry was revved up last August, fresh off a final nod from the Charlotte County Airport Authority on a five-year lease on the dormant Punta Gorda Speedway.
By mid-December, Gentry's voice says he needs a break from the racetrack rescue he started right after signing the deal. “We've been working seven days a week for three months. We're ready to open,” says the Punta Gorda racecar owner and new proprietor of the three-eighths of a mile asphalt track at 8655 Piper Road, just south of Punta Gorda Airport.
The racetrack has had somewhat of a recent tortured history. Charlotte County officials evicted the last tenants in 2015, when they went more than three months without paying rent. Another operator, Kevin Williams, ran the track from 2010 through March 2013. Williams, in a 2013 interview with the Business Observer, says he didn't renew the lease because it had gotten too expensive. An airport official says the Federal Aviation Administration, which provides grant money to the airport, requested the rent increase to bring the racetrack to “fair market value.”
But Gentry has zoomed past any previous issues.
He suggests race fans pencil-in Jan. 6 and 7 — that is when racing under the lights is expected to return after a nearly two-year absence. Main races will run on Saturday nights up to an 11:30 curfew, and the track will sometimes host specialty races on Sunday, he adds.
Gentry, who owns Punta Gorda-based AA Temperature Services with his wife, Janet, as well as a home renovation business, has put up to $300,000 into the speedway grounds. Test racing showed the track to be in good shape, but the rest of the venue needed a lot of attention, starting with new bleachers that will seat 2,500 fans. An upgraded PA system is in place and workers have done a lot of sprucing up at the former Three Palms Raceway.
The track and grounds also has a new name: 4-17 Southern Speedway and Events.
“We pretty much started from scratch as far as rebuilding the place,” says Gentry. “We've gotten everything painted, cleaned up and put into working order.”
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