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Racetrack on Track in West Haven?
Celentano floats bid for stock-car course
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Business New Haven
11/26/2001
By: Linda Mele
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WEST HAVEN - While the idea of bringing a racetrack back to West Haven is far from a done deal, at least as far as some city officials are concerned, local supporters are coming out of the woodwork to support it.
All Joseph E. (Chick) Celentano and several racing buddies had to do was mention the fact they might be interested in building a new stock-car track on the site of the former Bowl Drive-In, off Route 1 between Forest and Central avenues behind the Dairy Queen and Burger King, and “The phones started ringing off the hook,” he says.
“I can't believe I've gotten so many calls,” Celentano says. “Most of them have been from guys who raced there or their families and fans.”
Celentano, a race fan for more than 50 years and the owner of Chick's Drive-In and the 25-acre Bowl Drive-In site, says he fondly remembers the old stock car track that was located in the Savin Rock Amusement Park along the shore.
“It's all preliminary,” Celentano says. “We're supposed to be on the agenda on November 27. We're going to talk options.”
Commissioner of Planning & Development James Hill says his office has not received any firm plans for such a project and that currently there “is no zone in the city that allows a racetrack, as far as I know.”
The site is located in a Regional Business Zone, according to Hill, that does not allow racetracks.
Celentano, who says auto racing is the fastest-growing spectator sport in the U.S., says there have been no discussions about the level of racing such a track might accommodate or whether the long road to approval would be worthwhile.
Hill says such a proposal would certainly face a mountain of approvals before it would even get to the site-plan stage, including zoning changes or amendments, coastal site reviews, state Department of Environmental Protection reviews, local Inland Wetlands and Watercourses approval, public hearings and local planning committee hearing and approvals before it even reaches the full board or a public hearing.
That's why, according to Hill, racing fans shouldn't get their hopes up or oppose the idea because “It's not a done deal” by any stretch of the imagination.
“From the numbers I've heard about seating capacity, they would need 26 acres just to park the cars,” Hill adds.
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