ACRC For Sale
The Atlantic City Race Course mini-meet opens today amid reports that it will be sold to a camping superstore outfit. (Trentonian)
Reader Chris Garrity writes in to say: “It looks like this year almost certainly will be the last. The area around ACRC is the fastest growing in the state of New Jersey; it’s close to Atlantic City and less than an hour from Philadelphia. And because of the Atlantic City Expressway, it’s a gateway to Jersey Shore towns both north and south. A peculiarity in that part of the world is that there are more bait shops than there are gas stations: the area is densely concentrated with recreational fishermen. It makes sense, then, that the outdoor giant Cabela’s would be interested in opening a shop there, and that when they started looking for a big piece of land for development, the 250 acres of ACRC property would be at the top of the list.”
It’s true that the ACRC’s glory days are long gone. The track has been holding four-day meets (the minimum number of live racing days necessary to keep its license) in recent years and keeps most of the grandstand closed up (homeless people and skateboarding kids have made more use of it lately than racing fans), but it’s still sad news that the ACRC, like Suffolk Downs and Hollywood Park, is opening this spring for what may well be its last year of racing.
