HILO — Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
The Hilo Drag Strip is set to reopen by the end of 2017 after being closed nearly two years for renovations.
The renovations, which have cost about $5.2 million, included repaving the racing surface, making the facility handicap accessible, upgrades to the restrooms and sewer system, adding new bleachers, making improvements to the oval track, and electrical upgrades to the track timing system.
For racing enthusiasts, the project is long overdue: Work began in November 2015 and was originally estimated to take at least six months. It’s since remained behind schedule.
County Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Ryan Chong said the delays were a result of “contractual issues” between the county and the contractor.
Chong said current county administration inherited the project from the previous administration and is working to “steward it to the finish line.”
“The track will open before the end of the year,” Chong told the Tribune-Herald. “… Right now, we’re finishing up the last of the electrical wiring for the timing system. Once that’s done, we should be able to accept the project from the contractor … at that point it will be substantially complete. There might be some punch-list items that need to go on (such as) door handles and things like that, but it will be substantially complete.”
Delays have been a source of frustration for drag strip users who’ve been unable to race since it closed.
On July 29, the Hawaii Drag Racing League organized a large-scale cleanup of the facility grounds, hoping that mowing overgrown grass and clearing the land would help expedite remaining renovation work. About 60 volunteers spent more than four hours on the project, said racing league manager Keith Aguiar, who added that grass had grown higher than 4 feet in some areas.
“It was a lot of work,” Aguiar said. “I just couldn’t believe the amount of equipment and lawn mowers that showed up. A lot of the volunteers were people we never knew but who wanted to see racing and participate.”
“(The drag strip) is very popular,” Aguiar continued. “Every weekend something goes on down at the race track and we just want it to get done. We just know that we want to race.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.