Update on the Bradenton Motorsports Park and Freedom Factory Tracks’ Future, as Construction Moves Forward on Thousands of Homes Around Them
As we reported about a year ago, the futures of Bradenton Motorsports Park and the Freedom Factory could be in jeopardy, as more homes were being planned and constructed closer and closer to the track.
To speak to this from a personal level, I’ve been attending events at the track since 2003, and although Florida continues to gain residents and more homes are built, one year ago the game changed by a lot.
Areas that were farmland and undeveloped acreage were slated to change to homes, and with five separate visits to the track in 2023 alone, I witnessed that change upon each and every visit.
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Ground zero for the biggest battle was Bourneside Boulevard, the urban sprawl line to keep the land on the east of that line from residential building and protect agricultural use as the primary use of the land.
But in December of 2022, word got out that a 2700-acre parcel of land is going up for a change of use, and the Manatee Country Board of County Commissioners held a public hearing. Despite several thousand e-mails to not allow the project and protect the tracks’ future, the vote went 5-to-2 to approve and send the re-zoning to the state level.
The project was given the final green light this March to re-zone a massive 2,307 acres, zoned for agricultural use, and converts it for residential use for a proposed 4500-home community. A proposed 3 homes per acre on the land surrounding both tracks have been widely discussed.
Although a ‘racer village’ has been discussion and the hope is it will help ease possible disputes about the noise from the tracks, the very real concern is the future of a pair of racing facilities could be in doubt.
Cleetus McFarland has been vocal about the homes and the tracks’ future since the beginning, and although the land change was ultimately approved, the Manatee Country Board of County Commissioners did grant a conditional stipulation that will go in as part of the deeds of the homes that should hopefully protect the tracks’ future.
Cleetus discusses this in his latest video update here:
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine.
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