Santa Maria Raceway suspends operations

NIPOMO, Calif. - The Santa Maria Raceway has been a staple to Nipomo since the 1960s, but with recent situations, the raceway made the decision to suspend operations.

This comes after a series of events transpired to try and maintain all events at the raceway, not just races.

The raceway thrives with races but needs concerts and other events to gain more money to hold more races.

According to SLO County and Santa Maria Raceway, the county gave the raceway a temporary license to hold six concerts each year, with that license needing a renewal annually.

A neighboring Home Owners Association filed a lawsuit against the raceway and county, causing the raceway to rescind that license to avoid future penalties from lawsuits.

Santa Maria Raceway, however, has a contractual agreement with promoters to hold a certain amount of events per year, not including racing, so they continued to hold those.

And with those being put on, the county gave the raceway a citation for each event since it no longer had the license.