Maple Grove Raceway Listed For Sale

Maple Grove (Reading) PA

Maple Grove Raceway (Reading, PA), the dragstrip that attracts tens of thousands of visitors to Brecknock Township, PA every year, is up for sale.

The sale includes the racing business and 14 parcels of land, including a campground, totaling about 450 acres. The asking price is $8 million.

The Bedorf-Prince Team agency of Camp Hill, Cumberland County, is handling the sale.

Sarah Gingrich, Maple Grove's director of communications, said the sale has nothing to do with financial difficulties.

“It's not hard times or anything like that," she said. “The family is aging. The parents that owned it passed it down to their kids, and then their kids, it wasn't in the cards for them. Running a racetrack is not easy.

“It's a changing of the times."

The track was founded in 1962 by Alfred Stauffer, who was approached by the Eastern Custom Car Association to build a dragstrip on the site of a former oval track, Brecknock Speedway, that closed in 1941. Stauffer had already established an adjacent campground with a large swimming pool, Maple Grove Park, in 1928.

The track, which initially attracted local competitors who were looking for a safe place to race, gradually brought in regional and national entrants. Some of drag racing's legendary drivers — including Don Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, Don “The Snake" Prudhomme and John Force — were regular visitors over the years. Regional racers, such as “Jungle Jim" Liberman, Bruce Larson, Bill “Grumpy" Jenkins and Larry Lombardo, raced at Maple Grove as they began earning national accolades.

The NHRA has been visiting Maple Grove Raceway since the late 1960s and the track hosted its first NHRA national event in 1985. The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series is scheduled to return to Maple Grove on Sept. 12-15.