Paid a weirdly sobering visit to what remains of the old Fleet Motor Club/Paices Hill race track in Tadley today. It closed around five or six years ago after the owners built structures without permission and then the council decided to shaft them, demanding they install a fallout shelter (it sits opposite the AWE) and even going as far as denying a historic track had ever existed there before it's final incarnation (it goes back into at least the 1980s, maybe earlier).
I only ever visited the track once when it was open, but a lot of friends of mine I've made over the years spent a lot more time there than me both racing or spectating, and I found seeing the place in such disrepair more depressing than I ever thought I could. Short oval tracks are closing at an alarming rate - Birmingham Wheels Park and St. Day both closed last month - and a number of the remaining ones have had longstanding battles with developers and planners and councils determined to erase anywhere that provides fun and enjoyment for people in favour of erecting more shoddily built matchbox homes or faceless industrial units.
Soon all that is left of one of the best short oval race tracks in the south will be bulldozed and buried under yet another bland industrial estate. To most people this is just an empty concrete oval but to people like me these places are so important.