Two popular outdoor tracks in SoCal to change ownership

0 Oct. 23, 2014, 10:21 a.m.

10/23/2014
By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

Interesting news came about in the last few days as two of Southern California's most popular outdoor tracks, Thunder Alley R/C Raceway in Beaumont, and Heritage RC Park in San Diego, are both changing owners.

There's no doubt that running an RC racing facility is physically, emotionally, and financially difficult. The effort required to maintain a top-level track can be back-breaking, especially for the large courses commanded by nitro off-road racing. Outdoor tracks are particularly perilous these last few years as electric racing has supplanted nitro as the more popular flavor, meaning that racers are more likely to stay indoors - especially when that indoor track has a well-stocked hobby shop.

That's not at all to say that outdoor tracks cannot thrive, and both Thunder Alley and Heritage RC Park have done very well for themselves. Thunder Alley has hosted two ROAR Fuel Off-Road Nationals among countless other large events, and HRCP has become a destination test track for manufacturers looking to try new parts (most recently, Team Associated has used the track extensively to work out the new RC8B2 prototype).

Here's a word from the new proprietor of Heritage R/C Park, Gil Alontaga, and the outgoing owners of Thunder Alley R/C Raceway, Rob and Levi Jackson.

Heritage RC Park (HRCP) ownership/management changes effective November 1st, 2014

To whom it may concern,

After being involved in RC racing for the last several years as a racer and business person, I have decided to take on an offer made by Don Daley III to take over ownership of HRCP, this will embrace several changes both at management and infrastructure level but will be almost transparent to racers and RC enthusiasts that support the track. I also would like to thank Don Vinkemoulder for the great work he did on the last few months he managed the track. With your support, myself and the people behind HRCP will take this business to the level you all deserve.

Shall you have any comments and/or suggestions, feel free to contact me via email or phone.

Sincerely, Gil Alontaga

gilalontaga11@gmail.com

(619) 726-6165

In August of 2001 Rob Jackson broke ground on a small piece of property located at the Noble Creek Park in Beaumont, California so that his son Levi Jackson could have a place to run his new Associated GT10 that he received for his 10 birthday. Now fast forward to 13 + Years later and see what has become one of the most recognizable and beautiful RC Off-road tracks in the world. There have been MANY milestones reached at TA in the past 13 years and we take great pride in all of those. Levi’s racing career ended in 2011 and he has taken all of his racing venues into his thought process and become an a VERY busy Off-road RC track builder calling his new business venture SiK Track Designs & Builds.

TA’s resume for the past 13 years includes 2 VERY successful ROAR National 1/8 events along with many years of hosting the JBRL events, Thunder Alley signature events, TA Gas Championships (6 years),The DUAL (2 years), Battle of the SiKest, Grass Roots Racing Series (4 years) along with other unique races throughout the years.

The purpose of this letter you are all wondering? Bittersweet sums it best. The time has come to look into another chapter of life for Rob Jackson and Levi Jackson, that being said there will be NEW owners of Thunder Alley RC Raceway in the next few weeks.

Larry and Debbie Cerquettini (IERC) have purchased our established and proven racing facility/ business adding to their VERY successful indoor racing facility. Don’t look for any BIG changes though as they want to maintain the level of races and facility that TA has achieved in the past 13 years! Levi & I took the sale of our facility VERY seriously and would not let just anybody take over TA! We think we made a EXCELLENT choice with the C-Family and SiK Track Designs will continue to build more awesome layouts in the years to come at Thunder Alley. The Signature TA events will continue with some slight tweaks for 2015 schedule and the years to come I’m told.

So there is the purpose of this letter along with the MANY MANY THANK YOU’s to all of you racers, friends we have made, Corporate People and Companies that have supported Thunder Alley for the majority of these past 13 years. By NO means could we have started, built and achieved the success and praise from all of you involved in this amazing journey without ALL of YOU!!!!

We cannot close without naming just a few of our closest friends in the industry, Tim Clark for guiding us in our very first RC purchase, Scott “ Squirrel” Hughes for taking Levi under his wing during the early years for guidance and always being my RC Confidant for advice. Mark “2006 WC” Pavidis for always being the guy with all the answers when asked, Todd Mattson for believing and supporting my crazy ideas involving Thunder Alley, Adam Drake for always being honest with us either for racing advice or track/ business input, Joey “THE DIRT” for just always being supportive, Mike Moller “MR GENEROUS,” Kenny “THE MIC” Brosh for always answering the phone when I needed scoring advice and last but not least this man left us last year but I miss him A LOT!!! Donnie “DONROD” Rodriquez, My friend, you were ALWAYS there when needed, went beyond ALL expectations when track improvements were made, God Bless the Rodriquez family! Brent “BT” Theilke, Richard Saxton, we could always come to you for an HONEST opinion and advice, Jimmy Babcock and JBRL..John “JK” Kellishes for his amazing artsy talent making TA look AWESOME!! Lastly my son, Levi Jackson who can whip a skidsteer around like nobody’s business and make INCREDIBLE LAYOUTS doing it, THANKS TO YOU ALL!!! See ya soon!!, RJ