WILLOW SPRINGS REIMAGINED

Willow Springs International Motorsports Park is the oldest permanent road course in the United States, consisting of seven circuits nestled into the base of an otherwise unimpressive foothill in Rosamond, California. It is a state historical landmark, a filming site seen in Ford v Ferrari (Le Mans '66), Top Gear, and Jay Leno's Garage, and a perennial pain-in-the-ass for sim racers playing iRacing and Gran Turismo. Though not currently a professional-grade track, Willow Springs International Raceway—the longest and primary circuit, affectionately known as Big Willow—has hosted renowned drivers such as Nigel Mansell, Michael Andretti, Jimmie Johnson, and Dario Franchitti.

Willow Springs is my hometown track. Over seventy years of racing, testing, and good times happened a stone's throw from most of my life.

Prior to 2024, Willow Springs was set dressing to me, a relic to admire whenever my family drove through the western part of town toward somewhere else. Then I worked there as a flag marshal for its final Cal Club race in May 2025. Unlike trekking two hours north to Buttonwillow or flying to Miami for my first two race weekends, I could start and end the day in my own house, only a few minutes from the circuit. At the crest of Big Willow, I could see nearly the entire town unfolding below.

I would never think of this place as bygone again.

Just after 9am on October 11, 2025, my parents and I returned to Willow Springs for the first time since I marshaled. On the drive in, I noticed a sign at one of the earlier turns into the raceway, directing VIPs down 70th Street West for parking. VIPs in Rosamond? Ridiculous. My heart raced.

On this day, I was a run-of-the-mill fan, like anyone else, because I was at Willow Springs Reimagined, a car show and public showcase of the ongoing improvements happening across the entire campus since the property was purchased from the Huth family, ten years after former owner Bill Huth died.

My dad broke the news of the sale to me shortly after it happened. Sitting next to me on our living room couch, he showed me a Facebook post citing an article0 posted by The Drive on February 21, 2025 that exclusively announced the pending sale of Willow Springs International Motorsports Park to a private equity firm called CrossHarbor Capital Partners. Per a statement given to The Drive, the Boston-based firm was "excited to preserve the legacy and enthusiast access to one of America's most iconic racing facilities while also setting up the property for growth and success in the future." In the purchase, CrossHarbor would receive everything within the park's 600 acres, including all seven tracks, the buildings, spectator areas, and maintenance equipment. The firm's website claimed their singular focus was "preserving capital while maximizing returns and minimizing risk."

"They're going to try to make Rosamond the next Thermal," I said to my dad. "Ha. Good luck!"

The Thermal Club is a private motorsport facility contained within a country club of the same name, some 25 miles southeast of Palm Springs. Laid across its 344 acres are three separate road courses that can be combined in more than 20 configurations totaling 5.1 miles, as well as a karting track, autocross tracks, a members-only clubhouse, purchasable on-site villas with large private garages that can fit up to 20 vehicles, and a full-service tuning shop0. Thermal is far from the only circuit within a country club or private resort in the United States or abroad0, but it is notable for its climate, appealing both to wealthy snowbirds and to a motorsport series in need of a stateside, warm-weather, off-season testing location, not unlike Formula 1's tests in Barcelona and Bahrain.

Thermal hosted two IndyCar events: the $1 Million Challenge in 2024, and a race that mattered (for championship points) in 2025. Both were a logistical nightmare for fans, teams, and broadcasters alike.

The Indianapolis Star0 reported that the original cost of a ticket for the $1 Million Challenge—on sale months before the slated event, at least to the club members who knew about it—was $2,080, including fees. Backlash to both price and poor marketing was swift. In March 2024, IndyCar slashed all ticket prices to $500 and issued partial refunds to those who'd initially purchased passes. The general manager of the Thermal Club told RACER that local government had allowed them to let in more spectators, hence the need for cheaper tickets. However, after the event concluded, officials from Penske Entertainment Corporation, who owns IndyCar, envisioned the next race being a "made-for-TV event".

Of course, the $2,080 ticket for a maximum crowd of a couple thousand people assumed the average buyer was or wanted to be a sponsor, or that they had existing club access. Approximately two hundred people had Thermal Club membership in 2023, which included an initiation fee, a monthly membership fee, and the cost of purchasing a lot and building a 30,000 sq. ft home within 5 years of joining, and for it paid upward of $5 million0.

For those who secured tickets and made it out to the Sonoran Desert, they watched racing that was ill-prepared and ill-suited for the track. Mismatched vehicle weights in proportion to their Firestone tires impacted the showing in 2024, and tire degradation0 during 2025 testing was so high that RACER called Thermal the "Coachella Valley Cheese Grater". IndyCar and Firestone had to make an exception in typical tire distribution policy to deal with the "hungry" 3.067-mile circuit.

I watched the 2025 race from my grad school apartment, or at least I tried to. Partway through, all visual feeds dropped due to a loss of power at the track, causing broadcasters like FOX and Sky Sports to freeze, then cut to NASCAR or the same three ads on loop. IndyCar Radio still worked, though race action up to that point had mostly been about preventing shredded tires.

Cal Club staffed the marshals. My friends Rissa and Estefania were at different posts. Over the course of the weekend, Rissa helped with comms at her station; when the cameras died, corner communication was the only way Race Control knew what was happening on track—which, in fact, was nothing. "Im[sic] making my parents watch the Thermal race from this weekend," Rissa wrote on her blog days later, "and they were like oh did something interesting happen? And it was like no but every time they show my corner over the next hour and a half I'm going to say 'that's my corner'".

Thermal was not brought back as an IndyCar track for the 2026 season.

Rich people having a private place to vacation and store their dozens of cars, with occasional racing both personal and professional, isn't really of interest to me. What I care about is the town around the club, Thermal itself, wherein nearly 95% of the roughly 2700-person population (documented by the 2020 census) identified as Hispanic or Latine, and where the median individual income in 2023 was just under $16,3000.

In 2019, seven years after the Thermal Club opened, a company called American Wave Machines pitched a luxury artificial surf resort for the region, called Thermal Beach Club. The Los Angeles Times0 detailed the dissonance of the ultra-rich developing on vacant land in an area rife with pesticide exposure from nearby agricultural fields and clouds of toxic dust coughed up by the shrinking Salton Sea. A so-called oasis with crystal-clear water would neighbor mobile homes with taps contaminated by up to 10 times the allowable arsenic limit. "'For folks who live in the eastern part of the [Coachella] valley, there's just a lot less resources, a lot less investment — a lot less of everything,'" explained Lesly Figueroa, a policy advocate with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, who was one of many advocates doing door-to-door outreach about the proposal in September 2019. "Traditionally, how the planning process has worked [is that] it doesn't include the community. It's a developer-to-agency relationship… We can't keep making land use decisions and housing decisions like this. The traditional planning process needs to be different."

Among other things, IndyCar at Thermal was an experiment for creating exciting racing in a hot desert environment. More private facilities such as the Podium Club in Arizona have since sprung up and started building out sprawling complexes. Testing what is possible in extreme climates only continues to prove pertinent in a world irreversibly burdened by climate change and increasingly hotter days outside of the summer months, one that remains far too dependent on cars and appeasing politicians and oil, gas, and rubber magnates in the short term.0

One of the many reasons I love IndyCar is its relative affordability. For a three-day weekend at the 50th running of the Long Beach Grand Prix—including four 3-day General Admission tickets, a Paddock Pass, parking, food, merch, and gas to/from my Tía Bety's apartment—I paid less than a single $500 reduced ticket for Thermal 2024. If I had been able to marshal at Thermal 2025, I would've asked someone to carpool, because in no world would or could my parents have justified a long drive and steep price tag to watch a nothing race. Even if prices were more comparable, we would probably pick Long Beach every time, not only for the racing but also the atmosphere, crowd, amenities, and connection to a history bigger than a single weekend. Long Beach has lasted so long because it became a race for the people and city that house it. Thermal simply got to pat itself on the back for a couple days, then closed its doors and raised its walls again.

They're going to make Rosamond the next Thermal, I thought while reading The Drive's article. Jerry Perez, the article's writer, was right there with me.

"Lastly," writes Perez, "will Willow Springs Raceway morph into a sort of Thermal 2.0? Y'know, multi-million-dollar condos, grandiose garages, a country club, spa, pool, green areas, and perhaps even a posh hotel given the lack of nearby accommodations. The original listing already pitched most of these ideas to potential buyers, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see them come to reality. If CrossHarbor wants to keep the doors open for another 70-plus years, it'll have to find clever and sustainable ways of generating a healthy income."

Anytime I reread this passage, I try to imagine a gated country club carved into the side of one of the hills behind Big Willow. A multi-story hotel with a pool and restaurant and valet, as opposed to the handful of rundown motels along Sierra Hwy. Green areas in Rosamond that aren't dispensaries.

I laugh.

Surely, anyone thinking they'll make Thermal 2.0 of Rosamond has never been here before.

I carried this skepticism with me in October.

VOICE NOTE TRANSCRIPT

"New Recording 13" (2min 33sec)

I'm not a big voice memos guy but it might be easiest to do this just so the ambient audio comes through. Um. I am at Willow Springs Reimagined. This is October 11, 2025.

Like 10 minutes ago, a race on Big Willow just finished. Literal actual Jenson Button won [laughs] that six car race, which was also, uh, raced by Jimmie Johnson and Dario Franchitti and, like, the guy who owns springer– er, Singer, um, and they announced that the kart track, one of seven tracks at Willow Springs Raceway, is gonna be renamed the Jenson Button Karting Track, or something like that.

And that– in part because he lives in LA, um, and the relationship with this Sam guy who's funding a lot of stuff seems to be very positive, that a lot of the Willow Springs redevelopment is going to be… legit. Like actual known racers with money or with status, or if you're Jenson, you know you're shilling a little bit, but like, it's still enough of a draw.

That… maybe my worry about Thermal, about this being a, like, walled-off exclusive place just for rich people is maybe not as much of a concern as I thought it would be? Like it's definitely still gonna be a rich person playground, but it seems like they want this to actually be, if not like FIA-approved racing, like an actual place… to come. It's a tourist destination again. It's not just some weird place an hour and a half north of LA, but an actual track with actual clout, and people will come here again.

And that… I'm still apprehensive, but it's a much better outcome than I was worrying about, so. That's a nice through line for the course check essay. That's all. Thank you.

I returned to this essay in March 2026, and again in July. There will be another Willow Springs Reimagined event in October, and it seems every October until the entire property is finally reimagined. More crucially, however, is the news that the Goodwood Road Racing Club has expanded into the United States, with plans to debut a version of the iconic Goodwood Festival of Speed at Willow Springs in 2028. Membership applications for the Goodwood Road Racing Club of America open in January 20270.

As of writing, this news broke a few days ago. I signed up for the club's newsletter. If I think about this for too long, I get nauseous from a cocktail of excitement, fear, and defensiveness.

In January 2026, ground broke on a new shopping center on the corner of Rosamond Blvd and 30th Street West, close to the town's main commercial center. Plans for the Golden City Plaza include a gas station, cafe, and Tesla charging station. It was slated to open this summer; since the groundbreaking ceremony, I have only seen construction vehicles one time.

An article0 published by the Antelope Valley Press on January 17 outlined not only the key information surrounding Golden City Plaza but also a ribbon cutting for a remodel of the Rosamond Library (which has since happened) and the construction of a new Kern County Sheriff's Department office next door, opening in the same area later this year or in early 2027. Housing continues to pop up across town, particularly in the open lots between 30th and 45th Street West, and supposedly we will get a real hotel in the next couple years, though credible sources for that are scant. Ride hailing and food delivery apps now have minor but solid presences.

Whether these projects are direct results of investment in the community around Willow Springs or belated responses to an area that's long since outgrown its one major thoroughfare, I'm unsure, but Rosamond is set to expand in ways that feel more significant than anything I've witnessed in my lifetime. It is still a small town along the borders of Kern and Los Angeles counties, a bedroom community servicing Edwards Air Force Base to the east, Mojave to the north, and the greater Antelope Valley to the south. It is still an afterthought to Lancaster or Palmdale. But especially with the Goodwood news, I can imagine a near-future where people ask me where I'm from and I don't hedge or circumvent by saying "an hour and a half north of LA". Rosamond might mean something. People might want to be from here.

"Do I ever think we're ever going to have Formula 1 racing out here? No," said Sam Byrne, co-founder and managing partner of CrossHarbor, in April 2025, "but we're working on the FIA safety levels we want to achieve so we can host Indy or possibly IMSA and have something with that sort of gravitas. A race or two like that down the road is of interest."

By the sound of it, they've found something with gravitas.

Rosamond might really become the next Thermal. I don't know that I want that.

Demographics aside, IndyCar at Thermal failed because it was never real. There were races and spectators, but the entire thing was a farce serving the interests of a few over the enjoyment of the many. In a sense, that's a lot of what modern motorsport has become, but these two outings were incredibly compelling reasons for why this should cease to be the case now and moving forward. IndyCar has been looking to regain popularity and legitimacy in the eyes of racing fans accustomed to Formula 1 or NASCAR, as well as American sports fans looking for something to follow between NFL and MLB seasons, outside of the Indy 500 alone. Investing in a joke is begging to fall flat.

Willow Springs is not Thermal. NASCAR and some of its support series raced here in the 1950s and 1980s. The Renault-backed Lotus Formula 1 team tested here in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in the lead up to the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach. ChampCar already has a presence at Big Willow, so hosting IMSA or another endurance series would make a ton of sense, adding to a storied lineup of local endurance racing. IndyCar would be a dream. In any case, we have here an established raceway familiar to drivers and fans, existing firmly in motorsport history alongside some of the great rural American tracks while remaining active and challenging. Competitors on track and on simulators who've slid off the pavement at turns 6 and 10 know what it's like for a circuit to defeat them—and I know what it's like to run from those sliding cars. Between Big Willow and the karting track, Horse Thief Mile and Walt James Stadium and the glorious diner, Willow Springs International Motorsports Park has always had something for everyone.

After the Cal Club race, I'd feared my first time to Willow Springs would be my last.

"I hated seeing empty stands," Byrne told Marshall Pruett for RACER0. "We have to create the infrastructure to make it possible to bring things like [racing and Monterey Car Week] here. And create a week on the calendar in a January or February, be it with the [Petersen] Museum, or with the Goodwood folks, or whoever it might be, to give Southern California its car week, because there's nothing like that down here. It doesn't exist in Southern California. A couple of very cool events a year would be part of building Willow Springs' reputation and culture, and I think it's important."

Willow Springs Reimagined 2025 was a smash, sold-out success. Hundreds, if not thousands of people from across the world were witnessing the magic of this raceway, many for the first time. The atmosphere before entering reminded me of Long Beach—friends and strangers in line talked about racing and life and how they heard about this event, and there were photographers and videographers going up and down, start to finish, all day. My dad ran into a guy he hadn't seen in years and had a long conversation with him before taking a picture together.

standing in the line to enter i [feel] giddy like a kid, I wrote in my phone notes that morning. part of me has always been worried about how people [would] view willow springs, in the way that it does and doesn't reflect [my] hometown and this place that i myself have a contentious relationship with. and there may absolutely be people leaving with negative feelings, but that's any event. the fact that people showed up. sold it out. cared enough about the changes and improvements of this itself contentious track. i feel pride.

Per their website, the circuit remains open for racing and testing. Joey Rassool, a producer for The Drive, has driven and filmed the updated Streets of Willow track. My marshal friend Kat and my 2026 Long Beach Grand Prix turn captain Rob have worked VARA (Vintage Auto Racing Association) events within the past year, and I've heard the track has paid marshals who staff other clubs' events. Reimagined 2026 will be here before I know it, and at this rate, I'd be willing to pay the $50 for a general admission ticket, despite my parents and I originally planning to pass this year.

Despite it all, there remains a part of me that sees and hears all this and retreats into pessimism.

A lot of my life has been about trying to illustrate what Rosamond has done for me that Edwards AFB (effectively my actual hometown, having attended school and worked there) and the greater Antelope Valley have not. My family is fortunate to have a house here, a modest one-story built in the early 1990s that, at times, feels claustrophobic but has somehow been big enough to hold all the ambitions and emotions and dreams of my artist dad, librarian-scientist mom, and three children, including myself. We buy cheap groceries from the Grocery Outlet and more expensive ones from the Albertsons my dad briefly used to work at. Mario at Auto Pros II on Sierra Hwy services our cars. My great-grandmother, my grandparents, and my Tía Bety used to live in a similar house down the street from us, which used to be one of the main neutral grounds for full family reunions on my mom's side.

Compared to Edwards, Rosamond is quaint and normal. These qualities make it not a town I want to live in forever, but many people do for those reasons. The older I've gotten, the more I understand the desire for simplicity and getting away from the noise.

Willow Springs is like this too. Its charm is being dusty, hot, windy. Racing happens on a knife's edge: one wrong entry into a turn, or one strong gust, can send you into the dirt and force flag marshals to flee. There are seven tracks serving cars, bikes, and karts, and on any given weekend outside the summer months you can hear multiple engines and sets of tired squealing in discordant tune, a sister to the failed Musical road on Avenue G in Lancaster. That Big Willow view from the top of the hill is postcard-worthy.

On one hand, I worry investors and shareholders will reimagine Willow Springs in such a way that isolates it from Rosamond—my Thermal 2.0 fears confirmed. Sure, the tracks might be nice, but will the town around it ever see the opening of Golden City Plaza, or a hotel, or other hallmarks of a medium-sized suburb? What will be done about rising gas prices, traffic, cracked roads? Will the promise of visitors flocking to the area for American Goodwood enact real, efficient, lasting change beyond a couple weeks in a calendar year?

On the other hand, Rosamond can never be Thermal, because Rosamond as Thermal is just Tehachapi. Tehachapi is a mountain town 45 minutes north of Willow Springs, a refuge for many wealthy and older folks looking for a relatively quiet and remote place to live, drive, and fly their planes. It retains a quintessential American small-town feel but is very much the place where your boss lives, not you. I think of snow, apple orchards, a German bakery, and a work story my dad once told me where he managed to successfully deflect a racist customer at the check stand of the Tehachapi Albertsons he worked at by pretending to be Italian instead of Guatemalan. Our hypothetical snowbirds already have a place to roost.

Based on public statements and the first Reimagined, where everyone from Sam Byrne to 2009 F1 World Champion Jenson Button spoke to continued track accessibility, improved facilities, and faster racing, I remain cautiously optimistic. I have trouble picturing my ideal outcomes, but Rosamond and Willow Springs work because they're rough around the edges, and I need the same everyone involved in these massive projects not just to understand that in abstract but keep it at the core of their re-imagination.

Maybe I want the kind of town that would make me want to stay forever. Something hospitable not just to tumbleweeds and racecars, but to kids wanting to get to school safely despite Rosamond Blvd being a stroad; to sports fans wanting to congregate at more places like Coach's Sports Bar so we can watch our local pro soccer team, AV Alta FC, on the big screen; to families and young people wanting to start their lives in a place like nowhere else. Somewhere with as many native plants as there are housing lots, and shaded public areas welcome to all people, unlike the changes currently happening in Lancaster. Not a food desert, not cut off from businesses and jobs. A town that feels slow but is not lifeless.

The kind of town that welcomes a festival of speed and says we'll do it at our own pace.