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Ag Society wants new track operational by 2014 fair

The Westlock and District Agricultural Society plans to have its new track in place in time for the 100th edition of the fair in 2014.
The Westlock and District Ag Society wants to have the racetrack moved to a new site for the 2014 fair.
The Westlock and District Ag Society wants to have the racetrack moved to a new site for the 2014 fair.

The Westlock and District Agricultural Society plans to have its new track in place in time for the 100th edition of the fair in 2014.

However, society secretary Cheyanne Erickson said they intend to have significant work done on it by the 2013 fair, although she admits it will likely not be useable by next August.

As of Oct. 24, the society has raised $24,575.28 towards the new track. That figure is well below the target of $700,000, but Erickson said she’s not too concerned yet.

“The first step is the survey,” she said.

Currently, the society is hoping to conduct a survey in the spring of 2013 on the track’s proposed new location just south of the Ag Barn. Once the survey has been completed, the hope is to break ground in short order.

With the town wanting to use the land the track currently sits on for ball diamonds and an expansion of Mountie Park’s campgrounds, Erickson said the Ag Society has no choice but to move the track. However, she said the town has not come to the society and given them a hard and fast deadline to vacate the land.

“They’d like to start sooner than later,” she said, but said to the best of her knowledge the town’s timeline is more or less the same as the society’s. “It’s written in the wind that it has to be done,” Erickson said. “We want to do it before we’re told we’re evicted.”

As it stands, the new track will be completely new, with some of the dirt from the current track transplanted to the new site, she said. She explained it would be just as cheap to go with a whole new track than to do a full-scale move of the current one.

In order to help the society get the new track in place in time for the 2014 fair, Erickson said the town has offered assistance in the form of manpower and equipment.

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