Directed by Michael Dweck, The Last Race is a documentary about Long Island’s last stock car race track, and its 87-year-old owners struggle to maintain the racing tradition. The last race track out of the original forty the owners face a real estate development boom. The track located prime property is worth at least 10 million.
The documentary is slow with not a lot happening unless you are a NASCAR fan. There is a fire that seems underplayed. I am not a race car fan of any kind, so I couldn’t relate to what happens in the movie. The end of the race where the camera is on the winner is memorable. A surge of understanding comes to light as I see the winner’s invigoration.
The movie is filled with vignettes and sound in a unique as a narrative form to draw the viewer into the world of essential racing culture and begrudgingly explores an about the blue-collar American identity. The movie is without suits and ties. We are talking jeans and t-shirts smeared with grease.
I learned about stock car racing. Long Island is the birthplace of American stock car racing. At its peak, there were over forty racetracks on Long Island, but today, only one remains. Riverhead Raceway is a quarter-mile track somehow managed to stay with the transformation of Long Island. The track, built in 1949, is where it settled on the edge of a small country road surrounded on every side by miles of farmland. Years later, the country road expanded into a highway and eventually the steady flow of traffic from the rest of the island made it a prime location for an outlet mall, and as the outlet mall grew, big retail followed.
Today, Riverhead Raceway is the only piece of land on the commercial strip of Old Country Road not developed. The land value is well over ten million dollars.
Money generates through ticket sales on summer weekends. It is barely enough to keep the lights on. The fact that the Riverhead Raceway remains open defies the laws of capitalism, and the only thing standing in the way of the bulldozers are 87-year-old Barbara and Jim Cromarty. Barbara and Jim bought the track in 1977, and they continue to run it even as multi-million dollar offers roll in, tempting them toward a well-deserved retirement. Barbara and Jim fight to keep it open because they understand that Riverhead carries the burden of being the last stock car racing on Long Island. When Riverhead is gone, it’s all over.
In the early days, Riverhead Raceway grew within a community that valued the desire to go fast. It started with old wrecks racing around a dirt oval in an empty field.
After spectators started turning up for the races, someone decided to lay down asphalt. The stands followed, and eventually, the Cromartys started charging admission and selling hot dogs and tee shirts.
As I watched the documentary, I get a sense that it more than racing. It’s a “lodge” of brethren blue-collar workers. They build racing machines and live for speed and the craziness associated with the chaos of the race and the drama of the pits. They are competitors and adrenaline enthusiasts. Like any competition, people have a reason to live and celebrate the victories or simple the stories of yesteryear of racing on Long Island.
Dweck said the racetrack buyout sure to happen, but it never happened in the movie. The last race is yet to be. The new owners run the same operation and continue the races each summer.
Dweck foresees the closing of Riverhead despite the new owners, “Riverhead Raceway is the last track on the Island. It’s only a matter of time before the bulldozers move in and Riverhead goes the way of other tracks before it, replaced by a shopping mall, or some other piece of disposable architecture. That’s what people want, and that’s okay. But when it goes, something will be lost.”
Dweck bulldozing point of view comes from his shared interest in stock car racing as a young boy. He grew up to witness the shutting down and bulldozing of his favorite childhood pastime – Freeport Stadium on Long Island. The last gasp of his youth turning into a shopping mall or boxed store.
His first feature-length film, Dweck craft for telling a story falls flat but in a good way. The Riverhead is still hosting stock car races, and stock car race fans will appreciate the nostalgia of competitive racing with a homespun feeling.
The attitude and look of the winner of the last race sponsored by the Cromartys are worth watching. Hitherto, I understand the glory, nostalgia, or hype of being a race car winner.