NASCAR's newest Home Track, Blue Valor Motorplex, nearing completion in Idaho

A project more than two years in the making will finally be finished later this summer. When it’s done, drivers in Idaho will have a new race track where they can compete.

In early 2021, Travis Milburn and his uncle, John Wood, began the process of building a new track in Emmett, Idaho. Milburn, a former driver who competed in the ARCA Menards Series West, opened a go-kart track, Kart Idaho, in 2020. He owns and operates the track on the same grounds as a concert venue and drive-in movie theatre.

Using the funds from all three businesses, Milburn and Wood decided to add a full-sized track on the outside of the go-kart track.

“We thought with all the COVID stuff going on, we‘re just going to take a break from racing. So beside a couple starts that I did in 2021, neither one of us has raced since 2019. So in 2020 we decided we‘ve got this go-kart track and everything, let‘s build a race track,” Milburn said. “We have the property, it‘s a 127 acre property… We were like the thing that‘s going to pull this all together will be a race track.”

The track will be called Blue Valor Motorplex, a nod to Chris Lowden, co-owner of the Lowden-Jackson Motorsports team in the ARCA Menards Series West, and his Blue Valor Whiskey company, which gives a percentage of sales to the families of fallen police officers.

“We thought, just to really kind of symbolize being in tune with our local community and officers and service men, we thought that would be a cool name for it,” Milburn said.

The track‘s top racing division will be Modifieds. It‘s currently 50 feet wide on the straightaways and 70 feet wide in the turns with 5-10 degrees of progressive banking in Turns 1-2, and 14-16 degrees of progressive banking in Turns 3-4.

Both Milburn and Wood are longtime drivers who‘ve competed at more than 30 tracks across the country. They used input from other local and nationwide drivers on how to make Blue Valor the best track possible.

“It‘s not just what we think; it‘s a combination of a bunch of different opinions of people we respect and want to make sure we do it right,” Milburn said.

“For us, we want to put on the best show we can, so when we talk to these different racers we‘re like, ‘Hey, what do you think is going to put on better racing? What do you think we can do here to make sure there are a couple grooves, you can perform certain passes? What can we do to make sure it‘s racey and fast and all that? So we‘ve taken a lot of their advice on things, especially the guys who have travelled to a bunch of different tracks, and taken that into consideration.”

The initial plan was for Blue Valor to be a dirt track, but about four months in, they decided to pave it with asphalt, instead.

The paving process has been the main hold-up on the construction. The walls, fencing, grandstands, concessions and bathrooms are complete, and the banking has been built.

But Idaho has experienced record rainfall over the last two years. When they initially planned to pave the track last summer, the persistent rain showed the track was within the water table of a nearby river, and the middle of the track was filling with puddles.

The crew had to tear out parts of track and put in piping and pumps so water can be pumped into a nearby escape pond.

“That took a lot of time and effort to put in because the stands were already in and the banking was already for the most part in there, so we had to kind of engineer it and figure out a way to do it without making us really go backwards,” Milburn said. “That was like six months last year figuring that out… We‘re past all that now though so, even though we‘re having even worse weather this year, the track maybe gets some puddles the day of but by the next day the pump is pumping it all out and we‘re good to go.”

Plans were initially made to pave two weeks ago, but even more rain this month pushed the project back again. Milburn said they‘re now slated to be paving in May.

“We‘re just waiting for the weather to turn so we can finish the track off,” he said.

Milburn‘s kart track will be inside of the race track, and there will also be areas on the track built for drifting, too.

“We kind of built with a multi-purpose use in mind, because we wanted to hit as many areas of motorsports as possible,” Milburn said.

Even though the project has taken years and completion has been delayed several times, Milburn said he‘s OK with the delays because they made sure everything was paid for before moving forward. He and Wood did a lot of work themselves and kept work crews small to keep costs down.

“As we went along the way, whether it was getting money from the concert venue or different projects that have been done in the past, all the money went to the track,” Milburn said. “We wanted to make sure that when the track was done there weren‘t any outstanding loans, there was nothing that could keep it from being open. When we‘re done it‘s 100 percent paid for. Zero money taken out on loans or anything… We just took our time with it.”

Milburn has also kept the outlook that waiting longer to make sure everything is done right is better than rushing to meet an artificial time schedule.

“My kind of go-to quote to everyone who asks me locally, ‘When are you going to be done?‘ is, in 2028 no one is going to care if in 2023 we were done in June or if we were done in August,” he said. “They‘re just going to care that it was done right. So our goal right now is June, but if it ends up being July or August when we get going, then it‘s July or August.

“We‘re going to make sure we finish it off right. We‘ve been taking our time for two years so we‘re not going to rush it right at the end just to start at the date we would like to start.”

When racing does begin at Blue Valor, drivers will compete at a NASCAR-sanctioned track. That was important to Milburn and Wood.

Wood is a former owner of Meridian Speedway, a NASCAR-sanctioned track in Meridian, Idaho, about 45 minutes from Blue Valor. As owner, Wood won several NASCAR awards and worked closely with the sanctioning body.

“He‘s very in tune with NASCAR themselves and has kind of had similar visions with different things that NASCAR has had, and it just made obvious sense to be a NASCAR track,” Milburn said. “With all the incentives that NASCAR is doing now, especially with the short tracks, I think they‘ve been putting way more focus and energy on their short tracks, which I think they‘re going to really start reaping the benefits from. We were like, there‘s no other direction we want to go. We want to go this way. It was an easy decision for us.”

When racing does begin this season, fans shouldn‘t expect to see Milburn behind the wheel. He‘s grown fond of being on the other side of the track.

“I kind of joke with everyone here, because a lot of people locally want me to race, and I usually tell everyone, someone‘s got to make sure they‘re putting in the time and effort so everyone else can race,” Milburn said. “So that‘s kind of been my role. I just embrace knowing whatever I have to do to make sure these races are happening and they‘re put on well and they perform well, I‘ve got to do.

“My whole job, I feel like, is to make the best racers I possibly can in my area, as well as making sure every single racer feels like what they‘re doing is important and make it feel as big as possible. A lot of these local racers, sometimes they don‘t feel that way when they‘re at the track, so I want to make sure they feel like they‘re important, so I‘ll put in extra time for the little guy when I can, which, obviously, takes away from my racing, but that‘s OK.”