Airway Heights, Wash. (June 8, 2025) — After possibly a half-century of use, the original lighting system installed at Spokane Raceway Park in 1975 has been upgraded.
According to operations manager Ben Zimmerman of what is now known as Qlispe Raceway under ownership of the Kalispel Tribe, “We’ve installed all new LED stadium lights for the drag strip,” he wrote in an email, adding, “Now you can see way past the finish line and into the long straight at turn 2 of the road course.”
The actual install started two weeks ago and as far as staff could tell they were the original light fixtures on those poles. “I cannot verify 100%,” Zimmerman said.
Other updates included finish line wiring having to be replaced and brought down from 480v to 240v. Installing them tripled the lumen output from the old ones.
“We took 7 fixtures down from each pole and replace with 6,” Zimmerman reported. “So, total there are 24, 1200w LED stadium lights now.
Crews from the Kalispel Tribe also replaced the east side walkway lights with LEDs. Along with some solar powered lights at the turn stations around the road course.
“The cost of operation should go down significantly,” Zimmerman said.
The track still needs some road course lights out there, “But we’re making improvements at Qlispé Raceway Park,” Zimmerman said.
Upcoming events at QRP include No-Prep Racing on Fri. June 13 followed by the first pair of the track’s season championship bracket events, June 14-15.