A byproduct of the coronavirus has been a modest resurgence of car culture in New Jersey — birthplace of the highway jug handle, the drive-in movie and Bruce Springsteen, and once home to dozens of motor speedways. The virus-resistant insularity of the automobile has led to pop-up drive-ins and drive-up concerts, not to mention drive-thru food pantries.
And next month, one of the state’s few surviving race tracks, Bridgeport Speedway in Logan Township, will host the debut of the “South Jersey Holiday Light Show,” a drive-thru event promised by promoters to “save the magic of the holiday season” for families with limited options for celebrating amid a pandemic now making an unwelcome comeback of its own.
“It is a family-friendly event, and it’s probably going to be the case where a lot of people aren’t going to be able to travel an see their family, or go to Rockefeller Center,” said Bold Media Chief Operating Officer Andrew Adams, referring to the hyper-crowded annual Christmas Tree display in Manhattan. “But this is an opportunity for families to start a new tradition.”
The light show will open Nov. 19, and will take place Thursday-Sunday evenings through New Year’s weekend. Tickets priced at $20 per car online or $25 at the gate, are already on sale.
Cars, pickups and SUV’s (no buses) will drive at low speed through a mile-long route set up on the grounds of the speedway, where they will pass by individual displays up to 50 feet long and “three stories tall,” made from steel frames and colored lights depicting Santa passing out presents, candle and poinsettia arrangements, snowflakes and other holiday scenes, some of them with moving parts. As they go, motorists tuned into an FM radio signal set up just for the show will listen along to a holiday musical soundtrack synchronized to the displays.
The South Jersey Light Show, which will debut at Bridgeport Speedway on Nov. 19, will include a series of displays like this one, says the events' creator, Manhattan-based Bold Media.Bold Media
The experience will last about 20 minutes, and cars will drive a route that meanders around the speedway site, not on the oval track itself, Adams said.
The holiday light show is not the first for Bold Media, though it is the company’s first foray into New Jersey, where early ticket sales and social media feedback indicate the drive-thru format is a welcome idea.
He said the company was founded as the operator of Long Island soft rock radio station WELJ (“East End Easy Favorites”). It ventured into drive-through light shows when looking to create an interactive experience for people where they do much of their radio listening — the car.
Construction of the display’s steel frameworks and elaborate network of wiring and bulbs began in February, a month after Adams and Bold Media CEO Matthew Glaser reached out to the speedway’s owner about the event, Adams said.
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The start of the light show is less than two weeks after the final weekend of the racing season at Bridgeport Speedway, a .4-mile clay oval that hosts Super DIRTcar racing. The two-day URC High Banks Classic will cap the 2020 season on Nov. 6-7.
Bridgeport is now one of a half-dozen dirt paved ovals and drag strips that remain of New Jersey’s once-thriving auto racing scene, where two dozen tracks have closed since the state’s racing heyday in the mid-20th Century as televised racing and other forms of entertainment have taken over. While the tracks and grandstands are outdoors, the coronavirus has hurt motorsports just like any other.
So the prospect of a weeks-long off-season use that organizers hope to make into an annual event is a welcome development, said Logan Mayor Frank Minor, provided it can be managed safely.
“We want them to do well,” Minor said of the light show and the speedway. “We’re excited about the light show, we’re excited about opportunities like this, given the COVID. We kind of look at it as therapy, in that this is a way that people can get out.”
Speedway officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Over the course of the seven extended weekends, Adams said the event is expected to draw a total of 75,000-100,000, car-visits, or several thousand on any given night depending on the date, the weather or other factors.
Minor and the township council unanimously granted the light show a permit on Tuesday night, following the organizers' submission of traffic and other data and what Minor called “a very rigorous evaluation” of the event to ensure it would be manageable and safe.
Minor stressed that local officials had worked hard throughout the pandemic to keep the virus in check, and that police would monitor the light show closely to ensure that conditions were met, including the requirement that attendees remain in their cars.
“They checked all the boxes," Minor said. "And there will be strict precautions put in place to ensure the notion that the public and people who are working there will be protected.”
Modified open-wheel racers get the yellow caution flag at Bridgeport Speedway in Gloucester County, where the South Jersey Light Show will debut on Nov. 19, after the racing season ends.Bridgeport Speedway
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Massive drive-thru light show on N.J. race track hoping to brighten your holidays - NJ.com
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