Thousands of vehicles flooded by Harvey sent to Texas raceway

BAYTOWN, Texas (WPVI) -- Usually a place to find stock cars racing at high speeds, Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas is now a temporary resting place for vehicles rendered inoperable due to flooding from Hurricane Harvey.

KTRK-TV reports, over the weekend, a fleet of wreckers dropped off vehicle after vehicle on the raceway's large footprint. As of Monday, there are about 10,000 cars, trucks, SUVs and vans taking up spaces at the raceway.

As many as 100,000 vehicles could end up at the track.

Wreckers from multiple states are helping move the vehicles to Baytown.

According to raceway officials, the use of the facility in Harvey relief efforts is forcing a suspension of scheduled drag racing activities through the rest of the year.

Royal Purple Raceway will resume drag racing in 2018.

"There are literally tens of thousands of vehicles all around southeast Texas that are completely flooded out and inoperable," said raceway vice president and general manager Seth Angel. "We have 400 acres here capable of storing a large quantity of vehicles and we collectively made the decision to do what we could to help."

The raceway is also donating $10,000 to Harvey relief efforts through the American Red Cross.

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