Drivers, turn off your engines.

After more than half a century of burning rubber, Raceway Park will no longer hold drag races, officials said.

With the rising cost of fuel, tires, insurance and other expenses of speeding from a standstill to more than 200 mph on a 1,000-foot track, drag racing has become too expensive for the mostly amateur racers who drive on weekends and Wednesday nights at what is officially known as Old Bridge Raceway Park, said Steve Mamakas, executive officer of the Old Bridge Township Mayor's Office of Economic Development.

"I'm a racer myself," said Mamakas, who races in a penny-orange 2009 Dodge Challenger SRTH with a 425-horse power engine. "Last time I raced was probably about a year and a half ago, and yea, I will miss it."

The storied drag strip, with its familiar radio ads that blared, "Racewaaaaay Park!" is is a nationally known track and longtime host of the National Hot Rod Association's Summernationals, which will not be run at the raceway in 2018.

The NHRA, hot rodding's ruling body, issued a statement on Wednesday lamenting the end of drag racing at the raceway, which the NHRA referred to by its Englishtown mailing address.

"NHRA drag racing events have been held at the track in Englishtown for almost 50 years," NHRA president Glen Cromwell was quoted as saying. "The Summernationals have played an important part in our heritage and we hope that fans in the area will try to make it to another one of our events. Our focus remains on making the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series a memorable experience for our fans, racers, sponsors, partners and tracks."

The Napp family, which opened the raceway in 1965 and continues to operate it privately, decided to end drag racing, and convert the grandstand and about half the strip into an outdoor concert venue, Mamakas told NJ Advance Media on Wednesday, after he met last week to discuss the changes with Raceway Park President Michael Napp.

The family issued a statement about the closing, wishing to "express their most sincere gratitude to the NHRA, and the many thousands of racers and fans, without whom would have never allowed Raceway Park to become the iconic and nationally recognized drag racing facility it has over the past five decades."

Despite the end of drag racing, Mamakas said the 480-acre complex will remain open and other forms of racing and motorsports will go on, including motocross, as well as cart racing and drifting. He said the site will continue to host a motor sports school and exotic car drives on its autocross track. The annual Tough Mudder competition, a non-motor sports use of the facility, will also continue, Mamakas said.

"Let's put it this way, Raceway Park is transforming to meet the future," Mamakas said. "It's just become too expensive, and you have a small window to race there -- Saturday and Sunday and Wednesday, and Wednesday night it's hard to get out."

Fans reacted to word of drag racing's end on social media.

Well, say goodbye to a piece of history and hello to a swell of illegal street racing. It doesn't say why, but a good... Posted by Chris Wilson on Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Mamakas said few if any of the mainly per diem workers at the raceway would be out of work as a result of the end of operations, because most also work in other areas of the complex, on other forms of racing.

Old Bridge Township Administrator and Chief Finanaiclal Officer Himanshu Shah said he did not anticipate any direct impact on township finances as a result. But he conceded that some local businesses might suffer from smaller crowds on weekends during the April-November race season, and certainly some would lament the loss of a key component of the community identify for the last half-century.

"It's one of our historic attractions in the township," Shah said. "Raceway Park is known throughout the country, so it has a tremendous value in that regard."

While fans will miss drag racing, not all memories of the sport at Raceway Park are fond. Funny car driver Scott Kalitta was killed in a fiery crash there in June 2008. Two years later, Neal Parker of Millville was trying to qualify for the NHRA's SuperNationals there when his 2005 Monte Carlo crashed at nearly 250 mph.

One consolation for local motorists who aren't racing fans, Mamakas said, would be less congestion on Route 527.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.