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The 2017 racing season at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl is not lost it seems.

It was announced Monday that the track will open for the 2017 season under a lease agreement.

Longtime Legends car competitor, team owner and crew chief George Whitney will operate the track under the lease agreement.

Details of the track’s opening and reconfigured schedule are expected to be released within a week.

The announcement marks the end of weeks of drama, speculation and mystery surrounding the track’s possible opening for the 2017 season following the arrest in late March of track owner Bruce Bemer.

“The Speedbowl is my home track and I am proud to be given the opportunity to give back to a track that not only has supported family racing for generations, including mine, but has the best short track racing in New England,” Whitney said in a statement from the track.

Neith Bemer not Whitney were immediately available for comment. Terms of the lease were not disclosed.

The track had originally been scheduled to host its Blastoff Weekend May 6-7, but that event was officially postponed on April 26, with no word at that point about rescheduling or any modifications to the season scheduled.

On May 21, at about 11:30 p.m., a message was posted on the Speedbowl’s Facebook website stating that there was a “working agreement for the Speedbowl to be Leased for the 2017 racing season.”

That announcement, which was also on the track’s website, was gone from both places by the afternoon of May 22. On May 24 track officials released a statement officially retracting the announcement of a possible lease.

Bemer was the high bidder in a foreclosure auction of the Speedbowl in October 2014. Bemer was charged in late March with patronizing a trafficked person.

On April 4 former racing director Tom Fox led a group of high ranking track officials announcing their resignations from the facility. On April 6 it was announced by NASCAR that they were terminating their NASCAR Whelen All-American Series sanction of the track and also cancelling the scheduled July 22 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at the facility. NASCAR is not expected to revisit a possible sanctioning of the track for the 2017 season.