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Rumors that 75-80 Dragway in Monrovia will soon reopen appear to be true, if a social networking Web site and physical work on the land are any indication.

The dragway closed in 2005, and has sat in limbo since, as weeds overtook the parking lot.

The owner, Bill Wilcom, at the time planned to build up to 1,608 homes on the 400-acre farm, but a building moratorium imposed shortly after froze his plans.

The land sat unused for years, and a group of residents recently gathered 130 signatures on a petition against the so-called Monrovia Town Center.

Jeannie Pellicier, one of this group's leaders, said many of the signatories opposed the development because of traffic, but that nearly as many simply wanted the dragway to reopen.

Pellicier said rumors have been circulating through the community that Wilcom or another operator was planning to reopen the raceway.

Wilcom did not return repeated telephone calls for comment.

But 75-80 Dragway has a page on facebook.com, a social networking Web site, on which it announces that it will reopen at 4 p.m. April 3. Crews were cleaning up the site on Friday.

An e-mail requesting comment sent to info@75-80dragway.com, the contact address listed on Facebook, was not returned by Friday. Clicking on the link to Web site, www.75-80dragway.com, also brought up a generic page with a message saying that the site is under construction.

Still, fans of the dragway voiced their enthusiasm for the reopening on the Facebook profile. The page had 522 fans as of Friday morning.

David Gorman of Baltimore wrote on the profile that he could not wait for the race track to reopen. "[I] also wanted to say Friday night [at] 75/80 was the best entertainment [money] could buy for $10 bucks!" he wrote.

Jerry Battaglia of Baltimore said that he had not eaten "a decent chili dog since the last one I had at 75-80." He said without the sights, sounds and smells of the dragway, chili dogs were not as tasty. "They just don't taste the same without the smell of CAM2 [oil additive] and burnt rubber in the air!" he wrote.

E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.