Neighbors are wary of track’s ‘modest’ filing

 SALISBURY — Attorney Jim Robertson, speaking at a Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on proposed changes to the regulations concerning Lime Rock Park, mentioned that the track had filed a motion to modify the injunction that governs track activities.

He said that the track was asking for “one Sunday” of racing.

But the motion, filed Sept. 4 in Litchfield Superior Court, asks for a number of changes.

They are:

• One Sunday per year of unmufflered racing after noon, and “one Sunday per year when it may conduct unmufflered racing in the event that there is a weather postponement on a prior day.”

• “Allowing mufflered racing activity for 20 Sundays per year” with a start time of 9 a.m. in the upper area and noon on the asphalt race track, all ending at 6 p.m.

• A start time of 9 a.m. on Sunday for mufflered activity on the track’s upper area, and at noon on the main track, with all activity ending at 6 p.m.

• Changing the Friday morning start time from 10 a.m. to 9 a.m. and the finishing time on Saturdays from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

• Allowing races on unmufflered Fridays (currently the track may have unmuffled performance testing, qualifying and race preparation).

• Reducing the number of Tuesdays with unmufflered racing from 52 days per year to 20, but allowing unmufflered activity, including racing, on five Thursdays per year, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (instead of the Tuesday of that week).

The motion states that the nature of racing has changed “significantly” since the original 1959 injunction was last modified in 1988, and that Sunday is the usual day for the feature race at every track in the nation except Lime Rock Park.

“The current injunction that prohibits Sunday racing and activity of all kinds places Lime Rock at a severe competitive disadvantage in the race track industry and threatens Lime Rock’s economic viability.”

 Requests are ‘modest’

Lime Rock Park owner Skip Barber spoke with The Lakeville Journal on Monday morning, Sept. 14. He said the changes asked for are “modest,” and will result in fewer “noisy” (unmufflered) hours, not more.

Asked about the second provision, for 20 Sundays of mufflered racing activity per year, Barber said that does not mean actual races.

That language will, in fact, be revised. He said the track’s lawyers were in a rush to meet a filing deadline.

The track’s intent is to hold events and activities that are not noisy. “We don’t propose to do anything objectionable — nothing you can hear.”

Barber said that when the original injunction was issued, auto racing was mostly an amateur sport with two-day events on Saturdays and Sundays. Lime Rock had 10 such events every year, plus events on holidays.

 The original injunction resulted in a track schedule with 10 race “weekends” that did not include Sundays. “They [the track owners] managed to convince people [racers] that Saturday was Sunday.” Events were held Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday.

Barber said that the events drew much larger crowds back then than they do today.

Today, however, amateur racing is not a significant spectator sport, Barber said. Modern professional racing events require far more hours — an amateur race ran 30 minutes, while a professional race is three hours — and the sanctioning bodies want supporting races included in the program.

Tracks pay for the major or feature race, Barber said, while the supporting races pay to run. “They pay a significant part of the way” for tracks.

But because of the restrictions on days and hours of operation, Barber said Lime Rock Park is the only track in the country that cannot hold supporting races. The two-day format isn’t long enough.

Barber said the track’s unmufflered hours — from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays and noon to 6 p.m. on Saturdays — combine to be less than half of the unmufflered hours of the next smallest track.

He said, “It’s bad economically, and it’s bad from the spectator’s point of view.”

If the motion to change the injunction succeeds, Barber said the result will be three to five major events per year, in the three- or four-day format, and an overall reduction in noise hours, by adjusting the schedule.

As for the one unmufflered Sunday, and the Sunday rain date, Barber said, “We haven’t had a rain-out in 10 years” because rain is not a canceling factor in the kind of racing Lime Rock holds. The rain date is in case of an unusual event, such as a flood. “It’s a ‘what-if’ Sunday.”

 Motorcycles

Asked if the track is planning motorcycle racing, Barber said no, but “we absolutely will have practice as we always have.”

He said in the past, when motorcycles “were noisy,” the track hosted bikers on Tuesday afternoons, for years.

But today’s racing motorcycles — as opposed to street bikes — are much quieter, Barber said, adding that the track has had motorcycle practice on a regular basis “but nobody’s noticed.”

 Concerns in community

 Stuyvesant Bearns is a member of the Lime Rock Citizen’s Council and a parishioner at Trinity Lime Rock — but he is in no official capacity at either organization, he added. He had several concerns that he voiced to The Journal: that the changes Lime Rock wishes to make would result in four-day events; that motorcycle practice would be as noisy as motorcycle racing; that the track’s loudspeakers have gotten louder over the years.

Peter Wolf, who lives on White Hollow Road, said that the Lime Rock Citizen’s Council will respond to the Lime Rock motion.

“We’ll show up in court.”

As of Monday, Sept. 14, the group had no plans for a countersuit.

Wolf said the group was surprised by Lime Rock Park’s motion, but “we’re pretty organized and trying to move forward.”