The body blows continue to rain down on racers and race fans in western Canada. It was just the other day that we reported on the closing of a drag racing facility out there and now it is the circle track fans and racers who are under attack. The Motorplex Speedway near Vernon, British Columbia has been ordered to pay $100,000 to a housing developer who has claimed the noise from the speedway has harmed the values of the property he is developing and selling. The local government had allowed the track to run 18 dates a year and in 2014 the track held two events and in 2015 it held three. Three races.
Along with the massive penalty, the track has been limited to an 80 decibel noise limit, which is very, very low. Laguna Seca has a noise limit of 93 decibels and there are lots of street cars who have trouble passing that. 80 is draconian and effectively shuts the track down from running anything but the quietest stuff around. Something tells us that the Tesla races are not exactly going to be packing the stands. For the record the place has only had two CASCAR (pro level Canadian stock car racing series) since 2000. That means that all of the rest of the races have been of a sportsman style or variety.
This is a crummy situation and while we certainly do not want to see people have their lives ruined, the linked story states that more and a few of the “victims” bought their houses knowing that the track was there. As the owner of the track is a company that’s in the aggregate business, we’re wondering if the people in those houses just gave the guy who owns the place a good reason to turn it into a rock quarry. Hopefully the track is able to function some how, some way, but with an 80 db limit we’re thinking that it will be next to impossible.
…and we thought this type of stuff only went down here in the good ol’ USA.
Click here for the full and sad story of the Motorplex Speedway
Oh Canada ….. smh
Man, some of these NIMBY’s suck!
Just yesterday, the A/V crew at the National Corvette Museum motorsports park witnessed a [neighbor] skulking around the autocross event taking sound pressure measurements.
Rumor has it the green Gremlin had to cease and desist competing. There was an unconfirmed mention of “quiet it down” kits being sold.
We have a neighbor at Sears Point that bitches and moans to the point [she] has a “slave” sound meter in her home.
For all but specially permitted events, we have to run mufflers. The track has a monitor mic adjacent to the burn-out area and a sound level display in a bottom-floor tower window.
These are race tracks. Mellow out, people!
We had a similar situation with the greatest 1/8 mile drag surface in the world, Huntsville Dragway just north of booming Huntsville, AL. Local homeowners in new developments decided they would shut it down with noise requirements. They instead got their come-up-ance when they got introduced to an old AL “Known Nusinace Law” which basiclly says, “If your dumb enough to but in a new subdivision and not look across the fence to see a large pig farm” then suck it up little baby cause the farmer a is protected species cause he was there first and he ain’t going anywhere until he gets ready. So are race tracks in AL.
Now, that said, sooner or later the leased facility will just get too valuble for development itself, and probably go the way of many other such facilities, but not because of noise it seems.
If it were Girl Scouts selling cookies, making the sound level of these race tracks, the communities would be all for it! Racing sadly, in general, still carries the “bad boy stigma” from days of old. It doesn’t seem like to change anytime soon……
Bloody morons developing by an existing track . Like the retards who move in at the end of a runway and then complain about the planes . Stupid judge with his head up his ass . just like the old langley speedway this track will also be gone .
It happens all too often when a facility is built far from the city but the city expands and encroach on the facility. Then greedy developers like this or neighbors who have moved in close to the existing race track, airport, hog farm, or whatever facility that was there first start whining. They’re no better than the idiot who buys riverfront property then demands FEMA pays him money when the river floods. The government is no better. I remember years ago a paper plant that had been in a certain location for years was deemed negligent and responsible for a multi-vehicle crash that happened on the interstate that was built decades after the paper plant. In certain weather conditions steam from the paper process would hover over a certain area of the interstate making an extremely dense fog. Yes, the drivers were the victims but the interstate’s government planners were the negligent ones, not the long existing paper plant.
We had a similar situation in Beltsville, Maryland where there was a great 1/2 mile NASCAR track in the early 1970’s. Builders built and sold homes in the winter and then, the fuss. The track built plywood fences with straw between layers, there was a curfew and racers we we required to all run the same Thrush mufflers. Still, the fuss continued and the track eventually was closed.
Interesting story about the Thrush mufflers, the great Reds Cagle wanted to reduce back pressure. Always a better rules reader than anyone else, Reds noticed that the rules didn’t specify how many mufflers could be employed so he showed up with four! Next week, we all had four. No end to racer ingenuity!
Reminds me of a housing development that went in beside a dairy far with the train tracks behind them, then the new owners filed complaints about the loud trains and the smells.
Frigging morons.