Monterey County, California officials have been looking into supplanting the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula (SCRAMP)’s operation of the vaunted Laguna Seca race course by bringing in International Speedway Corporation. For those who aren’t aware, ISC is the France family-owned group that owns a healthy amount of the NASCAR tracks used across the country. SCRAMP has overseen operations at Laguna Seca ever since the track opened in 1957, but the track is falling victim to circumstances that have killed off other race facilities nationwide: the track is technically a public-owned park, and the public, which has grown into a coastal community with the usual disdain for loud racing cars, is allowed a public forum on any change that occurs to the track. With that considered, coupled with road racing’s disdain for just about anything the France family does, seeing the Monterey County officials courting the ISC seems sincerely questionable to us. SCRAMP doesn’t appear to be struggling with anything other than the county’s insistence of no large-scale auto racing events, but by bringing in ISC, isn’t that what they are basically asking for? Or is this typical not-in-my-backyard politics? Either way, with Monterey’s otherwise car-friendly attitude (think Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance), doing anything that jeopardizes Laguna Seca doesn’t seem like a good idea to us.

(Courtesy: Asphalt and Rubber)