anti-Lime Rock bill proposed in the CT Legislature
 

If you live in Connecticut please call or write both your State Rep and your State Senator to ask them to oppose a bill proposed by newly elected Representative Maria Horn of the 64th CT House district that would give local Zoning Boards the authority to regulate Sunday hours of race track operation. Information on the bill is here:

https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/CGABillSt...hkj6I4IdEQtr6Q

You can get contact information for your legislators here:

https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/cgarepresentation.asp

Here is some background on why this is of interest to users of the track. As many of you know Lime Rock operates under a 1959 court injunction that, among other things:

1. Limits the number of un-muffled days the track can run
2. Restricts the hours of operation overall and, in particular prohibits racing on any day but Saturday.
3. Limits operations at the track not on the race track.

There are also strict noise limits imposed on the track but I believe that is under the control, improperly some argue, of the local Zoning Commission.

A couple of years ago the track and the Zoning Commission ended up in litigation when the Commission incorporated the language of the injunction into the Zoning regulations. The track was also looking to have the injunction modified, it has been adjusted a couple of times in the past, to ease some of the restrictions on the track's operations. The trail court judges finally (!) ruled, among other things, that CT State Law allows "racing" any Sunday of the year after 12 noon. Both the Town and the Track are appealing different (obviously) parts of that ruling directly to the CT State Supreme Court. When that suit is concluded the track is likely going to go back to again ask, that request has been on hold, for changes in the original injunction. All attempts to work out a settlement to these issues has been blocked by the opponents of the track (a group of some neighbors of the track).

This bill in the Legislature is an attempt to invalidate the Judge's ruling on the clear wording of State Law. To be fair I will point out that there may be a conflict between the clear language of the State Law and the large body of previous Zoning related decisions in CT. The Judge came down on the side of the State Law and that is the subject of the legal debate before the CT State Supreme Court.

You could point out to your state legislators that this bill:

1. Addresses a matter under litigation.
2. Is an attempt to impose a "Blue Law" on Sunday activities. Most such Blue Laws have been eliminated in CT and across the Nation. Only a few years ago did it become legal to buy booze on Sunday in CT!
3. I am not an attorney but this seems to me to be a Bill of Attainder as it is targeted at the only four race tracks in CT (Lime Rock, Thompson,Waterford, and Stafford). The US Constitution prohibits those. Here is one citation on that issue

http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossa.../attainder.htm

If this situation is resolved in favor of the track we may be able to have DE days on Sunday as well as expanded race weekends for both pro (IMSA etc.) and amateur racers (CVR PCA Club Race, and SCCA events)

Thanks,

Mark Lewis
CVR Club Race Director.
Hope you come to our race April 26th and 27th this year. We are having a Vintage race again and plan to have three races on Saturday for each race group.
Think...if our event could be three days it might break even again!

I hope my friends in CT do what Mark is suggesting. I would also write, but the CT pols didn't listen to me when I was a resident, so I'm sure they could care even less what I think now that I'm non-resident.
But still, we must do what we can to save the Lime Rock Park that we love so much!
RS

We can only hope that the "deaf ears" aren't the result of unmuffled days at Lime Rock, lest the sufferers take out their aggressions on our beloved track!

Sure would be nice to be able to drive LRP on Sundays.

The neighbors around Raceway Park in Englishtown moved in long after the track was in operation. Thats didn't stop them from suing multiple times for noise. :banghead:

I feel like I am pissing in the wind every time I vote for anything in CT. I desperately want to leave, but my wife has me chained up. Those residents don't care that the track was there before they moved in. Bunch of NIMBY's.

This is what killed Bridgehampton on Long Island, NY back in 1998. The track had been there in one form or another since the 1950s but they killed it.

And now that Etown shut down drag racing and rented the track out for salvage, i hear the residents are even more pissed. They should have backed off the track.

These posts suck and make me sick, living on LI and knowing the tracks we had here that are now gone is BS. Good luck in CT.

I raced once at Lime Rock in the mid 70s with SCCA and as I recall it was on a 3 day holiday weekend and no racing on Sunday. On Sunday I changed out my differential for a better gear.

I grew up near Englishtown. I'm not a drag racing fan, but going to the Summernationals to watch the top fuelers was quite an experience.

And Bridgehampton was great. I got to drive there several times before it closed. I've worried about LRP for a long time that it could go that direction. Hopefully it's only a matter of whether or not to drive there on Sundays.

Good luck Mark and keep up the good fight. I'm not a registered voter in CT (WY in my case) but this sort of thing is going on nationally. One of the iconic tracks of North America, Laguna Seca, is under fire as well from folks Luigi aptly accuses of "coming to the nuisance". My local rod & gun club has the same problem; folks who move out of the city for an "idyllic life" in the country, but for financial reasons decide to buy a home next to a race track, municipal airport or gun range with the hope they can force the occupants and users of those facilities out after the fact. It's nothing short of piracy.

Best Regards,

FatBilly, it's not even exclusive to a state or region. It's literally an ideological invasion and it's happening almost everywhere. There seems to be a hierarchy of guilt in play that I think goes something like this:

1) Urbanization
2) Child bearing
3) Flight from the urban morass
4) Gentrification

Step one is the essential problem area and it includes socialization aimed at interdependence; the "you scratch mine I'll scratch yours" mentality. This isn't entirely bad but it's been taken to the extreme of "you need to feed me/we need to feed each other", and that's where it's broken down. Folks need to be responsible for themselves, and by extension for their actions and choices.

A person who moves into an area (buys land) with the intention of changing its existing use is problematic and always has been. The suburban property developer with his subdivisions and the urban re-developer are of the same mold. They're subject to intense scrutiny by local landowners and with good cause. For some reason, the folks trying to restrict the rights of other local property owners aren't being subjected to the same level of criticism and they're getting by with it "because". No better reason. It just "makes sense". They want what they want and they want what's best for you too.

If you were a suburban tract developer moving into an area you would not get away with it. But these folks are doing exactly that because they're entrenched; they aren't developers, they're owners. And they are bound and determined to remove your property rights and call them their own.

And, though it sounds patently absurd, they're succeeding across the board.

PS: With that thought, try your best to get along with each other and never ever forget to brush your teeth. :)

THis sounds familiar. it has happened at my gun club!!

I would be a real shame to lose Lime Rock. That's one of my favorite tracks to race at. So busy. So challenging. So much focus. So much fun.

I love living in Connecticut except for the government. While I thought I would live out the rest of my days here I don't feel like subsidizing what is getting to be another socialist experiment.

I honestly feel that when I write my reps about this they will more consider how shutting down that track will lower the carbon footprint of Connecticut rather than any of my arguments to the contrary about employment, tax dollars and the prestige that LRP brings to Connecticut.

It makes me sick.

This coming from a state who's governor thinks it is a good idea to sales tax groceries and medicine. Government is the only constituency in society that absolutely positively can never do with less. SMH.

-Mike