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County to talk raceway options

• The Dougherty County Commission prepares for what it says will be final action on the Albany Motor Speedway issue.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Many have offered expressions ranging from thinly supressed anger to mild surprise after the Dougherty County Commission took action again on the Albany Motor Speedway during its May 19 business session.

This was, most observers at the meeting agreed, akin to the beating of a dead horse.

When Commissioner Jack Stone asked the commission to table the matter for a week so that commissioners could “gather information about muffler systems” proposed for vehicles at the track, there was an audible groan.

But County Administrator Richard Crowdis explained in the aftermath of that action that the issue had to be taken up again by the commission as a matter of procedure.

“It’s difficult to understand,” Crowdis explained last week, “but the issue was not concluded. The action taken by the commission did not ‘close’ the speedway, it offered an alternative course of action by which the speedway could remain open.”

Commissioner John Hayes called for speedway owner Bill Farnsworth’s request to allow the racing of vehicles other than Legends cars to be denied outright. Commissioner Chuck Lingle seconded, but the motion got no more votes.

Commission Chair Jeff Sinyard offered an alternate motion whereby racing of all vehicles might be allowed if Farnsworth — actually businessmen Bob Brooks and Tim Pafford, who were prepared to buy the track pending the vote — constructed a 25-foot berm around three sides of the track.

That motion got the votes of Commissioners Lamar Hudgins, Muarlean Edwards, Art Searles and Sinyard. (Stone refused to vote for either measure, saying both would, in effect, “kill” the track.)

The commission gave Farnsworth/Brooks/Pafford 10 days to respond to its proposal.

“When the owner chose not to accept the conditions proposed by the commission, further action became necessary,” Crowdis said.

In putting off the vote for another week, Stone and Sinyard said they had received new information “from a number of sources” that indicated certain muffler systems on the vehicles would reduce noise as much as 30 percent.

“If that is true, and I want to see documentation showing that it is, then I think we can revisit this issue,” Sinyard said. “We could address the quality-of-life issue with the (Radium Springs) neighborhood (which asked that the commission deny the racing request because of noise at the track), and we could allow the business to continue to operate.

“If we do that, we will put some teeth into the conditions, and we will vigorously monitor the compliance at the track. Of course, if the muffler systems don’t do what people are saying, we’re right back where we started.”

Sinyard was unavailable for further comment prior to the Memorial Day holiday.

Stone, noting the dismay over his suggestion that the commission table the matter for another week, quickly added that a week would be sufficient time to get further information on the matter.

“We won’t go beyond that,” he said after the meeting. “I can all but guarantee you we’ll put this behind us, one way or another, at the meeting ... Wednesday.”

In addition to the speedway issue, the entire commission will get a first look Wednesday at a completed draft of the county’s fiscal year ’09 budget, which has been a constant concern of county staff — particularly Crowdis and Finance Director Karen Goff — and the commission’s Finance Committee for the last several months. Hudgins chairs that committee, which also includes Lingle and Searles.

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