Hi gang, thought this might be of interest to some of you..



Rodders appeal to save raceway
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Monday, June 25, 2007.
By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff writer -

PALMDALE - Plans to excavate millions of dollars worth of rock, sand and gravel from beneath the region's only drag strip drove about 100 hot rodders to race to the City Council for help Wednesday.
Since Palmdale does not control the quarry land where the Los Angeles County Raceway rests, the city's options are limited, Palmdale City Manager Steve Williams said during a meeting of the City Council.

The land at issue is owned by the Lane family of Quartz Hill. It has been leased to the Watsonville-based Granite Construction Co. and a portion of it - until January - was subleased to raceway operator Bernie Longjohn.

Under its lease, Granite holds the rights to the minerals on the Lane property, and the company extracts those minerals to make concrete, asphalt, gravel and other construction-related products.

In recent months, the company's quarrying work has begun eating away at the edges of the drag strip, which is on the south side of Avenue T near 60th Street East.

The mining could force the 43-year-old track to close by July 29, said Hyatt, one of 27 people who pleaded for intervention by the city.

"Something needs to be done now" to keep the track open, Hyatt said. "Not only do we have street racers killing themselves, but they are also killing other people's family members" to satisfy their need to race, he said.

"Not until it hits home do you realize how important this track is," Hyatt said.

Steve Bridge, Palmdale area manager for Granite Construction, said he kept Longjohn apprised of the company's plans and intentions before and after Longjohn's sublease expired at the beginning of the year.

For the past decade, Granite has been working around Longjohn's operation to keep the track open as long as possible, but the date for the track's closure is Longjohn's decision, Bridge said.

"We've been working in noncritical areas for the past couple of months," he said. "We told him we could probably maintain the racetrack itself for several months longer, but not the parking area. At that point, he may feel it's not practical" to remain open.

"Frankly, I think Bernie has other plans, and he will set the (closure) date himself, not Granite," Bridge said.

Employees at the drag strip said Longjohn was unavailable for an interview Friday. In May, Longjohn told the Valley Press he was considering purchasing a racetrack in Birmingham, Ala. and relocating within months.

"If I were to guess a date, I'd have to say we'll be done by the first of October," Longjohn said at the time.

"What we've been doing out there has been no secret," Bridge said Friday. "We've had numbers of meetings, and I've sent letters to Bernie over the last couple of years about what we're doing, so this is no surprise to anybody."

"I know it's not a surprise to Bernie. I don't know about (the drag strip's) users," he said.

One of those users, Littlerock resident Jeff Hillinger, is heading up a "Save LACR" committee. Hillinger told the council that LACR is a long-standing business with a rich history.

"This is … a landmark that cannot be retrieved once it is taken," Hillinger said.

Organized drag racing has grown since the 1950s and '60s into a sport that is second only to NASCAR in popularity, and LACR has been part of that growth, he said.

LACR "is known to racers and fans throughout the western United States and beyond," Hillinger said. "Statistics show that there's a huge influx of illegal, unorganized and unsafe street racing … because all of the (racing) tracks that we built in the '50s and '60s are now being demolished in the name of profit and progress."

The demolition of those tracks has made retaining the remaining tracks even more important in an effort to move racing off the streets, he said.

Between the beginning of March and the end of May, at least 14 people have died in Southern California as a result of illegal street racing, Hillinger said.

In May, two people were killed and three more were injured while watching illegal street racing at Avenue G and 45th Street West.

All five were hit by a man who was driving a pickup truck that was not involved in the racing, according to Valley Press records.

Other speakers told the council that closing the track would force more hot-rodders to turn to the streets, endangering themselves and others while reducing business revenue and burdening law enforcement.

Mayor Jim Ledford said Williams had met with representatives of Granite Construction in an effort to determine what Palmdale could do.

Since there was no formal decision on the matter to be considered or made by City Council members on Wednesday, nothing was put on the agenda for a vote, Ledford said.

Because nothing was on the agenda, state law barred formal action by the council, the mayor said.

If and when a raceway item does come before the council, "there are some things that we could do that we would have to think very long and hard about," Williams said.

"We could acquire the rights to the land through eminent domain, but that is something I don't think we really want to look at because of the probable cost," the city manager said.

"The gravel value underneath this thing has a lot more value than just a regular piece of land, and I mean a lot more value," he said. "And it's not just the gravel value: It's also the value that the gravel brings to other parts of (Granite's) business."

In addition, "there would be some (legal) findings that we would need to go through" to potentially justify an eminent-domain acquisition in accordance with state law before such a move could be recommended to the City Council, Williams said.

"Another option would be for Granite to just find another area to excavate and obtain gravel out of the goodness of its heart and just leave the (drag strip) area alone, but given the value (of the minerals) underneath the racetrack, that's unlikely, based on conversations that I have had with Granite," he said.

In the long run, "it's pretty clear that it's inevitable that, even if there weren't this gravel-pit issue going on right now, if you look at the history of the other drag strips that have closed, eventually the same thing is going to happen to this one" because of encroachment by housing development, he said.

Ledford suggested the best solution might be to relocate the track to vacant land east of Air Force Plant 42. The land, owned by Los Angeles World Airports, is planned for industrial development that would protect a drag strip from residential encroachment, Ledford said.

On Friday, Bridge said Granite has run out of places to excavate the Lane property except beneath the racetrack and beneath the company's own on-site equipment.

Because of the expense of relocating the company's equipment to a different quarry, it will be the last place to be mined, Bridge said.

"We're at a point now where we don't have any options" except to mine the land under the track, he said.

If the city had been notified about the forthcoming problem last year, before closure was imminent, finding a solution for keeping the track open this summer "would be a lot more fruitful," Williams said.

Because of the value of the minerals in the area, the city "would be better off relocating the track, because it would be more economical than paying for the aggregate," Bridge said