In anticipation of the forthcoming recommendations from Markin Consulting, I’ve reopened the online petition. You can access it by clicking this link or by clicking on the link with the petition count.
If you didn’t sign this petition before, and you want racing to continue in Nashville, please sign it… especially if you live in Davidson County.
The Tennessean today published a letter to the editor that you should read. The letter, titled “Car racing wastes natural resources” was written by a fellow named Todd Liebergen of Madison, Tennessee.
It’s pretty obvious that Todd isn’t a race fan.
But his argument strikes me as coming from the same mentality as those who would demolish the track at the Fairgrounds. It smacks of elitism and snobbishness in much the same way as arguments by opponents of the Motorplex. Folks who’ve, in the great majority of cases, moved into the neighborhood around the track and then have the gall to complain about the noise. It’s as if they’re talking down to the race fan.
My main concern here is that Mr. Liebergen’s view of racing is widespread in the Nashville area. Nashville Superspeedway can’t fill 25,000 seats for a Nationwide Series race, but drive a few hours north to Kentucky Speedway and their 70,000 seat grandstands are over flowing for their Nationwide race.
Maybe Nashville race fans have gotten too complacent. If that’s the case, then we (the Davidson County taxpayers) might as well sell the Fairgrounds for it’s $6,000,000 appraised value and use the money more productively.
When I put up the petition last December, I was pleasantly surprised at the response. Two national radio shows interviewed me about it. But once I compiled the data, I discovered that the support for keeping the track was coming more from folks outside Nashville than from within. Can it be that in the city that has the Ryman Auditorium, the Parthanon, and the Hermitage, out-of-towners have more appreciation for history than we do? I hope not.
If we don’t do something soon, racing in Nashville will be a thing of the past. If you’re a race fan, take off the morning of the first Tuesday of the month and go sit in on the Fair Board meeting. The “neighbors” (I put that in quotes because from what I can tell, they’ve brought in outside “neighborhood activists” to attend the Fair Board meetings) are certainly there at every meeting.
I believe the next meeting is Tuesday, July 1 at 8:00 am. They usually publish the meeting agenda here, but as of tonight, it’s still got last month’s agenda. Make your presence known by the Fair Board.
The first champion (1958) continues to rest and getting stronger each day. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
http://savenashvillespeedway.com/blog/2007/12/27/bob-reuther/
Cards may be sent to him at:
Bob Reuther
The Health Center at Richland Place
Room 215
504 Elmington Avenue
Nashville, TN 37205
Reuther has contributed all of his life to the sport. To all of us who have been a part of the Fairgrounds for many years, lets show him how much he means to us. Cards, thoughts and prayers will be greatly appreciated.
According to this story on Fox 17 News, Music City Motorplex owes $487,000 in back property taxes, going all the way back to 2001.
The main problem here is that the track is owned by the city. City property is exempt from property taxes. If not, then I’d like to see how much Bud Adams is paying for the stadium, and now much the Predators are paying in property taxes for the arena.
It’s now obvious that the city of Nashville has moved from passively trying to get rid of the track (i.e. hiring a consultant to do the dirty work by all but recommending the fair move) to actively trying to get rid of the speedway (coming up with bogus back taxes).
I’m not sure what the next step is. We’re still kind of in a waiting mode, waiting on the consultant’s “RFI’s” to come back to see what people want to do with the property.
I guess the ultimate question is “How bad does Nashville want a race track?” Based on the Nashville responses to the petition, right now I’d have to say “not bad enough.” This tax “issue” could be the final straw.
UPDATE: The Tennessean has a somewhat sketchy article about his issue here.
Daniel Pope II - Smyrna, TN
http://www.dnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/MICRO0501/80610033
The Nashville City Paper has an editorial about baseball and auto racing in Nashville. You can read it here.
Today’s Tennessean has a story on what it purports will be Markin Consulting’s report tonight at a public meeting.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the consultant report pretty much throws the race track out the window. If the fair stays where it is, then it’ll have to be more “compatible” with the neighborhood, which would mean getting rid of the track. If the track stays, it’ll have to be more financially viable. Those two statements to me seem like they’re mutually exclusive.
It’s been painfully obvious to me that the powers that be have wanted to get rid of the track for a while now. When you have a Fair Board loaded with folks who are developers or who lobby for developers, then the writing is on the wall.
Something else that would be interesting to know would be who stands to profit if this land is sold to developers? Would anyone involved in those so-called neighborhood groups stand to make a profit? Probably. This isn’t about “noise” from the race track, and I don’t think it ever has been. This is simply about a piece of land that some people are looking at with dollar signs in their eyes.
The public meeting is tonight (5/28) at 7:00 pm in Wilson Hall. If you support racing, you need to be there.
UPDATE: According to this story from the Tennessean, only about 100 people showed up at the meeting.
Mike Montgomery
#13 NASCAR Late Model Stock Car
Music City Motorplex, Tennessee State Fairgrounds, Nashville, TN
