LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lakeport Speedway and the 49th District Agricultural Association, which operates the Lake County Fairgrounds, have agreed to a new five-year contract, which will take effect in 2012.
The agreement was approved by the association’s board of directors at its Nov. 28 meeting. The previous agreement expired at the end of the 2011 racing season.
The new agreement calls for an earlier racing curfew in the years ahead and allows a later start date to the racing season, which has been hampered in recent years by weather problems.
At its inception in 1948, the racetrack was operated by Auto Racing Incorporated, a local group that later became the Northern California Racing Association, known as “NCRA.”
Lakeport Speedway has been operated by the NCRA, a nonprofit organization, since the mid nineteen sixties.
The track was paved in 1966, and has hosted a regular summer schedule of stock car races ever since.
State funding for the District Agricultural Association has been eliminated in 2012, and as a result the new agreement reflects increases in the rental fees the NCRA will pay on a nightly basis, as well as adding an annual financial guarantee.
In addition, NCRA will take on more responsibility for maintenance and upkeep of the track and surrounding areas of the fairgrounds, and will perform a series of capital improvements during each year of the agreement.
According to a 2009 economic impact study by the State’s Division of Fairs and Expositions, activities at the Lake County Fairgrounds, including the Lakeport Speedway operations, directly or indirectly created the equivalent of 75 full-time jobs and more than $10.9 million in local economic impact, including approximately $2.4 million in salaries and wages.
The fairgrounds also generates more than $102,000 in tax revenues like sales tax, local possessory interest tax for use of government property, and a variety of other licenses, fees and permits, many of them related to the racetrack.
The NCRA has struggled in recent years with the same economic forces that are impacting other businesses, but has taken steps to keep the speedway activities in action, including switching to less expensive types of race cars and adding fan attractions, such as the rolling demolition derbies known as “boat races.”
Both the District Agricultural Association and the NCRA recognize that the impacts on the community from racing activities are not only economic, and the new agreement requires changes to the speedway operation in order to mitigate some of those impacts.
While previous agreements required a minimum of 20 race days, the new agreement requires 16 days, a 20-percent reduction in the required number of racing days.
The new agreement also limits the start of any racing activities to noon, and phases in a curfew of 10 p.m. to take effect in 2013.
Previous agreements had no limits on when cars could began operating, and had a curfew of 11 p.m.
“While activities at the state-owned fairgrounds are not subject to the city of Lakeport’s sound curfew ordinance under the sovereign powers doctrine, both the association and the NCRA recognize that the city ordinance creates a community standard of reducing sound levels at 10 p.m., and the new agreement will phase in that curfew for the speedway as well,” said District Agricultural Association Chief Executive Officer Richard Persons.
“In 2012 the speedway operation will use 10:30 p.m. as a curfew, and in 2013 the standard for the speedway to meet will match the city’s ordinance,” said Persons. “We know many people enjoy the sounds of race cars, but that it gets old at the end of the night. This new curfew should help.”
The new agreement also reflects changes to the climate over the past decade, according to Persons.
Previous agreements allowed the racing schedule to begin on April 1 each year and ran through the middle of October, while the new agreement allows the season to start on April 15 and run through Oct. 31.
“The reality has been that the earlier dates have been running into weather problems over the last decade, while the fall has had great weather. This shift recognizes that reality,” said Persons.
The new agreement also is limited to auto racing activities, and allows the NCRA to contract with the association separately to promote other types of events on the fairgrounds.
Other events might include monster truck shows, car shows, demolition derbies, mud bogs, motorcycle events or rock crawling activities.
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