Manalapan vs. Raceway Park once again. Irate homeowners who refused to perform any investigation prior to purchasing their homes are once again looking for a scapegoat for their poor decisions in home selection.
Allow me to help. Raceway Park has been around a long time — since 1965 to be exact. Many of these irate homeowners have just recently (to clarify: and also within the last 15 years) moved into the area from "up north" because of their great discovery — central New Jersey. The transportation benefits it offers one for commuting to and from work is so convenient. There are stores abound. Conges-tion is considerably less to them (as we watch the congestion grow).
Why would a town allow building of such beautiful homes near a race track? Taxes (read: money). Go after the town for making their decision to put homes in such close proximity. Did your (real estate agent) happen to forget to mention this as you awed at your future home? Of course not — they wanted a sale (read: money). Go after them and their agency, too.
Go after everyone you can, but be sure not to put an ounce of blame on yourself — after all, how can it be your fault? Obviously, many of you would stay in a house with no heat in sub-zero temperatures. The answer is simple. Move.
As a racer who frequents Raceway Park, I have spent much hard-earned money to comply with the noise restrictions, as have most of my other fellow racers. We have to — we all wish to continue racing at Raceway Park.
Raceway Park, too, has spent significant amounts of money in battling noise reduction. I have witnessed firsthand many times Raceway Park personnel’s thorough inspection of vehicles for compliance. Raceway Park has also been very cognizant of the noise and the noise curfew. Many times racing gets into the later hour and money is split up instead of the racing continuing. Racers want to race, but the curfew dictates otherwise and that’s acceptable to us.
I wonder how many of the complaining Manalapan residents are NASCAR fans? NASCAR is the biggest motorsport in our country. Would you be complaining if a NASCAR track was in your back yard?
Motorsports are unarguably a great form of enjoyment and commerce to many. Having said that, I believe Raceway Park will be around for many years.
I have been racing over 21 years. I used to street race when I was younger (and dumber). There was an enormous plague of street racing back in the 1980s. It flooded the news media for many weeks as people were getting injured or killed (yes, I have witnessed both firsthand) due to street racing. The cause being a lack of safe havens to go racing, which in turn caused a previously closed race track to reopen (Westhampton Raceway in New York).
If somehow you get your victory and Raceway Park closes, I wish you all good luck in your travels on Union Hill Road or Route 9. And you better have your seat belt on. These folks you just got off the race track may now be taking their racing (to) the streets, and one may just carve your minivan in two. Now whom will you go after, if you are still alive?
Marty Magerowski
Freehold