Fair Board Rejects Bid for Weekly Car Races

Bowing to pressure from local residents and city officials, directors of the Antelope Valley Fair voted Thursday to reject a promoter’s plan to host weekly stock-car racing at the fairgrounds in Lancaster.

Acton-based promoter Jeff Zee sought permission to install a 3/8-mile oval clay track and other improvements at the fair’s outdoor arena at a cost of about $500,000. But the fair board voted 6 to 0 to reject the project after Lancaster officials and nearby residents complained of noise and other problems.

“We showed today the little guy has a big voice after all,” said Kim Fitch, a nearby homeowner who earlier had given the board a neighborhood petition opposing the project. Apart from the racing noise, she warned that the racing would devalue nearby homes.

After the vote, Zee, president of RIZE Productions, said he would probably pursue a location elsewhere in the Antelope Valley.

“The clear message to the business community is you can be nullified without any explanation,” Zee said. “I’m not bitter; I’m just disappointed.”

For years, the fair has sponsored dirt track racing once a year. But Zee’s proposal would have involved weekly racing Friday and Saturday nights from March through November. Zee had proposed building a 20-foot-high sound wall and creating a $5,000-a-year neighborhood endowment.

Zee estimated that the racing could have had an annual economic impact of $40 million in the Antelope Valley, assuming that the events drew peak crowds of about 6,000 people. And he had projected that the state-run fair, which faces state budget cuts, could have netted $200,000 to $300,000 a year.

But Lancaster Planning Director Brian Hawley, who also testified Thursday, said the racing would have been “detrimental and deleterious” to nearby residents.

Fair board members made no comments before the vote. Directors Ralph Bozigian and Gary Cosgrove abstained.

The Antelope Valley already has a drag-racing strip just east of Palmdale--the privately run Los Angeles County Raceway--and a road racing course at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond. But the nearest active oval racing track is Saugus Speedway about 40 miles to the south.