Ace Speedway ruling likely Wednesday. Congressman wants racetracks declared essential.
Race fans across North Carolina anxiously await Wednesday’s decision on whether Ace Speedway can run races in Alamance County despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to worsen statewide.
Feelings on the speedway run passionately enough that U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, a Greensboro Republican, has introduced a resolution in the House asking that all 1,200 racetracks nationwide be declared essential.
“Ace Speedway and the North Carolina racing industry provide our state with vital, essential sources of job opportunities and economic growth in a time when our national unemployment has ballooned to 13.3 percent,” Walker said in a news release. “During this pandemic, we should not be picking winners and losers but instead providing these essential businesses the freedom to safely move forward and continue living their American Dream.”
But signs point to a longer shutdown for the Alamance County track, which has drawn thousands of fans to recent races, far exceeding the 25-person maximum spelled out in Gov. Roy Cooper’s restrictions.
Superior Court Judge Tom Lambeth has already ruled in favor of a temporary restraining order at Ace, which remains in effect until he rules Wednesday on a preliminary injunction.
At that hearing earlier in June, Lambeth noted that documents provided by N.C. Department of Health and Human Services “make it very clear that there is an imminent health hazard.” He noted that previous generations were sent to fight in World War II, while this crisis only asks that people stay home.
At a second hearing Friday, he highlighted DHHS Director Mandy Cohen’s report that coronavirus patients took up 805 hospital beds statewide.
“That raised my eyebrows,” Lambeth said Friday.
That figure has since risen to 870, and Cohen said Monday that all the key metrics to measure the pandemic’s spread are moving in the wrong direction, decreasing the likelihood of relaxed restrictions under Phase Three.
“We have not passed over the hump,” Andrew Kasper, attorney for DHHS, told the judge. “This is a serious emergency, and that emergency requires serious public health measures.”
Still, the sentiment runs strong across the Piedmont that racing should resume. Speedway owners Jason and Robert Turner have stressed that precautions are in place for a safe race, including hand sanitizer stations and requiring photo IDs for a roster of spectators.
A few protesters came for the first Ace hearing, calling Cooper’s order an unconstitutional overreaction and citing uneven enforcement of his rules. Earlier this month, 311 Speedway in Stokes County held a sparsely attended protest party with a live band, then later packed the stands around its dirt track.
As Lambeth said he and other state officials are trying to weigh the pandemic’s health risks against its economic toll, a sheriff’s deputy testified he found Ace’s owner in tears when he came to explain racing could not go on, fearing he would lose everything.
Ace attorney Chuck Kitchen said he does not downplay the threat from COVID-19, but he said the outbreak so far does not merit the level of emergency that grants the governor broad powers to curtail it.
“There’s no question COVID-19 is a bad germ,” Kitchen told the judge Friday. “However, a state of emergency does not exist because you think something is going to happen.”
On Wednesday, the judge will wave the final flag.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 11:29 AM.