California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon
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By teal_dx
#7126 I saw this on clubsi.com and had to share!

Mark and Karin Rivard, and their lawyer Mark Cohen, Esq.

Yeah, that's how he signs it. Esquire.

A little background: Altamont Speedway opened on July 22, 1966. In 1999 the Rivards bought a plot of land adjacent to the raceway and proceeded to build a house.

120 feet from the track.

The house:

Image

The lovely couple:

Image

Since moving in December 2005, the Rivards have decided that (suprise, suprise) they no longer enjoy living next to a racetrack. Instead of moving, they created the Community for a Better Altamont and decided to spend over $20,000 waging a legal and political battle against the users and operators of the raceway. They are apparently the only two members of this organization. The reasons, quoted directly from the website:

"There are no "buffer zones" between the racetrack and the community on the west, south and east sides of the speedway. Decibel levels generated from the ractrack exceed those that are allowed."

"During the racing season the community is faced with an increase in property damage, trespassing, theft of personal property, privately-paid for dumpsters being used, increase in fire danger, increased traffic, increased noise and now lights that stay on late into the night adding to the light pollution in this area."

"There is no infrastructure set-up . . . to handle this increased traffic. We have no stop lights in the area. The sheriff is at least an 1+ (mile?) away. Midway Road and Patterson Pass Road are small winding country roads with little to no shoulder not setup to handle big racing rigs as well as a significant increase in traffic."

"Racing rigs as they go to the racetrack travel and higher than posted speeds down the middle of the roads because the roads are not wide and have no shoulder. They have been observed throwing lit cigarettes out the window as well as rolling right through posted traffic control signs."

They also list protecting the endangered Burrowing Owl, San Joaquin Kit Fox and the California Tiger Salamander as reasons, although this didn't keep Mr. Rivard from building a motocross course on his own property.

Of course, the Rivards needed real "bad guys" in order to get the attention of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. They decided on drifters. From the site:

"Drifting is a reckless exhibition of speed that involves cars spinning out of control or loosing traction over the distance of a racetrack. Drifters are scored by their time and the "drifting" of their vehicles. Often associated with secluded street exhibitions or side shows one step ahead of law enforcement, some drifters, to their credit have sought to legitimize their sport by holding their events at race tracks."

Being Alameda County, of which Oakland is a part of, the attempt to connect organized amateur drift events to sideshows is very deliberate. Regardless of whether you like drifting or not, you know deep down these things are on the opposite ends of the automotive spectrum. Most participants are dorky Asians and nerdy white guys, myself included, and there are precious few of the gangster wannabe observers of a large D1 event.

Last week the County Supervisors managed to ban drifting by exploiting a vaugery regarding the track's conditional use permit and use of the new infield section until they decide to issue a new permit that says otherwise. Don't care? This is basically a ban on anything that's not a NASCAR oval track race. No autocrosses, sports car racing, motorcycle racing, figure eight, et cetera, such and so forth.

So thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Rivard, for truely making the world a better place.

Kiss my ass.


I cannot believe the idiots in this world. What did you think when you built your house beside a race track??? [smilie=BangHead.gif] :evil: [smilie=boxing.gif]
User avatar
By vtec_gloucester
#7146
tucka wrote:haha what a set of plumbs lol!


+1
User avatar
By chnzgoofball
#7151
vtec_gloucester wrote:
tucka wrote:haha what a set of plumbs lol!


+1


x3