DATE: Wednesday, June 25, 1997              TAG: 9706250497

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   73 lines

RACE TRACK HOPEFUL NOW EYES CHESAPEAKE

A long-awaited but contentious motor speedway project may jump its development track in Suffolk and land across the city limits in Chesapeake if promoter Joe Baldacci gets his way.

Baldacci said he has forsaken a planned half-mile oval track off Nansemond Parkway across from the intersection with Shoulders Hill Road, first proposed almost three years ago. Next month, Baldacci said he will submit new plans to the Chesapeake Planning Department for a similarly sized race track, holding about 8,000 fans on 50 acres of farmland situated in the northwest section of Interstate 664 and U.S. Route 58.

Baldacci, who has promoted races at the Langley Speedway in Hampton and the Southside Speedway in Richmond, said Suffolk did not come through with promised infrastructure improvements at his former, city-approved site.

In response, Suffolk Councilman S. Chris Jones, who had supported the raceway plan in his city, said the plan died when a conditional use permit expired.

Baldacci said he would also seek official approval from the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing and hopes to begin races once a week in Chesapeake as soon as April 1998.

Though not as prestigious as the Winston Cup or Busch Series, Baldacci said drivers who do well at his proposed Chesapeake track could move up to those NASCAR circuits.

John C. Holland Jr. said Baldacci approached him and his three older sisters about 2 1/2 months ago about a long-term lease for part of their family's Ye Old Farm, one of the city's oldest.

``It adjoins the airport, and the access is perfect,'' Holland said. ``Mr. Balducci loved it; it's the hub of Tidewater.''

Holland said his property is zoned for agricultural use, but added the city designated it as a future industrial area.

In addition to a race track on about 50 acres of the family farm, Holland said his family is also looking at plans for a possible adjacent Sheraton hotel, track-side condominiums and recreation fields.

``If this doesn't happen, something will,'' Holland said of the future of his family's 166-acre farm.

Brent R. Nielson, the city's planning director, said the project would probably need City Council approval for both a rezoning for the land, as well as a conditional use permit for the race track.

The Suffolk speedway has a tortured, three-year history, filled with lawsuits, evaporating support from the city and lingering questions over whether race track developers have the necessary funds to build.

Originally, private developers were to pay for infrastructure for the industrial park with profits from the race track, which received a city permit in 1995. Promoters told the city that they expected weekend crowds of more than 7,000 at a $5 million race track complex within a community filled with several residential neighborhoods.

Balducci and developers Upton and Arnette Associates even beat back a later court challenge, which reached the state Supreme Court, prompted by a lawsuit from the Chesapeake-Suffolk grassroots effort, Citizens Against the Racetrack.

But in March of this year, the Suffolk City Council announced that the city would buy 460 acres of the long-fallow Northgate Industrial Park, which was approved for industrial use in 1995. At that time, city officials did not discuss how the city would incorporate the adjoining Suffolk International Speedway project.

The final blow was the expiration of a conditional use permit from the city for the Suffolk track, which expired in late March of this year, city officials said.

So far, some Chesapeake civic leagues in close proximity to the new site said they had seen Baldacci's plans, and are opposed to the track.

``Our main concern is a noise,'' said Toni Fogel, who lives with her husband and two children in nearby David's Mill. ``It's less than half a mile from our house.''

Fogel, whose husband Robert is the president of their civic league, said her family is ready to deal with the noise from the adjacent Hampton Roads Airport, but said, ``We didn't move here to have a race track as an added bonus.''

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