NEWS
JUNE 6, 2013 • SOUTH KENTON RECORDER • A3
Thornhill track fights injunction to keep racing By Amy Scalf
Thornhill Drag Strip supporters Brian Miller, left, Zach Miller, Gary Koeninger, Gerry Meyer, Jason Chleue and Chuck Grizzell hope Campbell County courts will allow the track to operate additional hours or days. AMY
ascalf@nky.com
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Many drag racing fans love the roaring engines, squealing tires and the smell of burning rubber hanging heavily in the air, but Thornhill Drag Strip’s neighbors do not. Cars began thundering down the track in the 1950s, after local legend says the 3,100-foot-long strip was built to accommodate planes carrying bootleggers in the 1920s. The noise and fumes funneled toward nearby homes caused neighbors across the Licking River to take the matter to Campbell Circuit Court in 1973, leading to an injunction limiting the track’s operations to six hours on Saturday nights between April and October only. Gary Koeninger began leasing the track last year, and because operations have been rained out on several consecutive Saturday nights, he’s hoping to add racing time to the schedule. “We’re just trying to keep the track open. It’s the oldest continuous running track in the United States, as far as I know,” said Koeninger. He is prepared to file a motion to change the injunction, and he’s amassed more than 1,300 petition signatures to support him. “We’d want to do a Friday night or Sunday if we get rained out. As it is, we’re not allowed to make up days. If we get rained out, I have to give the money back to racers and
SCALF/THE COMMUNITY RECORDER
spectators, and I still have to pay the employees,” Koeninger said. “If I get an extra day, I can at least try to recoup some of that money.” Rachel Hulette, an Alexandria resident who has lived directly across the river from the track for nine years, would prefer the hours not change. “It’s hard to understand the impact of the operation, unless you experience it. We’re situated in a valley, so the amount of exhaust and fumes from the burnouts they do is significant. It’s not pleasant to be around at all,” she said. “I don’t support any operational change in the hours of the race track, period.” She said the track’s Campbell County neighbors receive most of the impact from the noise as well. She and her neighbors knew about the track and the injunction, before moving there. “We really enjoy the area. We enjoy the people. We just want everyone to
follow the same set of rules that we knew when we moved out here,” she said. She and other neighbors went to court in 2008 because of excessive track operations. “There was a tremendous amount of activity. Folks were racing on Sundays, Saturdays, every day of the week. Sometimes it was only a couple of cars making a couple of trips, and other times they would play music over the public address system at the track. It was quite loud and it would go on for hours,” Hulette said. “Sometimes there would be a lot of gunshot activity. It was an intolerable situation. There was no way of knowing what was going to be happening at the track at any time.” She understands that racing at the track is their tradition, but operating within the confines of the injunction should also be a part of their traditions. “They’ve been in operation for 40 years with
that injunction against it, so there's no basis for saying it can't continue to operate with the injunction, because it has for 40 years,” said Hulette. Piner-Fiskburg Fire Chief Jason Chleue and Kenton Fire Department Assistant Chief Chuck Grizzell have been coming to Thornhill since they were kids. “Dads have been bringing their sons here for years,” said Chleue. “Even if the court specifies a number of weeks we could have races, that would be better,” Grizzell said. Gerry Meyer, who owns the property where Thornhill is located, said Thornhill has hosted races and musical events over long weekends, but that’s not a possibility any more. “We can’t do big events. We have to limit entries to races because if it goes long, the cops come out,” he said. “I’d like to see weekend festivals, where
there’s continuous music all weekend,” said Brian Miller, but he’s mostly in-
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Want to continue the conversation? Tweet at @AmyScalfNky
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terested in racing. “This is the only track I know of in Northern Kentucky. We’ve got to do something,” said Miller, who has raced since he was16 years old. “The bottom line for me is that I can’t afford to go anywhere else and go racing. This is my only option.” They just want the track to remain as a viable business. “We don’t have the grandstands like big tracks, but this is our home track, and we like it how it is,” said Koeninger. “We just want to keep it.”
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