(By Greg Engle)
Posted: Thursday,August 27th, 2009
Officials from the town of Loudon New Hampshire and New Hampshire Motor Speedway are at odds over a $265,000 bill the town says the Speedway owes for police protection from the last NASCAR event held there in June. According to a report in the Concord Monitor, Speedway officials agreed last night to pay the bill on the condition that in the future the town stays within a $175,000 budget for police protection starting with next month’s NASCAR Sprint Cup event.
Speedway president Jerry Gappens told the town board Wednesday nigh that track officials met this weekend and discussed the bill. They discovered that costs for police details at the track had increased by 40 percent since 2005, even though race attendance had leveled off, he said. The number of on-duty officers in Loudon in some cases doubled the manpower seen at other tracks, he said.
“When you get those bills and they’re $265,000 - that’s alarming,” Gappens said. “That is a very excessive number compared to what we’re seeing at the other NASCAR tracks we’ve owned and operated.”
Town officials defended the costs, saying the Speedway had enough time to question the bill before the race.
“You had from September to June to tell us that figure was too high,” said Chairman Dustin Bowles. “Now we’re getting thrown under the bus. I mean, come on, that’s just not professional.”
As for the new $175,000 figure town officials said they wouldn’t sign off until the town got its money, or without the assurance that adequate safety would be provided at the race.
“There’s a feeling that we’re being held hostage - that if we don’t do this, you won’t do that,” said Bowles. “If you’re saying we can’t have one without the other, I don’t think we’re going to be able to move forward.”
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