Neighbors press Page County planning commission for enforceable limits, citing races outside season and high event counts

Residents and commission members clashed over enforcement of the Sandals Speedway special-use permit (SUP), with neighbors saying the track has run events out of season and repeatedly exceeded the permit’s event cap.

“Why is the SUP requirement not being enforced or monitored?” resident Darwin Hurst asked the commission, saying he counted 41 events on a 2021 printout where the SUP allows 32. Hurst also raised lighting and noise violations and said FOIA requests and complaints produced no enforcement action.

Another resident, Courtney Hurston, described the economic impact on short-term-rental operators: “I can’t even guarantee guests at any point because we are floating the river and we heard it on a Sunday,” she said, recounting refunding a guest who complained about racetrack noise.

Commissioners responded by asking staff to redraft conditions that are precise and enforceable. One commissioner urged restoring clearer language from older SUPs on season dates and hours; staff and a commissioner recommended defining event types and practice/training explicitly so enforcement staff can distinguish “practice” from a formal event.

The applicant’s representative, Jeff Vaughn, said the requested window of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. was intended to give the facility flexibility and that some past enforcement gaps stem from the technical difficulty of measuring sound. “Ken has spent a lot of time on the analysis,” Vaughn said, adding that training and community uses occur at the site.

The commission did not adopt final conditions that night. Instead it directed staff to prepare a consolidated draft that fixes inconsistent terminology (facility hours vs. normal hours of operation), clarifies practice/training/testing, and includes enforceable measurement methods before sending any document to public hearing.