ERX Motor Park faces local challenges, questions about future
ERX Motor Park in Elk River, Minnesota, is a popular spot in the region for snowmobile and off-road racing, the latter of which includes annual stops by Championship Off-Road and Nitro Rallycross. However, complaints have hampered hopes of expanding the facility and potentially placed its existence on the line. The Elk River City Council held a meeting on Monday to discuss whether to grant changes to the track’s conditional use permit (CUP), though debate has delayed a decision until the COR race weekend on 15/16 July.
Much of the resistance concerns noise or upgraded facilities encroaching on private property, both of which are not uncommon reasons for race tracks in populated residential areas failing to see much further development and/or the arrival of larger racing championships, a concept that is commonly dubbed NIMBYism (“Not In My Back Yard”). Perhaps the most notable example in recent American motorsport comes at … Read the rest