Published: 4/3/2018 12:11:04 AM
Modified: 4/3/2018 12:11:06 AM
Concord — Months before the New Hampshire Motor Speedway is expected to hold its first three-day country music festival, the company is still tied up in a lawsuit with residents trying to prevent the show from going on.
Three neighbors of the speedway — Arnold Alpert, Judith Elliot and James Snyder — sued the race track in December, claiming the plan to hold a music festival violates a 1989 settlement between the speedway and the town of Loudon, N.H.
The settlement said that the speedway “shall not permit any musical concerts of any type or description to be held on the premises currently known as New Hampshire Speedway except in conjunction with racing events.”
The agreement was made after Bob Bahre purchased the speedway, formerly known as Bryar Motorsports Park, with the intention of expanding it into a multipurpose track in 1988. It was signed by representatives of New Hampshire Speedway Inc., eight “concerned racetrack neighbors” and four Loudon Planning Board members.
The old agreement has no effect on the speedway’s plan to host a music festival, speedway lawyer Bill Glahn said during a hearing on Monday at Merrimack County Superior Court.
The agreement applies only to the 1.02-mile oval track that was proposed at the time, he said, not to the parking lots in the southern end of the property where the concerts would be held.
The land for the parking lots was acquired after the 1989 agreement.
Judge Richard McNamara was set to review the case, but he did not make a ruling on Monday.