The only time we ever see an ambulance in Leetonia is during the Road Rally. Sixty cars racing through the woods at break neck speeds, bouncing off trees, rocks and sometimes animals. They start this event with about sixty cars and typically end up with around thirty finishing.The goal of this event is to get the best time in all three legs of the race. You can hear the sound of the engines popping off of the mountains and valleys. The animals take cover for the weekend
and most of the regular camp owners make sure they aren't here.I understand the fascination with seeing fast cars race and take chances. What I don't understand is why this belongs in our State Forest? I stood at the end of one of the legs and listened to the calm of the woods being broken in two, dust flying and the smell of fuel filling my nose as the cars raced past me.
This event tears up the roads, disturbs the animals and most of
the full-time residents. Some animals are even killed by crossing their otherwise peaceful road at the wrong time. Spectators who think they are race car drivers as they race from spot to spot to see the car add to the confusion, dust and litter.After they leave. They leave behind discarded trash and a feeling of being used all for the sake of a few. I know there is going to be a lot of you who disagree with me on this point. But racing should be done on race car tracks, not somewhere that is supposed to be animal and plant life sanctuary. Who benefits from this Rally? Local businesses who feed and house the racers? Who pays for the road care and emergency care...ultimately we the tax payers fund the destruction of our roads and the disturbance of our peace.
Mountain Girl, Paula, picking up trash and logging out!
1 comment:
Leetonia,
I appreciate your sentiment however let me offer some points from the other side.
Performance rallying as a sport in America actually benefits local communities more than you give us credit for. In many areas we provide huge amounts of tax revenue, especially large events such as the one you reference (sometimes the total impact is over $1 million with money multiplier effects). Events also pay large fees to close down the roads. These fees help in part pay for the administrative work (physically closing the roads) help fund grading and maintenance of the roads (there a numerous instances of some roads being maintained almost entirely on funding made available through rally use).
Also, in some cases in addition to providing compensation for the emergency services being integrated into the safety teams (more revenue for local governments and services) there have been instances where these revenues have helped pay for expensive equipment that couldn't be afforded, or that rallies have directly helped pay for to ensure their availability. An availability it should be noted that doesn't end when the rally is over.
I appreciate that this type of recreation and sport is not how you enjoy these resources.
As for the comments about the trash and litter. That is unfortunate and I doubt you'd find any one that truly supports rallying that doesn't think it is horrible. Living in Colorado with numerous national and state parks very close by I have to admit, and hope that you can as well, that littering in parks is a product of the amount of people. The litter from 5,000 or 10,000 people in aggregate is the same if the people visit over the period of a month of a day. I am not trying to defend this. I think it is horrible. I merely hope to illustrate that littering is more of an issue of concentration than volume (many fans and competitors pack out their dirt and garbage).
All of this said, I respect and appreciate your comments and feelings. Hopefully my response will be viewed in the in the friendly nature it was composed in and intended for. In the end you may not like rallying, but we as rallyists do respect and enjoy the forests (many rallyists are avid mountain bikers, or hikers, or campers, kayakers, etc...). We aren't a huge big evil menace on the horizon and we do try to he resonsible forest users
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