Border Patrol Is on Collision Course With Dream of Race Track

Jim Stanton, the 50-year-old president of San Diego Motor Racing Associates, wants to bring world-class automobile racing to San Diego by building an international raceway on the deserted Otay Mesa.

To him the track is a longtime dream, the culmination of 31 years in motor sports and an economic boon to local businesses, the equivalent of having the Super Bowl in San Diego every year.

To the Border Patrol, the proposed San Diego International Raceway--which is planned to be a mere 102 feet from the international border--is a potential disaster in an area already in turmoil over recent crackdowns on illegal aliens and the tragic shooting of a 12-year-old Mexican boy at the border fence.

The proposed San Diego International Raceway on Otay Mesa, which would be the first new racing facility built in California in more than 15 years, symbolizes what racing aficionados are calling a “motor sports renaissance.”

If the San Diego International Raceway is built, it will encompass 430 acres 20 miles southeast of downtown San Diego. The racecourse will have a 1-mile oval track appropriate for Indy car racing, a 2-mile road course for Formula One and Grand Prix racing, and an off-road racing area.

It would include parking for 26,000 cars, bleacher seating for 46,000 spectators and abundant hillside seating. Stanton said the facility will also include a high-performance driving school and what he calls a “country club for drivers.”

“If someone owns an exotic car, or a fast car, and can’t get out of second gear on the streets, they’ll be able to join the club, be certified and then thrash their cars around (on the tracks),” Stanton said. “Then they can hash out what happened at the bar and restaurant.”

Stanton estimates that the track would be in use full time, with an estimated 10 major races each year. In addition, he said, the track’s schedule would probably include about 10 lesser events and some daily use for testing cars and automotive products. One or two major events each year would draw crowds of 100,000, Stanton said, while smaller events would bring in about 20,000.

According to Stanton the track would make $25 million in ticket sales annually and bring the San Diego area nearly $250 million in related business every year. “When someone comes to the track, he’ll stay the weekend, use the hotels and buy goodies,” he said.

But officials of the Border Patrol contend that the site of the proposed raceway--within two miles of the new Otay Mesa border crossing--is the most notorious stretch of the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, and that throngs of racegoers will keep agents from apprehending the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who try to enter the United States each year in the stretch between Interstate 805 and the San Ysidro Mountains.

Since the San Diego Motor Racing Associates filed for a permit from the county Planning and Land Use Department on Feb. 7, Border Patrol sweeps in the area have netted large numbers of illegal aliens attempting to cross into the United States.

Border Patrol officials said 2,345 people were arrested in the San Diego sector alone on April 28. More than half of those arrests, 1,258, were logged at the Brown Field station, which serves Otay Mesa and is the busiest immigration station in the United States.

“Although the developers have given me every indication that they will provide adequate security for the facility itself on race day, it is going to be located in an area where 17% of all illegal entries occur along the Mexican border,” said Border Patrol Deputy Chief Mike Williams.

“Last year, in that five- or six-mile area where the track will be located, about 170,000 illegal aliens were apprehended by us. We are conservatively estimating that we are getting one in four who tries to cross the border, but that is only an estimate. We are extremely concerned about the impact this (race track) will have on our enforcement operations.”

Williams contends that illegal aliens will be able to blend into the large race-day crowds and elude Border Patrol agents. In addition, he said, the traffic to and from the race track will be bumper to bumper for hours, and “we won’t even be able to get into our office out there.”

When the Border Patrol took its stand against the race track three weeks ago, Stanton offered to build an INS checkpoint--complete with jail cells--on the race track property and suggested that the Border Patrol have a surveillance post atop the 35-foot-tall grandstand.

However, local Latino activists protested Stanton’s concessions, and the Border Patrol turned down the assistance. As a result, Stanton withdrew his offer, but he still contends that the race track would help rather than harm border enforcement.

“The Border Patrol’s argument just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Stanton said. “It is our contention that we will help the problem.”

Stanton plans to build three fences between the border and the raceway, to encircle the property with dirt berms and fences, to place floodlights around the facility and to have a 30-member, 24-hour security force that will be increased to an estimated 300 on race days.

County Supervisor Brian Bilbray, who represents the South Bay area, supports the raceway in his district and calls the Border Patrol’s concern heavy-handed.

“There has been a history of compromise of local rights by the federal government, and I’m very concerned that they don’t get sacrificed,” Bilbray said. “I’m not in favor of the INS (federal Immigration and Naturalization Service) deciding who can develop what where. I don’t think the federal government has or should have that kind of authority.

“There’s been a ‘scorched earth’ tactic used up and down the border that I don’t agree with. There is no development on the American side of the border at all, and those of us who live on the border have been compromised . . . I don’t think the inability of our federal government to control our borders is the overriding issue here.”

Although the Border Patrol has opposed the track, it has no real say in whether the facility will be built. Because the track is planned for county land, the county government will give or deny final approval for construction.

The county Planning and Land Use Department is reviewing the track proposal, and a Planning and Environmental Review Board hearing is scheduled for May 23.

“The facility has a lot of potential benefits to the area, but there are a lot of problems that have to be solved before we support it,” said Bob Asher, county Planning Department division chief. “The most significant one is how it fits into the general plan of Otay Mesa. At this point it does not.”

According to the general plan, several thousand acres of Otay Mesa eventually will be turned into a major industrial center. The general plan allows temporary recreational uses, but it does not permit significant, permanent non-industrial development, Asher said, and the race track is a significant development.

San Diego Motor Racing Associates has submitted an environmental impact report, but Asher said more information is needed before the Planning Department approves the track’s permit.

“We have asked for more information on how they plan to control traffic and dispose of waste,” Asher said. “There are also issues associated with the border location and circulation--how people will get in and out. Before we support the project, there will have to be answers to all of those problems.”

The Planning and Environmental Review Board could give final approval to the project this month, Asher said, but that is not likely. In addition, the review board decision could be appealed to the San Diego County Planning Commission, and any Planning Commission action could then be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

Although Stanton’s group is cooperating fully with the county, Asher said, “This definitely won’t be decided in the next few months.”

County planners and the Border Patrol are not the only agencies concerned about the track’s potential to create hours-long traffic jams on major race days. Right now, California Highway 117--which turns into Otay Mesa Road--is the only way to and from the site. Although it will soon be widened to accommodate the state prison proposed for Otay Mesa, the road has only two lanes, Asher said.

“We’re collectively concerned about the traffic impacts, and both (city) police and transportation planners have raised questions,” said John Fowler, deputy city manager. “That whole mesa area is served by that two-lane road, and it’s going to take a long time to get people in and out.”

Lt. Jim Clain, executive lieutenant of the San Diego Police Department’s southern division, has one word for traffic if the race track is built: “Nightmare.”

“Can you picture all those cars coming down the road after they’ve been drinking beer and watching the races all day?” Clain asked. “At best it will be a traffic jam.”

But Tim Graves, chief engineer for the race track, said he is working with county planners on several options to alleviate the traffic problem, from temporarily turning the widened two-lane road into four lanes by using traffic cones on race days, to permanently widening the road to four lanes.

“Our latest version would have all of the race traffic relegated to two lanes incoming and then reverse the flow going out,” Graves said. “The other two lanes would be for the use of emergency vehicles and local traffic. In a very real sense, those people would be able to access their property without being hindered by the race track.”

The Otay Mesa Property Owners Assn. is also concerned about traffic, but the property owners contend that the benefits will probably outweigh the problems.

“It’s virgin land, a clean slate out there,” said Joe Ellis, association president. “If you talk to the majority of the owners, the feeling is that, if the race track is done properly, it could be a real catalyst for development and bring national and international recognition to the area and San Diego as a whole.”

While San Diego Motor Racing Associates has spent months--and will spend many more months--wrangling with the county government, the County of San Bernardino is going to great lengths to woo a race track. Realizing that the motor sports industry is burgeoning, San Bernardino officials have mapped out a parcel of land near Glen Helen Regional Park and are trying to find a racing promoter to build a major track.

Those officials have created a $500 package including maps, aerial photographs and a video presentation “to encourage racing promoters to bring a track to San Bernardino County,” said Gerry Newcomb, chief of administration for the San Bernardino County Regional Parks Department.

“We think that there’s a need in Southern California for a major racing facility,” Newcomb said. “We have a piece of land we would like to preserve for recreational purposes for the future, and a racing facility is one of the best ways to accomplish that.”

In the last five years, two of Southern California’s major race tracks have closed because of the recession, bad management and encroaching development, racing experts say. Riverside International Raceway is the last major track in the area, and it has to move because housing and industry are creeping closer.

Riverside officials hope to reopen at a new site by 1987, but that site has yet to be chosen, and they may not make their deadline. What is left is a dearth of racing facilities here at a time when interest in auto racing is booming.

“Since the economy has made a turn-around, the motor sport industry has rebounded very well,” said Gordon Light, a spokesman for the National Hot Rod Assn., one the largest sanctioning bodies in racing. “At our last national event, the Winter Nationals in Pomona in February, we had a turn-away crowd and had to lock the gates at 11:30 a.m.”

According to Light, the National Hot Rod Assn.’s 1984 drag racing season showed the organization’s largest single-season attendance growth in its history. Attendance in 1984 increased 11.4%, with 601,510 spectators counted at 12 national races. The 1984 figure is up 61,564 over 1983 attendance, when there were 13 major drag racing events, Light said.

In addition, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s racing division keeps tabs on attendance at 13 major North American auto racing series, said spokesman Dave Hederich. In 1983, 4,741,000 people attended those racing events; in 1984, 4,983,000 attended, up 242,000, Hederich said.

This trend bodes well for San Diego International Raceway, if it gains government approval. And Stanton is optimistic.

“We’ll be the first new track in California since Ontario Motor Speedway was built in 1969, the first since the recession ended, when racing began heating up again,” Stanton said. “ . . . Here’s this piece of land that would essentially lie fallow for years until it can be developed. We can bring this project in at great benefit to the community.”