Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Track designer Alan Wilson and civil engineer Bill St. John are both surprised that neighbors of Barber Motorsports Park are complaining about noise from the recently opened facility.

Barber Motorsports Park recently canceled a WERA regional race scheduled for April 18-20, Easter weekend, due to noise complaints from neighbors of the brand new 2.3-mile, 16-turn racetrack.

“I’m actually very surprised by that,” Wilson, of Wilson Motorsports, said Monday.

“I don’t think anyone expected to have these problems,” stated St. John, of St. John and Associates, Monday.

Both men said noise abatement wasn’t a major concern during the construction of the $54 million racetrack due to the size and layout of the 740-acre facility, but steps to decrease sound levels were still taken.

“The first thing was to put the track as far from the boundaries and houses as we possibly can,” said Wilson, adding, “The whole thing is dug into (the site), especially on the Birmingham side; there are these huge banks that push the sound up in the air.”

“We didn’t dig a hole, but it’s kind of in a bowl pretty much all the way around it,” clarified St. John.

A noise abatement consultant was also contracted to do studies at the park including taking sound levels from several different locations around the track. “We even took a bike down there and ran it and took measurements on the property line and stuff like that,” said St. John. “It sure didn’t look like from the report that it was going to be any worse than the (noise from the) Interstate, which is pretty close there. It’s a surprise to me that it’s become a big deal all of a sudden.”

St. John speculated that a combination of holding a vintage car race as one of the first events at the track before the shielding trees’ leaves have fully grown in may have led to a noise shock for neighbors and the recent noise complaints. “Maybe it’s a combination of bad conditions on the day that the loudest cars were there. I’m sure it’s worse than it will be in a month (when the trees’ leaves grow in).”

Even then, Wilson believes Barber Motorsports Park is better situated with respect to neighboring homes than many racetracks. “We’re so much further away from homes than many, many other tracks in the country,” said Wilson. “Carolina (Motorsports Park in South Carolina) has houses closer, Gingerman (Raceway in Michigan); Sears Point (in California’s wine country) has houses closer. Mid-Ohio absolutely has houses closer, million dollar houses right on the border that were built after the track was built.”

“On the other side of the (Cahaba) river, there’s a retirement community, an apartment complex kind of thing, and I think that’s probably the ones that will benefit the most from leaves on the trees,” said St. John, when asked who was complaining. “The other neighbors are pretty far away, because they’re kind of over the hills, (however) one of those other neighbors has been complaining all along, every step of the way, about everything he could think about.”

After designing racetracks for nearly 30 years all across the world, Wilson sees the situation as business as usual for a new racetrack, saying, “I suspect it’s a local issue. That will be another issue that will be overcome. I’ve come to expect it with racetracks now. It’s part of the growing pains.”

St. John believes an amicable solution to the noise problem will be found, saying, “The Barber organization is very sensitive to their neighbors. They were sincere when we began to do the work to begin with. Nobody thought we would be causing anybody problems. If it turns out that they are, I think they are going to do whatever they can to be good neighbors.”