Free admission to Western Springs speedway to judge noise

Free admission to the Western Springs speedway tonight is a great opportunity for people to judge the sport for themselves, says racing car driver Bryce Townsend.

He drives midget cars in the Auckland speedway, which has been coming under fire for making too much noise.

The normal $20 admission to the stadium has been waived tonight because of "radical" changes in the racing programme caused by the furore this week over exceeded noise limits.

The Springs Stadium Residents Association won an Environment Court judgment forcing the speedway promoter to comply with a noise limit of 85 decibels.

Townsend, his fellow drivers and the promoter will be doing their best to cut the roar tonight to help ensure the sport survives at the stadium.

"It's just about the last bastion left for family entertainment," he said yesterday.

"It's been there for 75 years. We want it to be there another 75 years."

Townsend, 36, has been going to the stadium since he was a young boy and is now the world 50-lap midget champion. His father and grandfather were fans before him.

Mr Townsend said reducing the noise the cars made would not affect the entertainment value, but that stage would be reached before very long.

"If you have to put big mufflers on or more mufflers it does become a bit of a safety issue, too ...

"Part of the sport, unfortunately, is that sometimes things do come off the cars and you get big heavy mufflers and then you start to put crowd safety at risk.

"We don't really want to go down that road ... We have got to address the noise issue."

He believes people should take advantage of the free night. "Unfortunately, some people get the impression that it is maybe a bit of a bogan Westie-type sport but it's not.

"It is very, very professional." He thinks Western Springs is the best speedway facility in the world.

He said drivers - about 150 attended the meeting on Thursday night to work out how to stick to the noise levels - wanted to make the levels work for the good of the speedway, although they thought them unreasonable.

The new $125,000 Auckland City Council noise monitoring system at the stadium did not give accurate data on November 13 because strong winds artificially increased speedway sound levels. Blustery winds are forecast tonight.

* A petition has been started to "Keep the Speedway on Track".

The Western Springs Speedway club is running advertisements seeking donations to be registered on www.speedwayclub.co.nz.

COST OF NOISE

* Western Springs speedway was fined $300 for breaching the 85-decibel noise limit at the first meeting of the season on November 6.

* The city council's monitoring system could not give accurate readings the following week, on November 13, because of the strong winds.

* This week, the Environment Court ordered the speedway to comply with the limit or face a $200,000 fine.