Bruton Smith is fast running out of room.               
Smith oversees the vast motorsports empire of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which includes Lowe’s Motor Speedway — a 1.5-mile track that hosts the only night race in The Chase for the Nextel Cup on Oct. 13. Smith is engaged, at present, in a verbal war with politicians from the City of Concord, N.C., and Cabarrus County, where Lowe’s is located.
The dispute is quite simple.
Smith wants to build a $60-million drag-racing facility alongside the existing dirt track across U.S. 29 from LMS.
Thing is, that particular site backs up to several heavily populated housing developments.
The city and county politicians are afraid the drag strip would cause too much noise and create some pollution problems.
Smith says the NHRA already has promised him a date for a drag race at the facility in 2008, and if politicians don’t let him build the drag strip, he’ll sue.

The thing that’s hard to understand is the concern about the noise level.
The property we’re talking about sits between U.S. 29 and I-85, two of the busiest and noisiest highways in North Carolina.
Three miles away is Concord Regional Airport. Right behind Lowe’s Motor Speedway is a massive landfill undertaking.

The thing that’s hard to understand is the concern about the noise level.
The property we’re talking about sits between U.S. 29 and I-85, two of the busiest and noisiest highways in North Carolina.
Three miles away is Concord Regional Airport. Right behind Lowe’s Motor Speedway is a massive landfill undertaking.
Then, a couple of miles away is Concord Mills, a shopping mall, recognized as the biggest tourist attraction in the state.
Of course, then there’s the speedway and the half-mile dirt track. All this was here before those housing developments were ever built.
And, then, when those people finally did get around to building those homes, weren’t they aware of where they were building and the things already located in the area? It was noisy and polluted before they built.
I think so.
Well, this now has really rankled Smith’s nerves.
He’s accused the city and county leaders of not working with SMI and supporting his projects and now says it was a mistake for the speedway to ask to be annexed by Concord.
That move came in 1987 and allowed the speedway to sell beer and wine.
Now, besides threatening a lawsuit, it they don’t let him build the drag strip, Smith now wants to know how much it’ll cost him to redraw the city limits so he can secede from them?
Mecklenburg County begins about a mile south of the speedway.
But that’s no good, either.
Mecklenburg County doesn’t want Smith, either, since it’s still angry over Smith bulldozing hundreds of trees, without permission, to build a parking lot on the Charlotte side of the county line.
And it was Smith who had proposed at one time of paying to have the Charlotte transit’s light-rail facility to hook up with the speedway.
He later backed out of that offer.
So, where’s SMI and Smith to go if he secedes from Cabarrus County?
Here’s a suggestion, Mr. Smith. Form your own county.
You could call it Speedway County, N.C. The folks over at Harrisburg more than likely would join you and welcome the move, too.
That would be perfect.
So, Bruton Smith, if you’re really mad, let’s get moving so you can have a drag strip with a race in 2008.