CLAREMONT — The city’s Licensing Board authorized moving forward with Claremont Motorsports Park’s permit for the rest of 2026 on Thursday, one day before the racetrack’s existing permit was set to expire.
The board’s decision came amid initial discussions about a proposed ordinance that would increase municipal oversight of motor-vehicle racetracks in the city.
Earlier this week, City Manager Nancy Bates sent a memo to Mayor Dale Girard, Assistant Mayor Debora Matteau and the rest of the City Council indicating the Licensing Board needed more time to prepare an ordinance for the council to consider.
The memo also recommended that the board issue a license to the track “under the existing licensing guidelines and practices” for the rest of the 2026 season, as the previous license was set to expire on May 15.
In what Police Chief Brent Wilmot described as a “draft of a draft,” Ordinance 644 was discussed at length during the April 22 City Council meeting.
Mike Parks, the promoter, leaseholder, general manager, and owner of MDP Motorsports Promotions LLC, which holds the Claremont Motorsports Park lease, said the ordinance as discussed did not feel like a significant change, in a telephone interview on Thursday.
“We’ve always had to go in front of the Licensing Board and get our licenses approved, so it’s really nothing different,” he said.
The ordinance, as explained in the April 22 council packet, would “amend the general scope of the Licensing Board’s authority and review process, specifically associated with motor vehicle race tracks.”
It adds: “The City currently has an active racetrack operating within its borders, from which several complaints over the years have shown that additional regulation and oversight is necessary to monitor this unique business activity, as well as to address concerns of the community.”
April’s version of the proposed ordinance included stipulations for the operating season, maximum number of events, hours of operation, and more.
The process to write an ordinance stemmed from an initial attempt to clearly define terms, specifically what constitutes a “race event.” That was prompted by complaints last summer related to the track, despite the activity seemingly being “consistent” with past seasons, Wilmot said in an interview Thursday.
“Some of my predecessors had defined a race event as multiple cars on the race track at a time, versus one car, single-car testing,” Wilmot said.
He noted that some complaints seemed to be from activities such as single-car testing that had not previously been required to be listed on the license.
In seeking to amend definitions, the Licensing Board discovered via the city’s attorney that it lacked authority to regulate operations at the track.
“As this process was going on, we discovered New Hampshire has an RSA (31:41-a), which allows municipalities to set bylaws that regulate the activities of motor vehicle racetracks,” Wilmot said.
Wilmot, who also has a seat on the Licensing Board, surveyed other communities, such as Epping and Winchester, among others, that have race tracks, to explore their regulations.
“They’re all different, they all have some similarities. They all seem to be very different than the city’s, so that’s how this effort was established for the city to set an ordinance and for the nine city councilors to decide what they thought was reasonable in terms of operations,” Wilmot said.
Wilmot emphasized at last month’s meeting that the ordinance was not intended to facilitate expansion nor restrict operations at the speedway, which opened in 1947.
“I think that the hope of the Licensing Board is that the City Council would say ‘the racing season can start on this date and it ends on this date, racing is allowed on these particular days and these particular times,” Wilmot said on Thursday.
He later added: “It’s not going to be up to the Licensing Board … to try to decide from year to year what the will of the City Council is or what the will of the residents is. That will be codified in an ordinance which is hopefully more stable over time. And then when the applicant comes before us, we can just say ‘yeah that application falls within the will of the people, approved.’
Though Parks said he did not agree with some complaints from neighbors about the track, many of which were raised at the April City Council meeting and concerned noise, he understood that the city has to listen to both sides of the issue.
“The noise has been there since 1947; nothing has changed,” he said.
The May 13 memo indicated that the goal is to have a racetrack ordinance proposal to the City Council in late October, so it could potentially be adopted before the 2027 season.
