Raceway’s music fest takes first step

When the Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission meets next Wednesday in Sonoma, its primary agenda item is sure to pique the interest of Valley residents: an application for Sonoma Raceway to modify its use permit to allow an annual four-day music event on the 1,600-acre grounds, starting as soon as 2017.

The application compares the event directly to Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park and the Coachella Valley Music Festival in Indio, Southern California.

Perhaps a more pertinent comparison to local music fans, and concerned traffic watchers, is the similar BottleRock Napa Valley three-day event, to be held this year at the end of May. And then there’s the newly relocated annual B.R. Cohn Charity Music concert, to be renamed Sonoma Music Festival, which organizers plan as a three-day event in early October at the Field of Dreams. The time frame for the Raceway music event is identified as between May and October, exclusive of prime racing event months of July and August.

The Raceway’s presentation to the SVCAC was driven by the plan to create a national series of rock concerts at raceways owned by Sonoma’s parent organization, Speedway Motorsports of North Carolina. Though Speedway had been looking for a national branding event, it was Sonoma Raceway’s President and General Manager Steve Page who brought them the package of investors and music festival professionals that’s currently being considered, he told the Index-Tribune.

While reluctant to go into detail prior to the Feb. 25 meeting, Page confirmed that a representative from the “new entity” that will produce the music festivals will be at the meeting to make a presentation.

“There are eight race tracks in the corporation over all,” said Page, “and we’re looking at a branded music festival at up to five of them. Each will be very localized in look, food and beverage, music and the musical acts. This will be a ‘Sonoma-esque’ event.”

Along with the localized garnishes, the Raceway is planning to have the concerts end at the midnight hour but the event itself to carry on with late-night entertainment of DJ music and dancing, movies, food and beverages until 4 a.m. (Alcohol sales would end at 2 a.m. per state law.) The late-night schedule has already raised concerns with the SVCAC, who first heard of the proposal last summer and returned it to Sonoma Raceway with their comments for further revision.

The role of the Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission is purely advisory, with no zoning or permitting authority. Their input and recommendation ends up with the Permit and Resource Management Department (PRMD) and county for eventual approval.

Members of the commission have already met with Page and others from Sonoma Raceway during an afternoon tour of the site last week, on Feb. 10. According to Jack Ding, chair of the Advisory Commission, they had a shuttle-bus and walking tour of the grounds and structures with Page, VP of Facilities and Operations Jere Starks, and land-use consultant Diane Henderson.

The last time Sonoma Raceway applied for a revision of its use permit, it took them four years to elaborate on their original page-and-a-half agreement, ultimately developing it into a full 54 page legal document. Now, nearly 20 years later, Page is hoping the next set of revisions goes more smoothly.

The Raceway is also asking for permission to convert its old administration building on Highway 37, now used only for will-call ticket sales several times a year, into a winery tasting room. Page said the Raceway was approached by Foyt Family Wines, associated with racing great A.J. Foyt, but their involvement is at this point informal and unrelated to the use permit application. Foyt is presently located at Cornerstone Sonoma on Arnold Drive, five miles north of the Raceway.

Ding expressed concern over the increasingly popular Carneros region and other pending developments nearby, including a plan by a Chinese investor to turn a property formerly owned by Roche Wines into a quarter-million case winery and wine country visitors center.

The Wednesday, Feb. 25, meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room at the Sonoma Police Department, 177 First St. W. “We expect a big crowd – some to listen and some to air their concerns,” said Ding, a Sonoma-based tax consultant. “The meeting is absolutely open, it’s the best way to communicate with the applicants.”

Other revisions the Raceway is asking for include relaxed camping regulations – more sites, longer camp-overs – and less restrictive noise limits. Is a rock concert really louder than a NASCAR race? Apparently so: the Who logged 126 decibels in 1976, AC/DC cranked it up to 130 dB in the 1980s, and KISS claimed a 137db peak in 2009. The loudest it got at Sonoma Raceway in 2013 was 126.5, with an average of only 104.5 dB.

As it happens, this isn’t the first time the raceway at Sears Point has been suggested as the site for a major rock concert.

The Rolling Stones’ infamous 1969 free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore had at one point been planned for Sonoma Raceway, then called Sears Point Raceway. Sears Point didn’t quite work out for the concert due to booking conflicts, and Altamont was the ill-starred third choice.

The Altamont concert went down in the annals of rock history as a disorganized mess of 300,000 hippies and a “security guard” of Hells Angels, one of whom killed a confused attendee within sight of Mick Jagger. Altamont, renamed Altamont Raceway, never fully recovered from the bad press of the 1969 debacle. It closed for good in 2009.