Vrrroom!

Dorit Ward GRAND PRIX — John Donahur, In racing car. and Fred Mumrnthalcr arc owners of Eastern Grand Prix which is scheduled to open in Burleigh next month.

Firm Seeks Racing Site By Joe Zelnlk WOODBINE — A newly-formed corporation wants to build a $1.7-million sports car facing facility called Woodbine Motorsport Park at the Woodbine Airport. Avalon public relations man John T. LaBounty. president of the month-old Cape Motorsports Promotions Inc., took his proposal to last week's meeting of the Woodbine Port Authority, which operates the private airport. The corporation offered the authority $20,000 a year to lease 190-225 of its 748 acres. It would build a 2-mile track for major racing events, one large building and eight smaller ones. RACES WOULD BE HELD every weekend between April 15 and Oct. 15 and attract 26,000 spectators a weekend. LaBounty said. The company also envisions activities to keep Motorsport in use yearround. The facility would be responsible for pumping i£>me $11 million a year into the county, he said. LaBounty said the payroll would start with 6 full-time and 36 part-time employes making about $125,000, and grow to “close to $300,000 a year." Authority chairman Gail Kessler said its engineers and attorneys will examine the proposal in terms of "how it would affect the environment and what it would do for the county.” An immediate problem, she said, was the authority's plan to add another runway to the one now in use at the 40-year-old airport. "IT’S WORTH studying," said authority attorney James Waldron of Rubins and Waldron of Wildwood. "Based on the fadts

presented, the authority approved the plan in principal, subject to an investigation by the technical staff. "This is very, very, very preliminary." said Waldron. "There has to be an evaluation of the impact on airport development and we think it has to be reviewed by the FAA.” He said an assessment of engineering and "the economic impact” would precede "how best to put the package together." Waldron called discussion of financing the project "premature at this point." La BOUNTY SAID he has $1 million in in-

vestor capital "all lined up. available and ready once we get final approval from the authority." He said there are about 15 in vestors in the limited partnership, half professional people from Cape May County, the others from outside the county. He declined to name any. \ He was accompanied to last week’s authority meeting by Douglas Heun of Cape May Court House, his accountant, and Ernest Yarborough of Avalon whom he described as an "investor-partrier " Yarborough is president of Cape In(Page 6 Please)

Grand Prix Opens Soon By Bob Whiles BURLEIGH — Local racing enthusiasts will have a chance to prove their driving skills when Eastern Grand Prix opens its half-mile circuit track on Indian Trail Road next month. Track owners John Donahue of North Wildwood and Fred Mumenthaler of Wildwood Crest last week tested the first of their specially made miniature Formula I cars — machines that cost $15,000 each "They're no toy." said Donahue, who builds the cars himself "They can move, reaching 85 mph on a straight run and 40 /nph on the curved track " APPROXIMATELY 11 foot from front to back, the one-passenger, miniature Formula I weighs about 800 pounds It has a fiberglass body and is powered by a Kawasaki 440 engine. Donahue said there will be 10 cars in oq^ftition when the track opens By July there should be 20, he said Drivers race the clock, not each other, on a track a little wider than one car Only seven cars can be on the track at any one time, and they are started electronically at intervals so they can never overtake each other. "This is a driver's track," said Donahue. "H'sjnAre skill than speed . You have to know Wnen to turn and when to get on and off the gas." % i ONLY LICENSED drivers w/ll Ik? permitted to operate the cars which are considered safe as long as handled properly Drivers will be required to wear helmets and seat belts. In order to use the track, a person must purchase an annual Grand Prix driver’s license for $2 50. He will have to present this license each time as well as pay $1.50 to $1.75 for every lap he intends to drive. A prize will be awarded each month to the driver who records the best time. At the end of the year, monthly winners will be eligible for a grand prize "The best time at Malibu Grand Prix in Mt. laurel has been 47 seconds." Donahue said. He added that the best time he's been able to make on his track is 75 seconds. (Page 6 Please) News— Digest Stones

Capital Improvements Leap

Budget Up 7.5%

County Cap" May County’s proposed 1983 budget is up 7.5 percent over last year, the maximum permitted under a new state "CAP" law which previously limited increases to 5 percent. Thanks to a 14.4 percent boost in county ratables, however, the county tax increase is .9 cents per one hundred dollars of assessed value, going from an equalized rate of 40.2 cents in 1982 to 41.1 cents this year. That’s a 2.2 per cent increase. For a home owner with property assessed at $100,000, for example, the 1983 county tax will mean a $9 increase, from $402 to

$411.

THE FIGURES will vary depending upon the ratio of assessed value to true value in each of the county's 16 municipalities, as determined by the county Board of Taxation. The budget was presented last night by Freeholder William E. Sturm, Jr, director of revenue, finance and public works. He called it “a sound, conservative budget

Six thousand Cape May County families may be indirect victims of the nationwide independent truckers' strike. That’s how many families are believed eligible for federal surplus free butter. Butter distribution scheduled last week has been "indefinitely postponed" because of the strike, according to Marvin Morrell, supervisor of the county Welfare Board. The butter will be rescheduled "only if the strike is over in the next week or so, giving us time to get the butter by midMarch," Morrell said.

which will provide for the delivery of ser vices to the public for 1983. " Freeholders will hold a public hearing on the budget March 8 with final adoption likely that night, Sturm said. The proposed budget is up $2.3 million, from $30.7 million to a record $33 million LOCAL PROPERTY TAXES will ac count for $23.4 million of the amount com pared to $20 million last year, a 17 percent increase. Sturm said that reflects less state and federal aid. The remaining $9.7 million will come from state and federal aid, fees from constitutional offices, and a $3 million surplus, which is $320,000 more than last year County ratables climbed 14 4 percent from almost $5 billion to almost $57 billion, primarily reflecting reevaluations Sturm said all department head requests for additional employes were denied, although some will be reconsidered in the second half of the year. FOUR MAJOR categories have 1983 increases totaling more than $2.6 million:

STATE-FEDERAL procedures to order the butter take 30 days, Morrell said, and New Jersey has indicated it "doesn’t want to handle butter in late March; it's too warm." The butter comes frozen, he said, and can't be refrozen. Morrell said he could locate adequate freezer space to store the butter despite the warm weather, but "the state won't do for Cape May what it can't do for the entire state."

debt service, up $767,538 to $2.8 million; education, up $733,645 to almost $3 million; general government, up $621,580 to $5 3 million; and capital improvements, up $510,689 to $1.6 million. Sturm said the 38 percent debt service increase resulted from "two additional bond issues that came on line." One is $4 1 million used to build a special services school at Crest Haven; the other is $3.9 million for improving ppads. bridges, county buildings, etc. The 33 percent increase in funds for education primarily represents cost of operating the new special services school, additional aid to the vocational-technical school, and increasing tuition cost the county pays for its students who at Iwo-year community colleges, Sturm STURM SAID the latter is due to the fact that "with the tight economy, more students who might have gone to Temple or someplace are attending two-year colleges.” The 47.4 percent increase in fonds for capital improvements is spread among about 20 departments, but $1 million of the $1.6 million total goes to four: $350,000 to the Mosquito Commission to purchase two helicopters. • $250,000 to Buildings and Grounds for a number of items including a new roof at the Crest Haven nursing home • $190,000 to the Road Department which will be buying two dump trucks, a bulldozer, a tractor, a roller, a utility vehicle and four mobile radios $210,000 for a new roof at the county votech building, which. Sturm said, "lealyj like a sieve." The Capital Improvements budget also includes a $200,000 capital improvement fund for contingencies.

Free Butter Prospects Melt

More Parking CAPE MAY — City Counci I'proposed construction of a 300-car municipal parkirig lot on 2.5 acres of Cape May Elementary School property _GoaI is to relieve sumnier traffic congestion along the beachfront City and school would share parking revenue. Zzzzzzzzzz '

TUCKAHOE — A civil service hearing was postponed to Igterjhis month after attorneys for the Cape May County's Sheriffs Deportment and former sheriff's officer Ix?e Rogers of Villas failed to settle their dispute. Rogers was fired in June for sleeping while on duty at the county jail May 28 Rogers, who wants her job and thousands of dollars in back pay, said she was treated unfairly because many officers sleep on the late shifts at the jail. Profitable Ride? t OCEAN CITY - Richard Adelizzi of Wildwood has proposed he take over the city’s jitney service, which cost it about $100,000 last year. Adelizzi, who operates a similar service in Wildwood, said he would increase rates and might include advertising on the trolleys to make it a profitable operation.

Asleep in the Pines? SWAINTON - The Municipal Utilities Authority charged a lackadaisical state Pinelands Commission is delaying approval of the MUA’s proposed county landfill in Woodbine-Upper Township The MUA, which gave the commission its final design last summer, wants to start construction by early spring because its other landfills have been ordered closed by June 30. (Page 22 Please)