Roar of Speedway Ruffles Neighbors

AUG. 10, 1987

For Greg Richardson and other auto-racing fans, there is no sweeter sound on a warm summer night than the ear-splitting roar of engines at the speedway here.

For Ruth Reifel and other residents near the track, the raceway's sound of summer has struck a singularly sour note.

''The noise is so loud that when you have company over, you have to close your windows just to hear them talk,'' said Mrs. Reifel, a 60-year-old widow who moved from Deer Park a year ago to Glenwood Village, a retirement community a half mile from the raceway.

''That's ridiculous - it doesn't bother me,'' said Mr. Richardson, 31, an auto dealer service agent, who lives within earshot of the track four miles away. ''Besides the raceway was here before they were.''

A dispute over decibels has erupted in this usually quiet, largely rural community. The speedway, on the outskirts of the Village of Riverhead and a local landmark since it opened in 1949, is one of the last auto-racing tracks on Long Island. Over the years there have been 28.

The controversy over noise, which has been simmering for the last two years, is another sign of how growth is changing the character of eastern Long Island. As with airports, raceways have increasingly locked horns with residential communities that have developed land near once isolated areas.

Three years ago, after buyers of new homes complained, the town of Southampton stiffened a noise ordinance governing a drag-racing strip in Westhampton and a three-mile course in Bridgehampton. Both are still used.

Noise complaints contributed, however, to the closing of the Islip raceway in 1984.

In Riverhead every Saturday night from May to September - and on occasional Wednesdays and Sundays - 5,000 to 6,000 spectators from all over Long Island flock to the speedway to watch as many as 25 supermodified, supercharged custom stock cars chase one another around the banked, quarter-mile oval track.

The races run from 15 to 200 laps, and cars reach speeds around 100 miles an hour on straightaways.

No rules govern the raceway now, but the town, which has been involved in a two-year feud with the raceway owners over building permits, is considering limiting racing to 26 nights a year between May and September.

Warm-ups would start by 4 P.M., and the last race could not start after 10:45 P.M. Violators would be subject to a $500 fine. A noise ordinance with decibel limits, modeled after Southampton's, is also in the works.

''The noise levels have increased dramatically over the years, and we're just trying to formalize what's been an informal agreement,'' said Joseph Janoski, Riverhead's Superviser, who said the town board would likely approve the regulations at its meeting on Aug. 18.

''It would take away our rights to use our place of business,'' said Barbara Cromarty, who has operated the track with her husband, Jim, since 1983.

''We're just a small business trying to exist,'' said Mrs. Cromarty, who also runs a public-relations concern in Copiague with her husband. Differences Aired at Hearing

Many of Glenwood Village's 1,100 residents, who have spearheaded the drive to muffle the noise, say some races continue until nearly midnight. Glenwood Village, a mobile home park, opened in 1965.

''We don't want to close down the track; we just want to close down the noise,'' Bernard Hahn, an 82-year-old retired sheet-metal worker said at a packed public hearing last Tuesday night in the Town Board room. More than 200 people attended.

Racing fans contended that the track was normally used only one night a week and that races rarely lasted past 11 o'clock.

''Maybe you guys should turn down your hearing aids,'' a young woman, Ingrid Goodale of Riverhead, retorted, causing a momentary uproar at the hearing.

Many fans also testified that stock-car racing had cleaned up its roughneck, leather-jacket image and was now a fun Saturday night for children and the rest of the family.

''I went to the track with my parents in the '60's, with carloads of my friends in the '70's, and now with my children on Saturday nights,'' said Mark Tooker, 31, who operates a marina here.

Neighbors have suggested that the race track build a sound barrier and require racers to install mufflers on their cars. But the Cromartys say that a stand of trees between the track and the retirement community is barrier enough and that many drivers already equip their cars with mufflers.

Underlying the noise issue is a long-running dispute between the Cromartys and the town, which has accused the track of illegally building a new press box and adding bleachers.

Mr. Janoski said that two years ago the Cromartys failed to obtain one permit to tear down an existing press box and another to erect a new one. He said the race track had ignored three town warnings to halt construction on the wooden structure, which, he said, violated the state fire code.

''We were told we wouldn't have a problem to replace the press box, then they hit us with all sorts of forms and procedures,'' Mrs. Cromarty said. Court Orders Demolition

The issue eventually landed in State Supreme Court here, where a judge last spring ordered the track owners to demolish the 20-foot-high press box that cost $25,000 to build. The raceway has since requested and been granted permits to rebuild the tower.

''We think this noise issue is a vendetta,'' said Mrs. Cromarty, who with her husband ran the Suffolk County Fair for 25 years.

Mr. Cromarty said, ''We're running a raceway, not a church.''

Mr. Janoski, who said he has met with the Cromartys to resolve the issue, contended: ''It's not a conspiracy - they're the makers of their own problems. We just want them to be good neighbors.''