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Date: 4/20/2021
SOUTHWICK – The Wick 338 owner Rick Johnson said during a Board of Health meeting April 15 that he does not expect any major annual events to take place at the motocross track for at least the rest of 2021 due to COVID-19.
Johnson spoke to the Board of Health after Health Director Tammy Spencer had received complaints about a J-Day event the weekend before where people were seen not wearing masks or social distancing. Johnson said that there were 2,200 riders and crew at the event, the largest number of races they have ever had.
He said he and his staff tried to get attendees to comply with masking and social distancing rules, but that there were simply too many people for them to widely enforce it.
“We were surprised. We did not go in unprepared,” said Johnson.
Spencer proposed that events like J-Day and the upcoming Southwick National at The Wick 338 should not happen while there is still an active mask mandate. After having gone through the J-Day event the week before, Johnson agreed.
“Unless the rules change, the National is not going to happen and the Rugged Maniac is not going to happen,” said Johnson.
The next J-Day is scheduled for Oct. 31. The Southwick National was scheduled for June 26. Now neither are likely to happen unless mask mandates are able to be lifted. Johnson had not yet informed The Southwick National group that he was pulling out of the June 26 event, but he already considers it cancelled.
He said during the meeting that if nothing changes in the following 10 days, there would not be a National.
“Normally the prep for this event takes place last October,” said Johnson, “I could not go much more than 10 days from now and still be prepared to do the National properly.”
Johnson said that The Wick 338 has an event about every week, but they are usually far smaller than the recent J-Day motocross event. Spencer said that she had not heard any complaints about large numbers of people ignoring COVID-19 guidelines for any of the smaller events. The last complaints Spencer had heard about an event at The Wick 338 was the most recent J-Day in 2020.