The 1964 Corvette, built from the ground up with a pile of tubes and body parts, hasn’t entered any races lately.

It’s been two years of drag racing drought. The car ran its last race in 2005, the final weekend at a track in Scribner, said owner Jeff Atkinson, who counts himself among the supporters of a drag strip in Lancaster County.

Motor sports enthusiast Greg Sanford, who once operated the Scribner track, hopes to build a quarter-mile strip east of U.S. 77 between Branched Oak and Davey roads.

Instead of racing, these days Atkinson said he’d rather devote his time to drumming up support for Sanford’s plans and touting the ways Lincoln and Lancaster County stand to gain.

Not everyone who lives in the area is opposed to the plans, said Atkinson, who lives about two and a half miles west of the proposed site.

There is demand for motor sports in Lancaster County, said Atkinson, pointing to the packed crowds that turn out every year at the “figure 8” races and demolition derby at the county fair.

“The only thing I’m looking for is a family-oriented type of sport,” said Atkinson, who has been drag racing since the late 1980s.

And drag racing certainly could give a boost to the local economy, he said, alluding to a study released earlier this year by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Business Research. The study, commissioned by Sanford, estimated the races could bring an extra $10 million annually in local spending.

But optimism has waned in the last week after the Lancaster County Board implemented motor sports regulations that, Atkinson said he believes, are very unfavorable to not just Sanford’s plan, but any others that could come along.

The regulations impose restrictions on operating hours and noise, and limit areas in the county in which motor sports are allowed. The restrictions also allow the County Board the option to impose additional conditions or amend any of the conditions in the interest of public safety and health.

The board was right to impose some restrictions, though they didn’t need to be quite so strict, said Paul Steyer, another supporter who said he has lived in the Davey area nearly his entire life. Today, home is about three miles north of the proposed site.

“If they really wanted racing in Lancaster County, they would have proposed better guidelines,” Steyer said.

Like Atkinson, Steyer said he agrees on the economic and recreational benefits a drag strip could bring, but he also sees a chance to boost safety. As a kid, he said he used to race on streets because there was no place else to go. A drag strip site will give teens a place to go, somewhere that’s safe and legal, he said.

As for Tuesday, he’s unsure what exactly might happen.

Atkinson, meanwhile, plans to focus his testimony on helping county officials understand what he believes they stand to lose if they vote down Sanford’s plans.

Frustration as well has mounted for Sanford, who said he is upset he didn’t know then what he knows now.

Among the restrictions he’s most uneasy with is the prohibition of a motor sports project within a half mile of cemeteries and a handful of other identified land uses. The Danish Cemetery sits on the western edge of U.S. 77, across the road from Sanford’s land, well within that half-mile prohibited zone.

He never would have bought the land had that rule been in place back then, he said.

He’s unsure if the issue will make it to Tuesday’s hearing, or if it in fact died with the board’s vote on the new regulations.

“We’ve got our answer, I feel,” he said.

Reach Jean Ortiz at 473-7107 or jortiz@journalstar.com.