Cooper to Alamance County After Weekend Race: Enforce Order or State Will

RALEIGH – This past weekend Ace Speedway in Alamance County held another race, with fans, in contravention of Governor Roy Cooper’s Phase 2 restrictions on crowd size limits. Instead of the 25 person limit, the speedway welcomed 2,000 or so. The sheriff has refused to cite the track owner, on account that the governor’s orders are legally suspect.

Well, Governor Roy Cooper isn’t too pleased that these stubborn subjects won’t obey his social distancing decree. He blasted local officials for not enforcing his mandate, and threatened to send state law enforcement agencies to suppress the rebellious racing fans if the locals won’t.

From the Durham Herald-Sun:

“Gov. Roy Cooper had strong words Monday for Alamance County officials who have not enforced the state’s mass-gathering order at Ace Speedway, a racetrack that has allowed thousands of spectators to sit close together and mostly unmasked in stands for three straight weekends.

The state is ready to take action if Alamance County officials don’t, Cooper said at a press briefing. […]

A reporter from a Gannett newspaper was at the racetrack and said at least 2,000 people were in the stands.

When asked about the race being held in the name of “protest,” Cooper warned that the state is ready to take action.

“People shouldn’t run a money-making operation that puts in danger not only their customers but people who come in contact with their customers,” Cooper said. “This is a reckless decision being made by the owners, pulling people together in that way that can cause spread of the virus.

“Alamance County is one of the counties that is having higher numbers than it should have, and we look forward to taking some action on this in the coming week,” he said. “It’s concerning that Alamance officials have not been able to stop this. We would hope that they could, but if they can’t then the state will have to take action — which we will do this week if the local officials don’t.” […]”

First, let’s temper the entire premise of large crowds being ‘reckless’ endangerment. Yesterday the WHO said asymptomatic spread only happens “very rarely,” according to their analysis of incoming data. As in, big crowds are of non-sick people are not really that risky, after all.

Second, let’s point out Roy Cooper’s gross hypocrisy. About a week ago, amid nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota that were supercharged with Radical Leftists’ agenda, Cooper walked straight out of his mansion, into a crowd, and marched while taking his face mask off for a photo-op to prove his wokeness and solidarity with Black Lives Matter. This was after he made excuses for the unprecedented riots in our state capital and several other cities, because the cause jived with his political agenda.

This week he is scolding and threatening Alamance County for allowing another race protest. What’s the difference? Well, the race is a ‘money-making operations,’ you see, and making money is not woke. If it ain’t woke; you have to nix it.

Cooper has now demonized people for needing/wanting to make money, as if that is a difference maker in terms of spread of the virus. He is quite obviously frustrated that Alamance County won’t bend their knee to King Cooper. The racetrack owner’s cute sign designating the event a ‘protest,’ not-so-passively pointing out the governor’s glaring hypocrisy, probably didn’t sit well with the authoritarian either.

So, after three weekends of BEING a First in Freedom kind of county, instead of merely seeming like it, the upcoming weekend will be a real test of wills. It will also put a couple things in plain sight for people, as the governor who eschews social distancing to joins marches with protesters for social justice, brings the power of the state down on regular folks that just want to enjoy a Carolina pastime as if they were free men and women.

All of it wrapped in the irony that such stock car racing was born of breaking the laws of overreaching government.

You can’t make this stuff up.