Motorsports company has had enough of city rigors

By Scott Sexton
Winston-Salem Journal

While various local dignitaries were arriving Thursday for the ground-breaking ceremony for a $2.4 million expansion at the Bethesda Center for the Homeless, Will Spencer was reviewing blueprints with builders.

Spencer, you see, is planning to move his company, JKS Motorsports Inc., and the Winston Cup Museum he opened to great fanfare in May 2005. The most likely landing spot is just over the Davidson County line off U.S. 52 in Welcome.

It's not as if he has a pathological problem with homeless men or the Bethesda Center.

If he did, Spencer surely would have moved his company from its home on North Liberty Street years ago. He wouldn't have invested hundreds of thousands in expanding JKS, nor would he have bothered with the Cup Museum.

But you can see how he might get worn down by men urinating on his property, having to clean up trash, replace broken windows and listen to employees (and visitors) talk about being panhandled aggressively.

"I have to make the hardest decision I'll ever have to make as far as what will be good for my business," Spencer said.

I pass by his business on my way to work... I don't care if a person is homeless or not, that doesn't give that person the right to urinate or brake windows on someone else's property. It's sad that a good business has to move because of this behavior.