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The Gazette
FOUNTAIN - Pikes Peak International Raceway has been sold to a Florida-based motorsports company, and the track will be shut down after the deal closes within a week.
PPIR President Rob Johnson said International Speedway Corp., which has helped PPIR with marketing, sponsorship and operations since 2002, agreed to buy the 8-year-old property Friday from Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., a Wall Street investment bank.
ISC plans to close the facility Nov. 1 and sell the 1,200-acre Fountain parcel, about 20 miles south of Colorado Springs. The land cannot be used for motorsports-related events after Nov. 1, ISC spokesman David Talley said. Area fans of oval track racing must travel about 585 miles to the nearest major track now, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
ISC owns or runs 11 tracks, including Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, and has close ties to NASCAR.
Financial terms were not released. The 42,787-seat track was built for $35 million. Lehman Bros. bought it for roughly $16.8 million in November 2001.
PPIR generates an economic impact of about $53.1 million annually, said local economist David Bamberger of David Bamberger & Associates. That figure could have doubled if PPIR had landed a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race, Bamberger wrote in a 2002 report.
The sale comes on the heels of the Indy Racing League’s decision to drop PPIR from its 2006 schedule. The past nine seasons, PPIR has hosted 10 IRL races, eight NASCAR Busch Series races and five NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races. American Motorcyclist Association Superbikes and USAC Silver Crown events also have been held at PPIR.
“Today is a loss for Colorado motorsports,” said Johnson, who will receive a severance package, along with PPIR’s 15 other full-time employees. “I didn’t think this would happen.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one surprised by ISC closing PPIR.
“It’s kind of surprising that they would take their only presence out of there,” said Jim Utter, who covers NASCAR for The Charlotte Observer and Knight Ridder’s ThatsRacin.com. “I think that caught a lot of people by surprise. They just don’t want to have any other competition there.”
Talley said ISC will allocate assets from the sale, including grandstand seating and furniture, toward expansion projects in Seattle and New York City. ISC is expected to ask NASCAR to move PPIR’s scheduled Busch Series race next year to ISC’s Martinsville Speedway, about 50 miles south of Roanoke, Va.
City Manager Greg Nyhoff said Fountain will lose about $60,000 annually in sales tax revenue without PPIR. He figures the loss would have been greater had Fountain not diversified its economic base in recent years due to more troops at nearby Fort Carson and the addition of a Lowe’s hardware store.
“This is a huge disappointment,” Nyhoff said. “We just have grown a very, very good relationship (with PPIR).”
Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak president Terry Sullivan said: “From a tourism perspective, this has been a good product, and we will miss it. We’ll have to scratch to find some options to replace it.”
Johnson said he doesn’t understand why ISC would close PPIR, considering the track has received national exposure through IRL and Busch Series races that were broadcast on network TV.
“I don’t have any idea why they bought it and closed it down,” Johnson said. “They bought the track, and they can do what they want.”
Johnson declined to disclose attendance figures from this year’s IRL and Busch Series races.
The July 23 Busch race was nearly sold out. There were pockets of empty seats at the Aug. 21 IRL race, despite Danica Patrick’s first appearance at PPIR.
“I took this job knowing it was going to be a challenge,” Johnson said. “I thought (PPIR) was a first-class facility. I thought it was a great opportunity for me, and I thought we could do a lot of neat things.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or
[email protected].
Sports editor David Sell, business editor Joan Zales
and reporter Dennis Huspeni contributed.
This is a bummer, was a pretty fast 1-mile track.
FOUNTAIN - Pikes Peak International Raceway has been sold to a Florida-based motorsports company, and the track will be shut down after the deal closes within a week.
PPIR President Rob Johnson said International Speedway Corp., which has helped PPIR with marketing, sponsorship and operations since 2002, agreed to buy the 8-year-old property Friday from Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., a Wall Street investment bank.
ISC plans to close the facility Nov. 1 and sell the 1,200-acre Fountain parcel, about 20 miles south of Colorado Springs. The land cannot be used for motorsports-related events after Nov. 1, ISC spokesman David Talley said. Area fans of oval track racing must travel about 585 miles to the nearest major track now, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
ISC owns or runs 11 tracks, including Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, and has close ties to NASCAR.
Financial terms were not released. The 42,787-seat track was built for $35 million. Lehman Bros. bought it for roughly $16.8 million in November 2001.
PPIR generates an economic impact of about $53.1 million annually, said local economist David Bamberger of David Bamberger & Associates. That figure could have doubled if PPIR had landed a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race, Bamberger wrote in a 2002 report.
The sale comes on the heels of the Indy Racing League’s decision to drop PPIR from its 2006 schedule. The past nine seasons, PPIR has hosted 10 IRL races, eight NASCAR Busch Series races and five NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races. American Motorcyclist Association Superbikes and USAC Silver Crown events also have been held at PPIR.
“Today is a loss for Colorado motorsports,” said Johnson, who will receive a severance package, along with PPIR’s 15 other full-time employees. “I didn’t think this would happen.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one surprised by ISC closing PPIR.
“It’s kind of surprising that they would take their only presence out of there,” said Jim Utter, who covers NASCAR for The Charlotte Observer and Knight Ridder’s ThatsRacin.com. “I think that caught a lot of people by surprise. They just don’t want to have any other competition there.”
Talley said ISC will allocate assets from the sale, including grandstand seating and furniture, toward expansion projects in Seattle and New York City. ISC is expected to ask NASCAR to move PPIR’s scheduled Busch Series race next year to ISC’s Martinsville Speedway, about 50 miles south of Roanoke, Va.
City Manager Greg Nyhoff said Fountain will lose about $60,000 annually in sales tax revenue without PPIR. He figures the loss would have been greater had Fountain not diversified its economic base in recent years due to more troops at nearby Fort Carson and the addition of a Lowe’s hardware store.
“This is a huge disappointment,” Nyhoff said. “We just have grown a very, very good relationship (with PPIR).”
Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak president Terry Sullivan said: “From a tourism perspective, this has been a good product, and we will miss it. We’ll have to scratch to find some options to replace it.”
Johnson said he doesn’t understand why ISC would close PPIR, considering the track has received national exposure through IRL and Busch Series races that were broadcast on network TV.
“I don’t have any idea why they bought it and closed it down,” Johnson said. “They bought the track, and they can do what they want.”
Johnson declined to disclose attendance figures from this year’s IRL and Busch Series races.
The July 23 Busch race was nearly sold out. There were pockets of empty seats at the Aug. 21 IRL race, despite Danica Patrick’s first appearance at PPIR.
“I took this job knowing it was going to be a challenge,” Johnson said. “I thought (PPIR) was a first-class facility. I thought it was a great opportunity for me, and I thought we could do a lot of neat things.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or
[email protected].
Sports editor David Sell, business editor Joan Zales
and reporter Dennis Huspeni contributed.
This is a bummer, was a pretty fast 1-mile track.
