Montgomery Motor Speedway is packed with Hyundai cars after being leased to a local dealership for storage. Credit: Courtesy

Alabama short track now a Hyundai parking lot

Promised season canceled due to controversial business decision

USAR Hooters Pro Cup driver Bill Manfull was standing on pit road during pre-race festivities at Montgomery Motor Speedway last April when he felt a tap on the shoulder. Presuming autograph-seeking fans wanted his John Hancock, he turned jovially to greet them.

	The grandstands at MMS stare at a track full of new cars. Credit: Courtesy
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He was correct. They indeed sought a signature. But not because they appreciated his driving talent or personality. The tap came courtesy of MMS Pure Stock driver Jason Mayhan and his wife, and they wanted Manfull to sign off on a full season.

Manfull, you see, doesn't just drive. He also owns Montgomery Motor Speedway, and rumors were filtering throughout the Southeast that a track-closing was imminent.

"He looked like he'd seen a ghost," Mayhan said.

It seems a justifiable reaction. Mayhan, a racing collectibles dealer and racing parts distributor, first got wind of the rumor while in Daytona for Speedweeks. While participating in a promoter's conference, he was continually asked why he would order parts if his track was for sale.

Concerned, he and his fellow racers started digging. According to Mayhan, track officials -- namely general manager Richard Pruitt -- vehemently denied the speculation.

The first event of the season went off as planned. Mayhan estimates 5,000 fans showed up for the Hooters Pro Cup race -- in 34-degree temperatures. That proved to Manfull and Pruitt that if they put on the right show, the community would support it.

Racers were told to prepare for an April 15 season opener, and began refurbishing older cars or building brand new ones. Thousands of dollars were spent in anticipation of a 10-race summer. A schedule was printed.

April 15 came and went. Racers were given a new start date of May 10. But Mayhan received a call from Pruitt on May 7 with news that the track was closed. There would be no season.

According to Mayhan, Pruitt told him to spread the word, that he'd run budget numbers for the season's payouts and Manfull kept sending them back. Then Pruitt revealed the crushing news why: Manfull had leased the venue to a third-party logistics company -- some say it was the California-based trucking firm Waggoners -- to store inventory from a nearby Hyundai manufacturing plant.

Although MMS doesn't fall under the NASCAR umbrella, Jim Hunter said short track owners can close the doors any time they want. Credit: NASCAR

"If you have $1.7 million tied up in the track you can do anything you want," Pruitt said. "That's what Mr. Manfull's doing. He owns the track. He doesn't have to answer to anybody."

Though MMS isn't a NASCAR-sanctioned track, NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter said all short track owners have the right to shut down any time they please.

The racers are incensed, and feel Manfull owes them an explanation. They say he won't return phone calls.

Manfull doesn't feel he owes anyone anything. He estimates losing at least $500,000 in 2005 alone.

"I think I went above and beyond in every direction, in every way," Manfull said. "I put up over a half-million dollars. It didn't come back to me."

Pruitt said the drivers were never told there would be a full season.

"They were not told they were going to have a full season," Pruitt said. "There was only five or six races scheduled, and they weren't even going to be able to race then.

"One of those races was a Hooters race and three others were the Georgia Asphalt Series. They knew it was a limited schedule. Don't believe but about half of what you see, and none of what you hear from anybody that races that track."

Family ties

Manfull purchased the racetrack midway through 2004 as an investment for his 15-year old son. According to MMS Pure Stock driver Marty Bean, a track veteran, Manfull is the fifth different owner during his nine-year tenure.

The previous owners were a group of businessmen out of Louisiana. They brought in Larry Kemp, who now runs Eldora Speedway for Tony Stewart, to oversee day-to-day operations. The track was prospering under Kemp's direction.

"He did a helluva job -- Mr. Larry Kemp is the man," Mayhan said. "When he left to work for Smoke it was like letting air out of a balloon down here. We knew we were going under quick -- and we did."

The owners didn't give Kemp the resources required to make the track truly thrive. Unaware so much went into track operation, they grew tired of the hassle and opted to sell. Up it went on the auction block. In stepped Bill Manfull.

According to Chris Holmes, the track announcer and a reporter for the local NBC affiliate in Montgomery that initially broke this story, Manfull got a steal. He bought the track for $500,000 and its assessed value is five times that, Holmes said.

Manfull also purchased significant acreage surrounding the track, which Bean says ran him $67,000 for seven acres of land.

Bean, whose restaurant was also the track's catering service, said he sat in on many meetings in which Manfull discussed plans for the venue.

"Bill Manfull told us he was buying the track as an investment, that his son wasn't the brightest thing in the world and if he finished school it would be a miracle," Bean said. "This guy is a real ego monster. He loves to talk about himself a lot, about all the money he's got."

Manfull admits the plan was to eventually give the venue to his son and let him run it, but after losing an estimated $500,000 in just 18 months, he could no longer justify keeping it open.

"I'd be better off cutting him a check when he's 18 years old," Manfull said.

Instead, he chose to recoup some of the investment, triggering a he said/she said saga that continues to this day. Manfull claims no responsibility for misleading the racers. He puts that on Pruitt, who according to Holmes was fired once the story broke.

"I haven't run the track. I just own it," Manfull said. "I ran one race, the Hooters Pro Cup race. I told them that I didn't have any idea what was going on there because I didn't run the place.

"[Pruitt] brought me a company that was willing to pay me to lease the track for storage, and I said, 'Well, it makes sense to do that.' I lost a lot of money last year trying to put some races on. So we leased it out."

Broken promises

On the surface, it's more than slightly perplexing how a man could lose $500,000 in one summer. Manfull cites a multitude of reasons.

"It's because of the purses, the cost of insurance," he said. "We had to make a bunch of improvements, put more fences up and cable up and all that stuff to meet the insurance requirements. The purses and cost for operating insurance for every race, it's just not cost-effective.

"If I was an owner/operator it would make sense. But being an absentee owner it makes no sense. It didn't make sense for the last people that owned it, doesn't make sense for me."

So why buy it in the first place?

"I thought it'd be a profitable business move, but it just wasn't," he continued. "It didn't pan out. Everybody said if you put up some good purses we'll get the cars. We'll fill the stands. That didn't happen. People aren't going to pay what it costs to cover the insurance, and drivers don't want to race for nothing."

The racers have no sympathy. They say they warned Manfull that his financial aggression would come back to bite him.

"He come in here, made some purses that were just outrageous. He made purses that would make anybody go broke," Bean said. "I run Pure Stock out there just because it's affordable.

"This past year I won nine out of 13 races and made over $10,000 just in prize money -- in the lowest division. It was ridiculous. I told them they were paying way too much, but that's what [Manfull] said he wanted to do."

Super Late Models paid $5,000 to win on a regular basis. Car counts increased. Manfull went out and bought a fleet of school buses -- Bean estimates 12 -- and Kerry Earnhardt was brought in for a novelty race. The crowd went wild.

The following weekend the track brought in the Alabama Gang. Again, the stands were packed. He even put up $10,000 to win an Enduro race.

Suddenly, Bean said, the promotion slowed down, nearly stopped.

There were newspaper blurbs and sporadic radio and television mentions, but no more special events. Bean said the school buses never ran again. (The track Web site currently offers buses for sale.)

The large purses continued, however, and Bean said Manfull promised the biggest points fund in track history. No points fund was ever paid.

"The purses were great, so nobody could complain, but that's what he told us so that's what we expected," Bean said. "He paid no points fund money out. They gave a pitiful little trophy to all the division champions -- I mean it was just laughable.

"You know local racers. We race for the plastic. Bragging rights is what we do. Money is no factor, but with those purses it was a factor. That's the way they ended the season not paying any points money. That left drivers upset."

And according to Mayhan, the reason there was no points fund is because Manfull needed the money to pay off another shoddy promise. Throughout the 2005 season, MMS ran ads in various stock car publications that the Super Late Model track champion would win a five-race deal in the Hooters Pro Cup Series.

Young Josh Hamner of Chelsea, Ala., won the division, but instead of a Hooters Pro Cup deal he got a fat payday.

"He paid them $50,000 to forget about it, and the other divisions got nothing," Mayhan said. "So out of his championship he got paid. No one else got a thing. If he could pay out a championship deal for Hamner then why couldn't he do it for us?"

Manfull said it wasn't hush-money at all, that Hamner, son of engine-building icon Jeff Hamner, chose the money over the ride.

"I gave him the option to show up and we'd have a car ready for him. I gave him the option that we would give him a car, fresh motor, race-ready. Or I gave him the option of $50,000," Manfull said.

"They decided to take the $50,000 and stay in Late Models. I transferred them $50,000 and they're Late Model racing. His dad said he wasn't really ready to go to Hooters Pro Cup yet, and wanted to keep him in Late Models.

"I've got five Pro Cup cars. We were ready to give him a car, turn-key, ready to race. We'd have a pit crew there. They took the money. They thanked me for what I did for them."

Hope lost

Regardless where fault lies, the racers are the real losers.

Bean, Mayhan and many more like them spent tens of thousands of dollars preparing cars for the 2006 season. Now they're relegated to driving more than 100 miles to Birmingham, the closest track to Montgomery. Bean estimates 60 racers share his predicament.

"Those that aren't racing probably spent anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 apiece to get them ready to go," Bean said. "Those that are having to go to the other tracks, we're spending a minimum of $350 to go to another track.

"That's two tires, fuel there and back, racing fuel and entry fees. And that's the lowest division. You got a guy paying $250, $300 to win, so you go down there knowing you're 50 bucks in the hole, minimum, even if you win the race."

Bean has been forced to repay some local sponsors for their investment -- money he'd already spent.

Then there are those like Mayhan. His wife is pregnant. He can't afford to drive 100 miles to race. So that brand new racecar he built is reduced to a show car, and he can't get an explanation.

	Even the parking lot at MMS serves as storage for the car dealership. Credit: Courtesy
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He's out $10,000. Bean is out 13 grand, the cost of two brand new engines.

"At personal contact with Bill Manfull, he assures us four weeks prior to this deal going down that there would be at least six races at that speedway," Bean said. "Maximum nine, but a minimum of six. Four weeks later we get word he's leased the track out from under us."

Manfull said no such guarantee was ever made, at least not by him.

Ultimately, though, doesn't responsibility rest on the owner?

"No. I told them it wasn't up to me and I didn't operate it," Manfull said. "I race. I don't operate it. All I was doing was flipping the bill there."

That's of little solace to the racers.

"It's my understanding he paid a guy like $90,000 just to cut the grass," Bean said. "I don't have a problem with him leasing the track to recoup some money he's lost or what have you, but four weeks prior, promising the drivers here, the guarantee he made us, then to turn around ... he just flat lied to us.

"This is a guy who's a racer himself, and just flat out lied. You can quote me on that. He can't deny that. It hurt us."

Manfull put the onus back on the driving corps, saying they, too, failed to live up to promises made.

"There was drivers there I talked to, and they were already talking about going to other tracks," Manfull said. "We didn't even know if we were going to have any drivers there.

"The drivers promised us a lot of things and they didn't perform. Sometimes we had six cars in a class. It was a combination of things. The drivers promised us if we put a big purse in there they'd get a bunch of cars to come and stuff like that. It didn't happen."

Manfull points to the aforementioned Enduro race as evidence.

"I put up $10,000 for an Enduro race -- that's the biggest purse ever paid in an Enduro race," he said. "Forty-two cars showed up. They said there'd be 200 cars there. All these people promised they'd come and they just didn't.

"I put the money up for the races and we just didn't get the support. We didn't get the support from the fans and didn't get the support from the drivers. It just didn't make sense.

"I was very disappointed in the turnout, and the whole investment. If you ask me if I'd do it again, no, I wouldn't. I bought that track, put a ton of money in it. I was told if you put money up there'd be drivers that would show up, fans. We did everything we could possibly do to make something happen there, and it just didn't happen."

What's next?

The drivers made it clear they won't support the track as long as Manfull is the owner.

"I wouldn't go back. Not with him," Bean said. "If somebody else were to come in here it wouldn't be a problem. I think everybody's through with him. The track's dead if he owns it.

"He's lied to everyone so much, if he were to open the track back up we wouldn't support it. I'll speak for the other drivers. We wouldn't support it. He's a racer. That's what we were sold out by. That's what's so disgusting."

Manfull would welcome a buyer with open arms.

TRACK WEB SITE •   Montgomery Speedway

"If somebody wants to buy it I'd sure sell it," Manfull said. "I'm an absentee owner. It didn't make sense for me. It needs an owner/operator and I'm not an owner/operator. I still race in Hooters Pro Cup and do some other racing.

"I've had several people talk to me about taking the track and running it, but nobody came to the plate. Four or five people told me they'd lease the track and [run] it."

Until then, at least for the foreseeable future, the track will sit idle, packed wall-to-wall with Accents, Elantras, Sonantas and Santa Fes. Bean and Mayhan both say they've heard it's a one-year deal.

Pruitt, still the operations manager on track grounds, said he doesn't know the length or sum of the lease agreement, and that Manfull had to sign a disclosure agreement to ensure he didn't release that information.

"I can't answer that question," Pruitt said when asked the specifics of the deal. "The track's closed and that's it. If you need a statement it's on the front page of the Web site. It's closed. The end."

That statement reads:

As of Monday, April 17th, 2006, the Montgomery Motor Speedway will be officially closed for the season. All races remaining on the 2006 schedule have been canceled. The track is being leased for industrial (i.e., non-race related) purposes. (Please note that this also means that the track will no longer be rented for racing purposes.)

MMS would like to thank our fans, drivers and sponsors for supporting the track over the last year. And best wishes to all of you in the 2006 season and beyond.

"It's a first-class facility," Bean said. "VIP boxes. Musco Lighting. Everything. It's probably the best short track in the South. It's a parking lot now."