June 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Matt Tifft joins the show and discusses a new future for Mansfield Motor Speedway. Clint and Jacob have come full circle, considering this podcast was originally started to promote this track.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hello Bray fans, Welcome back to the Ohio Dirt Track
Podcast again. We've lost track of what number this is.
I have like one fifty something, I'm not even sure.
But my name is Clint Knight. I'm Jacob Lord, and
we are very excited to be on the phone today
with the man in the news this week, mister Matt Tiff.
We appreciate you coming on and talking to us.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Absolutely. Yeah, happy to be here. And yeah, I don't know,
I guess just a small news worthy item here, so
just a little undertaking, but no, thanks for thanks for
doing this with me.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, this is I'm a scared to talk to you.
I know we've already talked a little bit because of
nature of my other work, but I wanted to tell you.
I don't know if we told you this earlier, but
Jacob and I originally started the whole purpose of this
podcast was to promote Manfield Motor Speedway when it went
back and we thought this was gonna be like a
(01:21):
five episode thing, and we are seven years later still
doing this thing. So very excited to be talking about
Mansfield Motor Speedway again today and what the future holds. Obviously,
you've been very busy the last couple of days rolling
out some stuff. I know you were. You were racing
(01:41):
last night, rolling out social media stuff yesterday and this morning.
So give us, just give us the quick what's happening.
Where are we at right now with Mansfield Motor Speedway.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'll start with the ugly you mentioned. I was
racing last night. We sent a second are heat racing
them got wrecked to my three. So it's always a
little bit easier when you're talking about positive things for
going forward past that. But no, I think that's that's
the cool thing with this right is you know, having
such a storied venue and you know, a place that
(02:15):
in the two thousands was really a hotbed for NASCAR racing,
had plans for being a quarter mile drag strip in there,
and obviously as time went on, you know, the two
thousand and eight recession, economic card times hit and closed
down the track and came back again as an asphalt track,
and then shut down again. And when Cody Summers took
it over in twenty seventeen, you know, converted it to
(02:37):
dirt there. So I think the the biggest thing for
us now in the year of twenty twenty five is
the We'll start with the racetrack condition. It's terrible, just
you know, no holding back there. It's awful. But the
good thing is the infrastructure is still all there. And
(02:58):
why I say it's terrible is because the track itself
probably would have been okay, but there was a prospective
buyer that was coming in to purchase the property to
turn it into an industrial park. I mean, it was
mentioned many years ago in a news article that the
man Field steed what was done being a racetrack, and
that was true. There was somebody coming into completely convert
(03:19):
it into an industrial park and that deal fell through.
But while it was falling through, took a bulldozer in
some excavating equipment and basically knocked down turns three and four,
the walls out there and the inner pit walls there,
and you know, a bunch of the conduits and everything
in there. So that was a big loss for the
(03:40):
drainage systems, you know, just the rubble that's been left
around the track. At the same time, you know, with
there being no plans for race that coming back, the
safer barriers were sold to a racetrack. I think it
is Nelson Ledges. The catch fence was sold off, the
light poles were sold off of there, and then the
mill Irons did donate you know, half the grand stands
(04:00):
there to Shelby High School, which is pretty cool. So
you know where it stands today, we have about twenty
four hundred permanent seats left. Quite frankly, the sides of
the Grand Sands right now is just a pirate ship
walk off the plank there. So we've got to get
(04:21):
some some safety things off there. And number one, of course,
this is all about safety, but I'm gonna be selfish here.
Number one, I'm afraid of heights, So I have to
walk up the middle of the Grand Sands right now
because I'm afraid that, you know, Augusta Winn. Listen, I'm
two hundred pounds and six or two, but I'm still
worried about Augusta Winn coming knocking me off my grand
stands right now. So first and foremost, I went most
(04:42):
things to be sealed up for a wall. I'm walking
the property, but no, I mean seriously there. We will
get that buttoned up. But we do have fantastic Grand
Sands and stuff that are in place, the restrooms there,
the concessions for people who been to the Mansilet's see
way before. I mean, everything there is top notch, but
obviously as time goes on, you get roof leeks, you
get damaged things like that. So the easiest thing to
(05:04):
compare it to would be, you know, locally here in
Ohio is looking back probably you know, five ten years
ago at Joga Lake when they shut down the water
park of something that was seemingly just open. And yet
you know, you have bottles laying around, you have ceiling
tiles falling in, you have overgrowth things like that. I mean,
it's only been five years since the last right or
(05:25):
six years since the last race, but at the same time,
it feels like an eternity walking through some parts of
the property. So you know, there's gonna be about a
year's worth of just rehab around there, and it's you know,
we're gonna be very open and transparent about the finances
and costs for this thing, because you know, as we
bring this back as a community piece, we want to
tell people, you know, really what we're putting into this.
(05:46):
So you know, outside the purchase for the track, there's
probably gonna be about two million to two point five
million dollars worth of work just to get it back
to what it was. And obviously some of that's gonna
be upgrading how little bit like we're gonna have you know,
led lights and things like that for the parking lot
and the racetrack and just things that bring it into
you know, truly the quarter of the twenty first century here.
(06:08):
But the racetrack itself is, you know, it was a
fantastic track. We do know for the dirt racing there,
it was a little fast, being such a big half mile.
So with those walls being taken out in three and four,
we're gonna work with some folks to see, you know,
whether we reshape it if we've flatten it a bit
over there. Really the plan for the track over there,
(06:29):
because of where the three and four walls were in
that pit access rope, we're kind of limited limited to
what we can do for shortening up the track. We've
had a lot of people ask us to make it
a three eighth mile. So we we have some top
people that build a lot of the racetracks across the country,
people who you know built the Berlin dirt track, the
Bristol Motors people when it went to dirt. So we've
(06:50):
got some really good people on our corner to make
this a world class facility, not only from the infrastructure
and the pan amenities, but to the racing too, because
you know, the track did have a reputation of throwing
rocks into the state and bad things like that unfortunately.
So you know, we've we've got a lot of work
to do going forwards, but we want to make sure
to work when we do host late model and sprint
(07:10):
car events to where it's going to be uh safe
for the drivers, for the fans, but also enjoyable for
everybody too. But we do have a lot more plans
outside of just those races as well.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So obviously, Matt, you have pretty extensive racing history. But
how did you, you know, come across Mansfield and figure
out that you know, it was actually for sale now
and you know, just kind of talk us through that
whole process.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, it wasn't for sale, and that's the kind of
cool thing about the story. So I'll backtrack a little bit.
I was living in uh North Carolina and Troutman, which
is just by more As also Brac in the USA there,
and we're having our first baby and both of our
families up here in Ohio. So we we're actually under
contract down there for about one hundred acre plot of
land to go build our house and kind of start
(07:58):
our family and do all I had down there in
North Carolina, but decided to move up here to Cleveland,
which is where we live now. And you know, I,
I guess, uh, just a part of me. I love
doing rednecks shit. Like I know, I'm Forbes thirty under
thirty member of owning a NASCARB team, blah blah blah.
I like blowing up stuff and race cars like that's
(08:19):
just that's that's my past time. So I wanted somewhere
to where I could still do that stuff. And as
the vice president of r HOA here in in Brenton
all around Cleveland, Ohio, I can't do that because we're
in a bird sanctuary, so I can't do any of
that fun stuff here. So I had been looking around
quite a while for property. By no means that I
(08:41):
want a racetrack. I'd putt'm have sworn off that idea.
And every time we found a thirty two hundred acre
you know parcel property, heck down even to ten acres.
Every time I asked him about you know, building a
pole barner doing whatever. Zoning always came back and said Nope,
you absolutely cannot do that, or it was too close
to you know, a golf course or development or whatever.
(09:03):
So after about man, I don't know, five months looking,
I turned to my wife Jordan, I said, you know what,
screw it, I'm gonna go buy a racetrack. Uh. So
that began began the search. And I remembered last year
I raced it in midd Ohio and a side I'm here.
I'd never been to the Mansield Speedway before, just I
(09:25):
don't know, never lined up timeline wise to go down there.
So I drove by it, and it's always kind of
been in the back of my mind. I happened to
pass it one day a few months ago, so I
guess we're just kind of subconsciously there. And so I
just kind of looked at you know, dragships, racetracks that
were you know, had been sold or whatever, and then
I just had the ideas like and what about Mansfield.
(09:46):
So I looked up a lot about it and watched
a lot of those YouTube drone videos and stuff of
what was there. As you know, I looked up some
of the plans and I spent extensive time looking the
stuff up and got to thinking, like, this is such
an incredible property. It was such an incredible place, had
so much potential. Unfortunately, you know, was mismanaged and had
(10:07):
some economic hardships and stuff tied between two thousand and
eight and COVID and all those kind of things. But
my cousin, she's a real chor. So I called her
up and said, Mikaela, can we just go down and
see if they'd be even interested in entertaining this because
I'd seen all the news articles about it, you know,
no longer being a racetrack, going to be an industrial park,
all that kind of stuff. But you know, here it
(10:29):
was in twenty twenty five, three, four or five years
after those articles had come out, and the things still
sitting there. So we basically began to explore and you know,
essentially knock on the mill irons door of what might
be a possibility down here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
You know, as you kind of look towards the future. Obviously,
you know, you said you have quite a bit of
work to do, about a year's worth of work before
you can, you know, do a whole lot of racing.
But what are some of the goals as you look
at you know, the rest of twenty twenty five, twenty
twenty seven and so on.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, so this is kind of where it gets a
bit more interesting. So you know, in the short track
world of today, it's very hard to bring out fans
and do something consistently good. So you look at people
like Cleves McFarlane's and the Freedom Factory and what he's
been able to do down there. And so we were
(11:24):
watching a lot of his videos and obviously that's a
it's a more broad market because it's car stuff, it's entertainment,
it's a bit of stupidity, which is all good for
one market. But then we were like, okay, so why
does that work? And so we started digging into it.
Then I was watching a Guardians game and we started
talking about the Savannah bananas, like, okay, same questions, why
(11:47):
does that work? Why has this gotten so big? And
then I don't know, I saw like a Thing of
the Rock and John Cena for the WWE, and it
seems like it's had a resurgence on there. So we
started wondering why are these things working? And then at
the same time, we're traveling to racetracks every single weekend
across the Midwest. And you know, even if you have
(12:09):
great racing, some big shows of course, like the Outlaws,
they bring in crowds, but you go to some of
these small tracks, they are local tracks, and they got
five hundred two thousand people in the Steams And so
we started thinking, we've got to think outside the box
with this property, not just the track with the property,
and so you know, we've kind of developed a plan
(12:30):
to where not only will there be a few you know,
legit sprint car, late model races, those kind of things there,
but we want to create a series that essentially is
going to be a racing show, if you will. So
combining those things I just talked about also with you know,
Monster Damage, where these cars are going to be their
(12:51):
own characters, the drivers are going to have their own
personas around them. And we'll talk about this more in
length as we kind of get details finalized, but we
want it to be where it's a family friendly show,
to where people can come out and they don't have
to like racing. It is part of the show, just
like Monster Jams, but to create our own brand of
racing and make it a night to where we can
control all the factors. We don't have to pay Monster
(13:13):
trucks to come in now. Don't get me wrong, we
might have a Monster trucks show there too, but basically
create our own product, just like the Bananas did in baseball.
The still can you know, contains familiar elements of racing,
but trying to do it in a way that's never
been done before. On top of that, we're also going
to have a lot of car shows, drift meets burnout
meats there, spectator drags, things like that. We are also
(13:35):
going to have a holiday and Christmas light show there,
so doing an entire loop around the property, having racing
lights around the racetrack. We're planning on doing country festivals there,
you know, nights of destruction as any track does, but
tying that into a Halloween festival. So you know, there's
a lot of opportunity at this track and this property.
(13:56):
And you know, the cool thing about it is if
we want to go build a mile micro sprint slash
gocard track there that runs on Wednesday nights or something,
we have the ability to go do that. And you've
seen that in mill Bridge, North Carolina, do such a
good job of that. So there's a lot of opportunity
with this track, and you know what's available for us
to do. So you know, really twenty twenty five is
(14:18):
going to be about just getting the construction started, starting
to do some content pieces which you'll see soon. I'm
just goofing around having fun, probably more you know, cleat
us or whistling diesel kind of content on that side
of the track. Maybe if we're far enough ahead on
the construction side, we'll be able to have a car
meter drift meat kind of thing there. The racetracks can
(14:40):
take longer for the safety stuff to be up until
probably April to May of twenty twenty six, and hopefully
we don't have a twelve month winner like we've had
this year to want people to put on events next spring,
so you know, looking at that kind of stuff, but
we do want to start a full schedule of events
in twenty twenty six. And then you know the question
that's been mass a lot is would this be a
(15:01):
or asshole track? So we are going to repay part
of the inside part there where the giant square which
we're going to use as a burnout pad. So we're
going to refresh some of those the NASCAR pit road
there is all concrete, so that even with all the
walls on top of it is still in good shape.
So we'll be able to keep that. But then the
track surface itself, we're going to put new clay down
(15:22):
on that to make it to where you know, for
a world class facility that it is, it did deserve
a good racing surface, and it did not have that before.
It was dangerous for fans and drivers and just you know,
even though there's some decent racing there, it just didn't
have the right materials that that track deserved to have.
So we're definitely gonna do that piece of it right.
And then you know, in the future, if we have
a call with NASCAR and they want to bring back
(15:44):
the truck or something, or we get something with Formula
drift or whatever, maybe we look down that path. But
you know, between the the initial cost of the property
plus two million dollars or repairs that we've got to
put into this thing, really over the next twelve months,
it's going to be tough to commit another two and
a half million dollars into paving this racetrack. So the
(16:06):
clay side that makes a lot more sense for now
to do a kind of structured approach, and who knows,
it might be dirt forever. We really don't know. It's
just going to be kind of a you know, as
time progressive standpoint on' here of just what makes sense.
But you know, even with the dirt there, it brings
opportunities to have stuff like, you know, flat track motorcycles
can come out there. We can partner with the Harley
(16:26):
dealership there in Mansfield and do a bike week, bike
weekend kind of thing. So the options are really limitless,
which is awesome. So yeah, we'll see how this thing
progresses and and what the fan response is to what
they want out there.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You mentioned that initially it's going to be a dirt
track and you resurface with clay when you start looking
for that surface or when you get that surface, where
do you find the clay to put on a dirt track.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So we're kind of working through that right now. I
will be honest the people when we get to the
of doing that, after we clear the rubble and everything.
The people I want to talk to is the folks
at Attica. I feel like they've done a really good
job with their new clay service out there. We've raced
a lot this year in eastern Ohio Western PA. And
(17:15):
it's pretty interesting because you go over to Sharon Kanya Eeries,
and I mean, the dirt there is just terrible. Training's
actually not as bad, but you know, Kanye and stuff,
it's so so sandy and it just blasts everybody. It's
hard to pass, like there's not much grip, and it
does also doesn't like shine off to where you can
(17:36):
get chuo lane racing later on the night either. So
that's definitely the dirt we want to avoid. But you know,
you look at Eldora, Attica and then also into Indiana
and Illinois, I feel like the racing is a bit
better in that portion of the country for their clay.
The good thing is in Mansfood we have all the
railroads there, so if we need to ship something and
(17:56):
it's easier to do it by box car and cheaper
than it is by truck. So you know, we'll evaluate
all that. Like I said, in our team, we have
one of the top guys who's built dirt tracks around
the country, so we're to make sure that it's properly
vetted and you know, scanned and everything to make sure
it's it's the correct dirt to go onto this racetrack.
But we want to make sure that when we put
(18:18):
this track on that it is not going to be
driver or fan unfriendly. And I've been to enough dirt
tracks across the country now to know what we're looking for,
but we want it to be where you know, these
races provide competitive racing for the drivers, consistent racing, and
stuff that you know fans can still sit there and
see the track because I know growing up as a
(18:40):
dirt fan and as a dirt driver, the things I
can't stand is when you're just blasted by saying the
entire night not dirt, but just saying the entire nights
where you can't see, and as a driver, you can't see,
you can't pass. So we want this to be competitive,
fast racing, but racing that puts on a good show
across all aspects of the night.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I was I was thinking Saturday night when I was
watching uh Butler, that I haven't seen a ton of
a ton of complaining about dust and dirt yet. And
then I was like, wait, it's not even it's barely June,
so that's true. It's coming.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's coming, Yeah, And that's you know, that's gonna be
a part of this too. Is just you know, we're
not going to be perfect. There's gonna be things through
track prep that we learned and our team learns. But
that's that's always just something that's gonna be growing pains.
But yeah, I mean, you're actually absolutely right. That's just
so much of that is just the science behind the
(19:33):
dirt that you get, the dirt that you prep. I mean,
it's just just how it goes in the dirt racing world.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Let's see, I was, I was at Butler on Saturday,
and that dirt is definitely very sandy. I haven't left
the track with as much dirt in my shoes, like
literally inside of my shoes as that Butler.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It was still a really good show, great racing, but
it was it's just that dirt tight that stand up
in Michigan. And luckily for you, Matt, I work up
at Attica, so I might be able to hook you
up with with the dirt information.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well there we got. I knew this podcast was doing something.
It certainly wasn't talking to Clint, so that's great.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So I uh, well, I know I was gonna say
if Jacob didn't bring it up. I was gonna bring
it up. So the other question I was going to say,
ask about the facility is it sounds like you're really
looking to maximize the use of all aspects of the facility.
I mean, you listed a lot of different things that
you could possibly do there, whether it be on the
(20:39):
in flat surface, on the infield, on the race surface,
around on the track. It sounds like you're looking to
maximize the entire property.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah. I mean the way I look at it is
we essentially have in one oval track about eight different tracks.
And why I say that is you have the dirt track.
You can do a combo dirt asphalt, you have the
concrete track, you have the asphalt track, you have about
to go kart slash legend cars track, you have a
figure eight track. If you want to you have you know,
(21:09):
if you want to do spectator drags, if you want
to use two different straightaways, you can. If you need
the full oval you can. I mean, there's so many
different combinations that we can make work with this track,
and you know, we're again we're just trying to think
outside the box of what works in today's world, and
you know, just using the facility to its full potential.
And the other thing too, is the more different events
(21:30):
we have there, whether it be having a big sprint
car show, having a big late model show, doing our
Throttle Circus show, having our car meets there, having a
legend car race, having whatever it might be, autocross, you know,
our racing schools, whatever it's gonna be. Each time. That provides,
you know, for a different crowd to come out and
see our track, and you know, it's tough when you
(21:50):
have crowd burnout. And so we're gonna be able to
advertise and monetize from going to the local areas being
in Cleveland and Columbus and be very aggressive to going
to those areas to bring you know, the economic boom
over to Mansfield and have people spending money in Mansfield.
So that's part of it too. We're not going to
desert Mansfield at all. We want to make sure we
activate and market there. But we have you know, two,
(22:12):
if not three, you know, being closer to Cincinnati. Two
we have three major markets that are not far away
at all that can be interested in these kinds of events.
So we want to make sure that we maximize the
potential of this facility and not just use it as
a weekly track. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's
nothing wrong with weekly tracks, But in order to make
a facility of this size, this expense, and really the
(22:37):
quality of this place, we've got to go branch out
and have aggressive marketing to go bring those people in here.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, that's one of the things we've talked about in
the past, is the fact that you have a weekly
track thirty miles to the north, thirty miles to the east.
You know, you're literally surrounded by weekly tracks, and what
does it take to make it? What model does it
take to make it happen? Middle you mentioned you were
you race at mid Ohio. That's a that's an interesting
model because you know Insa is coming up this weekend.
(23:07):
I think that will be a completely different crowd than
you're going to see there and next month for the
Indy Car Race or the dark Carts. You know, it's
it's completely different, almost completely different audiences. But there's still
thousands of people out there every time the gate's open.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And you know, I have too
much respect for what Attica Eldora, Wayne County view down
the list of all the places around him and We're
in a dirt racing hotbed in Ohio here, But my
goal is not to go compete with those tracks. I
want to be where it's complimentary for all racing fans
down there. If I'm trying to run a Saturday night
show or an Attica's case, a Friday night's show, and
(23:47):
I go compete against them, I'm not helping anybody. I'm
stealing cars from them or they're you know, having cars
from me. It's split the field and we're you know,
we're dividing fans there. That's not good for anybody. So
I don't want to go down that route. I've seen
it done too many times to where it hurts everybody
in my position motorsports from everything I've done in my career.
(24:07):
The best thing we can do is, you know, diversify
it across motorsports fans, car fans, racing fans, whatever it
might be in there to raise all tides. And I
feel like the stance a lot of people get is
an egotistical stance, which is, let's go, you know, compete
against these people. We can pay five hundred dollars more
of starting money, blah blah blah, and go steal them
(24:29):
from another track that doesn't do anybody any good Like
that's that's just not the way to do it. And
we don't need to. We have enough racing around these areas,
so we've got you know, I think our job at
Mansfield is to create events. That's where I think our
niche is going to be. I want people to be
begging me to put on a race. And don't get
me wrong, I am a racing purist. I wish I
(24:49):
could put on thirty straight weekly races here, have a
couple of big shows and make it work. But that's
just not profitable, you know, anymore in twenty twenty five
as it was in two thousand and five. I'll just
you know, be straight up the cost of this property
and what we got to put into this thing. This
thing's gotta, you know, get some cash flows going back
into it because it is a big undertaking.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'll see you've you've answered a lot of my questions.
You know, I was gonna ask if you know you
saw this place becoming more of like a compound or
a hub for racing. But I mean you've answered all that.
You've obviously thought everything through, so you're making my job easy.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Now. I mean to that point, you know, my in
the big skill of that, I would love for us
to have, you know, the main track. I'd love for
us to have a fifth mile, you know, smaller series
track there for micro sprints and legend cars or bandos
or whatever might be outside of there. I would love
to build up a motocross track in the back, you know,
I'd love to have all those things maybe someday in
eight mile dragstrip kind of deal back there. I mean
(25:46):
those I want it to be eventually where it is
a giant motorsports compound, But you know, it's just going
to take time and intelligent strategic planning because you know,
you look back to Mike Grazilla who first owned the
track in the two thousands, where he had a brilliant plan.
He had an exposition, a center going in, he had
a full quartermout dragstrip. But you know, he put almost
twenty million dollars into the place, and you know, ultimately
(26:09):
the economics when that truck race lost its sponsor and
two thousand and eight roll around, it just no longer
was you know, something to where it made litteral dollars
and cents here, So we just got to be very
strategic and smart and not come out of the gates
guns blazing with building ten new facilities and stuff around it.
We've got to get back to where we get it
(26:30):
back working where it was, and just capitalize off of
what we got there and strategically playing and you know
the other side too, but was We're gonna have a
lot of fun from the content side. We want to
make this to where it is a brand, just like
the Freedom Factory is not copying Cleatus. I admire what
he's done, but we want to make it to where
we can have fun with builds and content there and
(26:50):
push the edge a little bit on that side too,
to make ourselves stand out.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I think it's it's definitely it's a story in itself.
The facility is, the history is there. This community loves
that place and is very excited to see it coming
back to life. If you've already seen that in the
last twenty four hours on social media. So it's gonna
be easy to generate that excitement for you. Hopefully the
(27:15):
hard work is just moving dirt and putting concrete back up,
hanging lights, because I think I don't think it's gonna
be hard to get people back in there.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, and I know this is
gonna be coming out today too, so also go subscribe
to my YouTube channel here self promotion here, But if
you are curious and listen to this podcast, we're going
to do a full lockthrough of the abandoned property here,
so pretty neat to see just what was there, what
(27:42):
state it's in. We go through everything across the entire property,
so it's a pretty cool intimate look into everything that
we're looking at having to rebuild here. You know, not
too many times you get to see a full behind
the scenes look of what an abandoned project looks like
and how we're going to start going through and fixing
this thing up.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, that'll be fun to watch.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
What's the YouTube channel name on that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's at Matt Underscore Tips T I F F T
and we'll repose it from our Manfield Speedway channels as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Matt, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
I know you are very busy and you're going to
be very busy for the next year, so.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
We'll be we'll be watching and h and waiting very
anxiously so that we can get back out to Mansfield
and watch some track, some dirt track racing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
One other questions I wanted to ask before we go,
if you, I know you mentioned that you are you know,
you're potentially looking at creating your own kind of series
or circuit or or you know, type own brand of
racing there, I think is the term you use. But
if there's if there's a existing circuit that you would
entertain in twenty twenty six, have you given any thought
to that or an existing franchise that you'd like to
(28:56):
see or have you even gotten that far yet?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, I mean, I think the holy grail that would
be having the Highland Sprint Car series there. That's you know,
that's obviously the pinnacle of what I would love to
see from the sprint car side. I would love to
have one big sprint car race and one big late
model race come so, you know, the late model side,
whether it be the World of Outlaws or Lucas Oil,
either one would be awesome. And you know, I also
(29:20):
feel like though the healths or where it rolls through
Ohio Michigan there there's probably a nice state we could
roll into in that part of the schedule as well.
So I think those are all things we're looking at
through there. But you know, speaking of the racing side,
I didn't mention this, but we are looking at a
big Labor Day special that we're essentially branding the dumbest
(29:41):
race in America. So stay tuned for what that's gonna be,
because it will have real race cars out there. It's
gonna be lots of entertainment. Will put it that way,
but it will be a legit race. But keep keep
tabs up for that. I'm not gonna say what it
is yet, but it will be the dumbest race in America,
and it'll be you know, basically must See. I'm not
(30:01):
gonna say Musty TV because you need to come buy
a ticket, so we we make some money must See
brand saying activities there we go.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Must See Manfield. All right. Yeah, well, now I am
incredibly intrigued as everybody else, and I think you just
got a lot of people excited to hear you say
that you would like to see a big Sprint card
race back out there. So that's I think I've heard
everything I can hear today, Jacob, what else you got?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yep, that's all my bases are covered?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Awesome, Well, congratulations on the venture. Again, thank you for
taking the time to talk to us today, and make
sure you guys are following us on our social media's
at Ohio Dirt on Twitter and both Facebook and share
the episodes so you can help get the word out.
So Matt, thanks for getting on the phone with us
today and uh and break us some news and help
(30:54):
us tell the tell the story and telling us where
we can find the story. So make sure you go
follow Matt's face, uh do YouTube page and on Facebook
as well back anything else before we sign on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Oh, I will say one thing, keep an eye out
because we if you are in the Manslam area, we
will have a few community days to come if you
like to lend a hand, bring a weed whacker and
help out with that, we'll have a few of those.
And also we will have a few tours we're going
to do of the property in its current stape, so
we'll announce those over the coming months here. But if
(31:25):
you're one of those people into abandoned facilities, it's pretty
cool to come check out and really an opportunity of
a lifetime because we're planning on never letting it get
back to the state again.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Awesome that's exciting to hear. Thank you, thank you for
what you're doing, and thank you for telling the story today,
and we look forward to talking to you more soon.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
All right, thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
All right, thank you guys for tuning in. Make sure
you follow on the socials and as always, get out,
get dirty, support your local.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Tracks, Come on cooking sh
Hello Bray fans, Welcome back to the Ohio Dirt Track
Podcast again. We've lost track of what number this is.
I have like one fifty something, I'm not even sure.
But my name is Clint Knight. I'm Jacob Lord, and
we are very excited to be on the phone today
with the man in the news this week, mister Matt Tiff.
We appreciate you coming on and talking to us.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Absolutely. Yeah, happy to be here. And yeah, I don't know,
I guess just a small news worthy item here, so
just a little undertaking, but no, thanks for thanks for
doing this with me.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, this is I'm a scared to talk to you.
I know we've already talked a little bit because of
nature of my other work, but I wanted to tell you.
I don't know if we told you this earlier, but
Jacob and I originally started the whole purpose of this
podcast was to promote Manfield Motor Speedway when it went
back and we thought this was gonna be like a
(01:21):
five episode thing, and we are seven years later still
doing this thing. So very excited to be talking about
Mansfield Motor Speedway again today and what the future holds. Obviously,
you've been very busy the last couple of days rolling
out some stuff. I know you were. You were racing
(01:41):
last night, rolling out social media stuff yesterday and this morning.
So give us, just give us the quick what's happening.
Where are we at right now with Mansfield Motor Speedway.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'll start with the ugly you mentioned. I was
racing last night. We sent a second are heat racing
them got wrecked to my three. So it's always a
little bit easier when you're talking about positive things for
going forward past that. But no, I think that's that's
the cool thing with this right is you know, having
such a storied venue and you know, a place that
(02:15):
in the two thousands was really a hotbed for NASCAR racing,
had plans for being a quarter mile drag strip in there,
and obviously as time went on, you know, the two
thousand and eight recession, economic card times hit and closed
down the track and came back again as an asphalt track,
and then shut down again. And when Cody Summers took
it over in twenty seventeen, you know, converted it to
(02:37):
dirt there. So I think the the biggest thing for
us now in the year of twenty twenty five is
the We'll start with the racetrack condition. It's terrible, just
you know, no holding back there. It's awful. But the
good thing is the infrastructure is still all there. And
(02:58):
why I say it's terrible is because the track itself
probably would have been okay, but there was a prospective
buyer that was coming in to purchase the property to
turn it into an industrial park. I mean, it was
mentioned many years ago in a news article that the
man Field steed what was done being a racetrack, and
that was true. There was somebody coming into completely convert
(03:19):
it into an industrial park and that deal fell through.
But while it was falling through, took a bulldozer in
some excavating equipment and basically knocked down turns three and four,
the walls out there and the inner pit walls there,
and you know, a bunch of the conduits and everything
in there. So that was a big loss for the
(03:40):
drainage systems, you know, just the rubble that's been left
around the track. At the same time, you know, with
there being no plans for race that coming back, the
safer barriers were sold to a racetrack. I think it
is Nelson Ledges. The catch fence was sold off, the
light poles were sold off of there, and then the
mill Irons did donate you know, half the grand stands
(04:00):
there to Shelby High School, which is pretty cool. So
you know where it stands today, we have about twenty
four hundred permanent seats left. Quite frankly, the sides of
the Grand Sands right now is just a pirate ship
walk off the plank there. So we've got to get
(04:21):
some some safety things off there. And number one, of course,
this is all about safety, but I'm gonna be selfish here.
Number one, I'm afraid of heights, So I have to
walk up the middle of the Grand Sands right now
because I'm afraid that, you know, Augusta Winn. Listen, I'm
two hundred pounds and six or two, but I'm still
worried about Augusta Winn coming knocking me off my grand
stands right now. So first and foremost, I went most
(04:42):
things to be sealed up for a wall. I'm walking
the property, but no, I mean seriously there. We will
get that buttoned up. But we do have fantastic Grand
Sands and stuff that are in place, the restrooms there,
the concessions for people who been to the Mansilet's see
way before. I mean, everything there is top notch, but
obviously as time goes on, you get roof leeks, you
get damaged things like that. So the easiest thing to
(05:04):
compare it to would be, you know, locally here in
Ohio is looking back probably you know, five ten years
ago at Joga Lake when they shut down the water
park of something that was seemingly just open. And yet
you know, you have bottles laying around, you have ceiling
tiles falling in, you have overgrowth things like that. I mean,
it's only been five years since the last right or
(05:25):
six years since the last race, but at the same time,
it feels like an eternity walking through some parts of
the property. So you know, there's gonna be about a
year's worth of just rehab around there, and it's you know,
we're gonna be very open and transparent about the finances
and costs for this thing, because you know, as we
bring this back as a community piece, we want to
tell people, you know, really what we're putting into this.
(05:46):
So you know, outside the purchase for the track, there's
probably gonna be about two million to two point five
million dollars worth of work just to get it back
to what it was. And obviously some of that's gonna
be upgrading how little bit like we're gonna have you know,
led lights and things like that for the parking lot
and the racetrack and just things that bring it into
you know, truly the quarter of the twenty first century here.
(06:08):
But the racetrack itself is, you know, it was a
fantastic track. We do know for the dirt racing there,
it was a little fast, being such a big half mile.
So with those walls being taken out in three and four,
we're gonna work with some folks to see, you know,
whether we reshape it if we've flatten it a bit
over there. Really the plan for the track over there,
(06:29):
because of where the three and four walls were in
that pit access rope, we're kind of limited limited to
what we can do for shortening up the track. We've
had a lot of people ask us to make it
a three eighth mile. So we we have some top
people that build a lot of the racetracks across the country,
people who you know built the Berlin dirt track, the
Bristol Motors people when it went to dirt. So we've
(06:50):
got some really good people on our corner to make
this a world class facility, not only from the infrastructure
and the pan amenities, but to the racing too, because
you know, the track did have a reputation of throwing
rocks into the state and bad things like that unfortunately.
So you know, we've we've got a lot of work
to do going forwards, but we want to make sure
to work when we do host late model and sprint
(07:10):
car events to where it's going to be uh safe
for the drivers, for the fans, but also enjoyable for
everybody too. But we do have a lot more plans
outside of just those races as well.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So obviously, Matt, you have pretty extensive racing history. But
how did you, you know, come across Mansfield and figure
out that you know, it was actually for sale now
and you know, just kind of talk us through that
whole process.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, it wasn't for sale, and that's the kind of
cool thing about the story. So I'll backtrack a little bit.
I was living in uh North Carolina and Troutman, which
is just by more As also Brac in the USA there,
and we're having our first baby and both of our
families up here in Ohio. So we we're actually under
contract down there for about one hundred acre plot of
land to go build our house and kind of start
(07:58):
our family and do all I had down there in
North Carolina, but decided to move up here to Cleveland,
which is where we live now. And you know, I,
I guess, uh, just a part of me. I love
doing rednecks shit. Like I know, I'm Forbes thirty under
thirty member of owning a NASCARB team, blah blah blah.
I like blowing up stuff and race cars like that's
(08:19):
just that's that's my past time. So I wanted somewhere
to where I could still do that stuff. And as
the vice president of r HOA here in in Brenton
all around Cleveland, Ohio, I can't do that because we're
in a bird sanctuary, so I can't do any of
that fun stuff here. So I had been looking around
quite a while for property. By no means that I
(08:41):
want a racetrack. I'd putt'm have sworn off that idea.
And every time we found a thirty two hundred acre
you know parcel property, heck down even to ten acres.
Every time I asked him about you know, building a
pole barner doing whatever. Zoning always came back and said Nope,
you absolutely cannot do that, or it was too close
to you know, a golf course or development or whatever.
(09:03):
So after about man, I don't know, five months looking,
I turned to my wife Jordan, I said, you know what,
screw it, I'm gonna go buy a racetrack. Uh. So
that began began the search. And I remembered last year
I raced it in midd Ohio and a side I'm here.
I'd never been to the Mansield Speedway before, just I
(09:25):
don't know, never lined up timeline wise to go down there.
So I drove by it, and it's always kind of
been in the back of my mind. I happened to
pass it one day a few months ago, so I
guess we're just kind of subconsciously there. And so I
just kind of looked at you know, dragships, racetracks that
were you know, had been sold or whatever, and then
I just had the ideas like and what about Mansfield.
(09:46):
So I looked up a lot about it and watched
a lot of those YouTube drone videos and stuff of
what was there. As you know, I looked up some
of the plans and I spent extensive time looking the
stuff up and got to thinking, like, this is such
an incredible property. It was such an incredible place, had
so much potential. Unfortunately, you know, was mismanaged and had
(10:07):
some economic hardships and stuff tied between two thousand and
eight and COVID and all those kind of things. But
my cousin, she's a real chor. So I called her
up and said, Mikaela, can we just go down and
see if they'd be even interested in entertaining this because
I'd seen all the news articles about it, you know,
no longer being a racetrack, going to be an industrial park,
all that kind of stuff. But you know, here it
(10:29):
was in twenty twenty five, three, four or five years
after those articles had come out, and the things still
sitting there. So we basically began to explore and you know,
essentially knock on the mill irons door of what might
be a possibility down here.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
You know, as you kind of look towards the future. Obviously,
you know, you said you have quite a bit of
work to do, about a year's worth of work before
you can, you know, do a whole lot of racing.
But what are some of the goals as you look
at you know, the rest of twenty twenty five, twenty
twenty seven and so on.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah, so this is kind of where it gets a
bit more interesting. So you know, in the short track
world of today, it's very hard to bring out fans
and do something consistently good. So you look at people
like Cleves McFarlane's and the Freedom Factory and what he's
been able to do down there. And so we were
(11:24):
watching a lot of his videos and obviously that's a
it's a more broad market because it's car stuff, it's entertainment,
it's a bit of stupidity, which is all good for
one market. But then we were like, okay, so why
does that work? And so we started digging into it.
Then I was watching a Guardians game and we started
talking about the Savannah bananas, like, okay, same questions, why
(11:47):
does that work? Why has this gotten so big? And
then I don't know, I saw like a Thing of
the Rock and John Cena for the WWE, and it
seems like it's had a resurgence on there. So we
started wondering why are these things working? And then at
the same time, we're traveling to racetracks every single weekend
across the Midwest. And you know, even if you have
(12:09):
great racing, some big shows of course, like the Outlaws,
they bring in crowds, but you go to some of
these small tracks, they are local tracks, and they got
five hundred two thousand people in the Steams And so
we started thinking, we've got to think outside the box
with this property, not just the track with the property,
and so you know, we've kind of developed a plan
(12:30):
to where not only will there be a few you know,
legit sprint car, late model races, those kind of things there,
but we want to create a series that essentially is
going to be a racing show, if you will. So
combining those things I just talked about also with you know,
Monster Damage, where these cars are going to be their
(12:51):
own characters, the drivers are going to have their own
personas around them. And we'll talk about this more in
length as we kind of get details finalized, but we
want it to be where it's a family friendly show,
to where people can come out and they don't have
to like racing. It is part of the show, just
like Monster Jams, but to create our own brand of
racing and make it a night to where we can
control all the factors. We don't have to pay Monster
(13:13):
trucks to come in now. Don't get me wrong, we
might have a Monster trucks show there too, but basically
create our own product, just like the Bananas did in baseball.
The still can you know, contains familiar elements of racing,
but trying to do it in a way that's never
been done before. On top of that, we're also going
to have a lot of car shows, drift meets burnout
meats there, spectator drags, things like that. We are also
(13:35):
going to have a holiday and Christmas light show there,
so doing an entire loop around the property, having racing
lights around the racetrack. We're planning on doing country festivals there,
you know, nights of destruction as any track does, but
tying that into a Halloween festival. So you know, there's
a lot of opportunity at this track and this property.
(13:56):
And you know, the cool thing about it is if
we want to go build a mile micro sprint slash
gocard track there that runs on Wednesday nights or something,
we have the ability to go do that. And you've
seen that in mill Bridge, North Carolina, do such a
good job of that. So there's a lot of opportunity
with this track, and you know what's available for us
to do. So you know, really twenty twenty five is
(14:18):
going to be about just getting the construction started, starting
to do some content pieces which you'll see soon. I'm
just goofing around having fun, probably more you know, cleat
us or whistling diesel kind of content on that side
of the track. Maybe if we're far enough ahead on
the construction side, we'll be able to have a car
meter drift meat kind of thing there. The racetracks can
(14:40):
take longer for the safety stuff to be up until
probably April to May of twenty twenty six, and hopefully
we don't have a twelve month winner like we've had
this year to want people to put on events next spring,
so you know, looking at that kind of stuff, but
we do want to start a full schedule of events
in twenty twenty six. And then you know the question
that's been mass a lot is would this be a
(15:01):
or asshole track? So we are going to repay part
of the inside part there where the giant square which
we're going to use as a burnout pad. So we're
going to refresh some of those the NASCAR pit road
there is all concrete, so that even with all the
walls on top of it is still in good shape.
So we'll be able to keep that. But then the
track surface itself, we're going to put new clay down
(15:22):
on that to make it to where you know, for
a world class facility that it is, it did deserve
a good racing surface, and it did not have that before.
It was dangerous for fans and drivers and just you know,
even though there's some decent racing there, it just didn't
have the right materials that that track deserved to have.
So we're definitely gonna do that piece of it right.
And then you know, in the future, if we have
a call with NASCAR and they want to bring back
(15:44):
the truck or something, or we get something with Formula
drift or whatever, maybe we look down that path. But
you know, between the the initial cost of the property
plus two million dollars or repairs that we've got to
put into this thing, really over the next twelve months,
it's going to be tough to commit another two and
a half million dollars into paving this racetrack. So the
(16:06):
clay side that makes a lot more sense for now
to do a kind of structured approach, and who knows,
it might be dirt forever. We really don't know. It's
just going to be kind of a you know, as
time progressive standpoint on' here of just what makes sense.
But you know, even with the dirt there, it brings
opportunities to have stuff like, you know, flat track motorcycles
can come out there. We can partner with the Harley
(16:26):
dealership there in Mansfield and do a bike week, bike
weekend kind of thing. So the options are really limitless,
which is awesome. So yeah, we'll see how this thing
progresses and and what the fan response is to what
they want out there.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You mentioned that initially it's going to be a dirt
track and you resurface with clay when you start looking
for that surface or when you get that surface, where
do you find the clay to put on a dirt track.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So we're kind of working through that right now. I
will be honest the people when we get to the
of doing that, after we clear the rubble and everything.
The people I want to talk to is the folks
at Attica. I feel like they've done a really good
job with their new clay service out there. We've raced
a lot this year in eastern Ohio Western PA. And
(17:15):
it's pretty interesting because you go over to Sharon Kanya Eeries,
and I mean, the dirt there is just terrible. Training's
actually not as bad, but you know, Kanye and stuff,
it's so so sandy and it just blasts everybody. It's
hard to pass, like there's not much grip, and it
does also doesn't like shine off to where you can
(17:36):
get chuo lane racing later on the night either. So
that's definitely the dirt we want to avoid. But you know,
you look at Eldora, Attica and then also into Indiana
and Illinois, I feel like the racing is a bit
better in that portion of the country for their clay.
The good thing is in Mansfood we have all the
railroads there, so if we need to ship something and
(17:56):
it's easier to do it by box car and cheaper
than it is by truck. So you know, we'll evaluate
all that. Like I said, in our team, we have
one of the top guys who's built dirt tracks around
the country, so we're to make sure that it's properly
vetted and you know, scanned and everything to make sure
it's it's the correct dirt to go onto this racetrack.
But we want to make sure that when we put
(18:18):
this track on that it is not going to be
driver or fan unfriendly. And I've been to enough dirt
tracks across the country now to know what we're looking for,
but we want it to be where you know, these
races provide competitive racing for the drivers, consistent racing, and
stuff that you know fans can still sit there and
see the track because I know growing up as a
(18:40):
dirt fan and as a dirt driver, the things I
can't stand is when you're just blasted by saying the
entire night not dirt, but just saying the entire nights
where you can't see, and as a driver, you can't see,
you can't pass. So we want this to be competitive,
fast racing, but racing that puts on a good show
across all aspects of the night.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I was I was thinking Saturday night when I was
watching uh Butler, that I haven't seen a ton of
a ton of complaining about dust and dirt yet. And
then I was like, wait, it's not even it's barely June,
so that's true. It's coming.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's coming, Yeah, And that's you know, that's gonna be
a part of this too. Is just you know, we're
not going to be perfect. There's gonna be things through
track prep that we learned and our team learns. But
that's that's always just something that's gonna be growing pains.
But yeah, I mean, you're actually absolutely right. That's just
so much of that is just the science behind the
(19:33):
dirt that you get, the dirt that you prep. I mean,
it's just just how it goes in the dirt racing world.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Let's see, I was, I was at Butler on Saturday,
and that dirt is definitely very sandy. I haven't left
the track with as much dirt in my shoes, like
literally inside of my shoes as that Butler.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It was still a really good show, great racing, but
it was it's just that dirt tight that stand up
in Michigan. And luckily for you, Matt, I work up
at Attica, so I might be able to hook you
up with with the dirt information.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well there we got. I knew this podcast was doing something.
It certainly wasn't talking to Clint, so that's great.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So I uh, well, I know I was gonna say
if Jacob didn't bring it up. I was gonna bring
it up. So the other question I was going to say,
ask about the facility is it sounds like you're really
looking to maximize the use of all aspects of the facility.
I mean, you listed a lot of different things that
you could possibly do there, whether it be on the
(20:39):
in flat surface, on the infield, on the race surface,
around on the track. It sounds like you're looking to
maximize the entire property.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah. I mean the way I look at it is
we essentially have in one oval track about eight different tracks.
And why I say that is you have the dirt track.
You can do a combo dirt asphalt, you have the
concrete track, you have the asphalt track, you have about
to go kart slash legend cars track, you have a
figure eight track. If you want to you have you know,
(21:09):
if you want to do spectator drags, if you want
to use two different straightaways, you can. If you need
the full oval you can. I mean, there's so many
different combinations that we can make work with this track,
and you know, we're again we're just trying to think
outside the box of what works in today's world, and
you know, just using the facility to its full potential.
And the other thing too, is the more different events
(21:30):
we have there, whether it be having a big sprint
car show, having a big late model show, doing our
Throttle Circus show, having our car meets there, having a
legend car race, having whatever it might be, autocross, you know,
our racing schools, whatever it's gonna be. Each time. That provides,
you know, for a different crowd to come out and
see our track, and you know, it's tough when you
(21:50):
have crowd burnout. And so we're gonna be able to
advertise and monetize from going to the local areas being
in Cleveland and Columbus and be very aggressive to going
to those areas to bring you know, the economic boom
over to Mansfield and have people spending money in Mansfield.
So that's part of it too. We're not going to
desert Mansfield at all. We want to make sure we
activate and market there. But we have you know, two,
(22:12):
if not three, you know, being closer to Cincinnati. Two
we have three major markets that are not far away
at all that can be interested in these kinds of events.
So we want to make sure that we maximize the
potential of this facility and not just use it as
a weekly track. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's
nothing wrong with weekly tracks, But in order to make
a facility of this size, this expense, and really the
(22:37):
quality of this place, we've got to go branch out
and have aggressive marketing to go bring those people in here.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, that's one of the things we've talked about in
the past, is the fact that you have a weekly
track thirty miles to the north, thirty miles to the east.
You know, you're literally surrounded by weekly tracks, and what
does it take to make it? What model does it
take to make it happen? Middle you mentioned you were
you race at mid Ohio. That's a that's an interesting
model because you know Insa is coming up this weekend.
(23:07):
I think that will be a completely different crowd than
you're going to see there and next month for the
Indy Car Race or the dark Carts. You know, it's
it's completely different, almost completely different audiences. But there's still
thousands of people out there every time the gate's open.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And you know, I have too
much respect for what Attica Eldora, Wayne County view down
the list of all the places around him and We're
in a dirt racing hotbed in Ohio here, But my
goal is not to go compete with those tracks. I
want to be where it's complimentary for all racing fans
down there. If I'm trying to run a Saturday night
show or an Attica's case, a Friday night's show, and
(23:47):
I go compete against them, I'm not helping anybody. I'm
stealing cars from them or they're you know, having cars
from me. It's split the field and we're you know,
we're dividing fans there. That's not good for anybody. So
I don't want to go down that route. I've seen
it done too many times to where it hurts everybody
in my position motorsports from everything I've done in my career.
(24:07):
The best thing we can do is, you know, diversify
it across motorsports fans, car fans, racing fans, whatever it
might be in there to raise all tides. And I
feel like the stance a lot of people get is
an egotistical stance, which is, let's go, you know, compete
against these people. We can pay five hundred dollars more
of starting money, blah blah blah, and go steal them
(24:29):
from another track that doesn't do anybody any good Like
that's that's just not the way to do it. And
we don't need to. We have enough racing around these areas,
so we've got you know, I think our job at
Mansfield is to create events. That's where I think our
niche is going to be. I want people to be
begging me to put on a race. And don't get
me wrong, I am a racing purist. I wish I
(24:49):
could put on thirty straight weekly races here, have a
couple of big shows and make it work. But that's
just not profitable, you know, anymore in twenty twenty five
as it was in two thousand and five. I'll just
you know, be straight up the cost of this property
and what we got to put into this thing. This
thing's gotta, you know, get some cash flows going back
into it because it is a big undertaking.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'll see you've you've answered a lot of my questions.
You know, I was gonna ask if you know you
saw this place becoming more of like a compound or
a hub for racing. But I mean you've answered all that.
You've obviously thought everything through, so you're making my job easy.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Now. I mean to that point, you know, my in
the big skill of that, I would love for us
to have, you know, the main track. I'd love for
us to have a fifth mile, you know, smaller series
track there for micro sprints and legend cars or bandos
or whatever might be outside of there. I would love
to build up a motocross track in the back, you know,
I'd love to have all those things maybe someday in
eight mile dragstrip kind of deal back there. I mean
(25:46):
those I want it to be eventually where it is
a giant motorsports compound, But you know, it's just going
to take time and intelligent strategic planning because you know,
you look back to Mike Grazilla who first owned the
track in the two thousands, where he had a brilliant plan.
He had an exposition, a center going in, he had
a full quartermout dragstrip. But you know, he put almost
twenty million dollars into the place, and you know, ultimately
(26:09):
the economics when that truck race lost its sponsor and
two thousand and eight roll around, it just no longer
was you know, something to where it made litteral dollars
and cents here, So we just got to be very
strategic and smart and not come out of the gates
guns blazing with building ten new facilities and stuff around it.
We've got to get back to where we get it
(26:30):
back working where it was, and just capitalize off of
what we got there and strategically playing and you know
the other side too, but was We're gonna have a
lot of fun from the content side. We want to
make this to where it is a brand, just like
the Freedom Factory is not copying Cleatus. I admire what
he's done, but we want to make it to where
we can have fun with builds and content there and
(26:50):
push the edge a little bit on that side too,
to make ourselves stand out.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I think it's it's definitely it's a story in itself.
The facility is, the history is there. This community loves
that place and is very excited to see it coming
back to life. If you've already seen that in the
last twenty four hours on social media. So it's gonna
be easy to generate that excitement for you. Hopefully the
(27:15):
hard work is just moving dirt and putting concrete back up,
hanging lights, because I think I don't think it's gonna
be hard to get people back in there.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, and I know this is
gonna be coming out today too, so also go subscribe
to my YouTube channel here self promotion here, But if
you are curious and listen to this podcast, we're going
to do a full lockthrough of the abandoned property here,
so pretty neat to see just what was there, what
(27:42):
state it's in. We go through everything across the entire property,
so it's a pretty cool intimate look into everything that
we're looking at having to rebuild here. You know, not
too many times you get to see a full behind
the scenes look of what an abandoned project looks like
and how we're going to start going through and fixing
this thing up.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, that'll be fun to watch.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
What's the YouTube channel name on that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's at Matt Underscore Tips T I F F T
and we'll repose it from our Manfield Speedway channels as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Matt, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
I know you are very busy and you're going to
be very busy for the next year, so.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
We'll be we'll be watching and h and waiting very
anxiously so that we can get back out to Mansfield
and watch some track, some dirt track racing.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
One other questions I wanted to ask before we go,
if you, I know you mentioned that you are you know,
you're potentially looking at creating your own kind of series
or circuit or or you know, type own brand of
racing there, I think is the term you use. But
if there's if there's a existing circuit that you would
entertain in twenty twenty six, have you given any thought
to that or an existing franchise that you'd like to
(28:56):
see or have you even gotten that far yet?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, I mean, I think the holy grail that would
be having the Highland Sprint Car series there. That's you know,
that's obviously the pinnacle of what I would love to
see from the sprint car side. I would love to
have one big sprint car race and one big late
model race come so, you know, the late model side,
whether it be the World of Outlaws or Lucas Oil,
either one would be awesome. And you know, I also
(29:20):
feel like though the healths or where it rolls through
Ohio Michigan there there's probably a nice state we could
roll into in that part of the schedule as well.
So I think those are all things we're looking at
through there. But you know, speaking of the racing side,
I didn't mention this, but we are looking at a
big Labor Day special that we're essentially branding the dumbest
(29:41):
race in America. So stay tuned for what that's gonna be,
because it will have real race cars out there. It's
gonna be lots of entertainment. Will put it that way,
but it will be a legit race. But keep keep
tabs up for that. I'm not gonna say what it
is yet, but it will be the dumbest race in America,
and it'll be you know, basically must See. I'm not
(30:01):
gonna say Musty TV because you need to come buy
a ticket, so we we make some money must See
brand saying activities there we go.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Must See Manfield. All right. Yeah, well, now I am
incredibly intrigued as everybody else, and I think you just
got a lot of people excited to hear you say
that you would like to see a big Sprint card
race back out there. So that's I think I've heard
everything I can hear today, Jacob, what else you got?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yep, that's all my bases are covered?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Awesome, Well, congratulations on the venture. Again, thank you for
taking the time to talk to us today, and make
sure you guys are following us on our social media's
at Ohio Dirt on Twitter and both Facebook and share
the episodes so you can help get the word out.
So Matt, thanks for getting on the phone with us
today and uh and break us some news and help
(30:54):
us tell the tell the story and telling us where
we can find the story. So make sure you go
follow Matt's face, uh do YouTube page and on Facebook
as well back anything else before we sign on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Oh, I will say one thing, keep an eye out
because we if you are in the Manslam area, we
will have a few community days to come if you
like to lend a hand, bring a weed whacker and
help out with that, we'll have a few of those.
And also we will have a few tours we're going
to do of the property in its current stape, so
we'll announce those over the coming months here. But if
(31:25):
you're one of those people into abandoned facilities, it's pretty
cool to come check out and really an opportunity of
a lifetime because we're planning on never letting it get
back to the state again.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Awesome that's exciting to hear. Thank you, thank you for
what you're doing, and thank you for telling the story today,
and we look forward to talking to you more soon.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
All right, thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
All right, thank you guys for tuning in. Make sure
you follow on the socials and as always, get out,
get dirty, support your local.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Tracks, Come on cooking sh
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