Over the last three seasons, former drag racing champion turned race promoter Nelson Hoyos and his wife, Marla have built a successful program at Louisiana’s Thunder Road Raceway Park, bringing in touring racing series, developing a strong local following, and earning the support of local government officials. But Hoyos insists that, behind the scenes, things haven’t been as positive as they would seem on the surface.
A week ago, the Thunder Road strip in the town of Gilliam, once known as the Red River Raceway, was in the news after reports that the track was to be closed permanently in the coming weeks and be reconfigured as an airport. That, however, was not and likely never was to be the case; instead, local racers Buddy and Susie Dunn were announced on Friday as the new operators of Thunder Road at the conclusion of Hoyos’ agreement, which he has opted to terminate at the end of July.
Hoyos, a multi-time champion of the IDRC and NHRA sport compact series in the early 2000s, and his wife relocated to Louisiana from their home in Florida and began operating Thunder Road in March of 2014—Hoyos says they had been in search of a venue that would allow them to cross into the promotion side of the sport, while also serving as the home for their successful Driven2Win Drag Racing School, founded in 2005.
Thunder Road had closed at the conclusion of the 2013 season and no plans were on the table for its reopening, with what Hoyos referred to as ongoing management issues that had plagued the facility. After striking a deal with the land owner, David Strong and his Thunder Road Properties, and his partner Roy Hollis Witherington, the Hoyos’ packed all of their belongings and set off to begin a new life.
The future looked incredibly bright for the Hoyos’ and their new venture early on: an NHRA sanctioned Division 4 track, they were able to secure a Lucas Oil divisional event and also welcomed NHRA’s Lewis Bloom to the facility to film a segment for ESPN on their new endeavor.
“As time went on, however, we began to notice some issues going on with the facility that we had not been made aware of; we had problems with the well system, with the track seeping water, with electrical and the timing system. At that time, we were in conversations with the owner saying, ‘hey, you guys, as owners, need to fix this. This is not maintenance, these are repairs that needed to be made before we ever took over the facility.’ And they told us no, that the facility was perfectly fine when they handed it over and that it wasn’t their promise. We conversed with them further and asked them to make the repairs and they refused, so we went ahead and filed a lawsuit against them for breach of contract.”
The well system was the first red flag for Hoyos; acknowledging the need for repairs, he says he placed verbiage in the initial contract that it would be repaired by the time he and Marla took occupancy—a contract that Strong signed and agreed to. In the first week there, however, Hoyos was made aware of an administrative order for noncompliance of a public well system from the state of Louisiana.
That year, both of the wells on the property broke, and were never fixed. Ultimately, the Hoyos’ had to repair the wells out of their own pocket.
In Louisiana, there’s a civil code that says a land owner must maintain the land for its intended usage … and that’s a racetrack.
“In Louisiana, there’s a civil code that says a land owner must maintain the land for its intended usage … and that’s a racetrack. And there’s another civil code that says if the land owner does not make the repairs, that the lessee can make repairs and deduct it off of the rent. Well, we hadn’t gotten to that point yet—we had paid for repairs, but we hadn’t gotten to the point of reducing it off of the lease. I called them and said ‘look, if you don’t have the money for repairs, that’s fine, I’ll go ahead and fix it and reduce it off the rent.’ And he said, if you reduce it off of the rent, I will evict you. And it just went downhill from there,” Nelson explains.
Hoyos says they worked to reach an amicable agreement with Strong, even submitting an offer to purchase the facility outright, but was twice turned down. Unable to get a court date or reach a resolution privately, Hoyos says he continued to pay for repairs out of pocket for two and half years; then, in January of this year, seemingly out of options, he and Marla stopped paying the rent and sent Strong a letter with his receipts for repairs, explaining his position.
“I knew that would get them to take me to court. We were there to block an eviction notice, and the judge wanted to hear everything else that was going on with the facility, and so we stayed in court for three days, going over everything. Finally, they came back and wanted to settle with us: as part of the settlement, we didn’t have to pay back the six months of rent, and we could stay there until the end of this season, which is November for us. But they would not renew our contract. We still had a year and a half on our contract, plus we had an option buy more years. But they said that was it.”
Hoyos says that, in his deposition in court, Strong proclaimed that “once the Hoyos’ leave, this property will never open as a racetrack again.”
“But, we’ve just heard that they’re working to make a deal with someone else to take over the property,” Nelson says. “If he’s changed his mind and that’s what he wants to do with the property that’s fine. It’s his property.”
“I heard the other day, on the radio,” he says, “that the track will be holding a grudge race on August the fourth, the weekend after we leave.”
“We were deceived by the owners, and had we been made aware of the problems upfront, we would have walked away and never taken over this facility. Our name and our reputation are incredibly important to us,” Marla says.
Strong was not required in court to make repairs to the facility, and with an estimated $30,000-40,000 necessary to bring it up to working order to contest the remaining races this season, Hoyos says he and his wife simply could not justify that expense and then be forced to walk away at the end of the season with little chance to recoup any of the money. And so they made the decision to end their agreement this month. The Hoyos’ were able to send their NHRA divisional to Ennis, Texas, and their Fun Ford, Super Chevy, Mega Mopar, and Jr. Dragster programs were acquired by No Problem Raceway Park, thus fulfilling their contractual agreements for the year.
Hoyos says that in addition to the water issues with the track itself—he contends the strip would need to be ripped up, a drainage system installed and a new surface poured—the timing and electrical systems are both “junk”, and that any lessee who agrees to take over will be faced with the very same ordeal that he has.
This is just a temporary lull for us—I’m confident that the city and community are behind us and will back us to do that we need to crate a new track for the region.
“This is just a temporary lull for us—I’m confident that the city and community are behind us and will back us to do that we need to crate a new track for the region. If it doesn’t work out, we’ve been contacted and offered opportunities to run tracks in other states. We’d love to stay here and continue our programs, but if we must, then I’m willing to look at opportunities to go somewhere else.”
“My wife and I are obviously very disappointed that we have to leave the facility and that we have to start all over again, but by the same token we’re really relieved that we don’t have to work so hard anymore. We had to work 10 times harder than anyone to work around all of the issues that we had here.”