Darana Motorsports Holdings-Owned Tracks Push Forward As Independent Businesses Amid Rumors And Uncertainty

The problems surrounding the IHRA have been well documented. While the organization’s national series have essentially gone away, the dragstrips owned by Darryl Cuttell have remained open, and they’ve faced a problem bigger than bad weather: rumors.

Those rumors have ranged from tracks being turned into data centers to facilities allegedly being shut down “within days.” The truth is far less salacious. In fact, after talking with officials at several of the facilities, we learned it’s business as usual, and these rumors are doing far more harm than people realize.

Currently, the operational dragstrips owned by Darana Motorsports Holdings, LLC are Darana Dragway West Salem, Darana Raceway Hebron, Darana Dragway Milan, Darana Motorsports Park, Darana Raceway  Xenia, and Empire Dragway. Virginia Motorsports Park is currently leased by the organization. Piedmont Dragway is owned by Darana Motorsports Holdings, LLC, but it has been closed for repairs.

We reached out to these facilities to better understand the current situation. Officials from Darana Dragway West Salem, Darana Dragway  Milan, and Virginia Motorsports Park provided us with information.

We also sat down with Mary Anne Matcham, General Manager at Darana Dragway – West Salem, and Track Manager Sam Lance to get the story directly from them and gain a clear picture of what’s going on at their facility.

According to Matcham, each track operates under its own entity and LLC rather than all of the facilities functioning as one business.

“We’re our own entity. Each one of his tracks is listed under a different name, a different LLC. Like our track is listed under West Salem Dragway.”

More importantly, from an operational standpoint, the money brought in at a facility is used to keep each track running.

“We’re all individual tracks owned by the same person. All of our profits are individual. Our profits support our track,” Matcham says.

Business As Usual At The Racetrack

What fans and racers need to understand is that while these facilities share common ownership, according to the management at each facility, they operate as individual businesses.

That means whatever happened with the IHRA’s national events has nothing to do with what goes on at the local tracks. The facilities are still holding events and, in fact, are actively adding events when it makes sense.

“Honestly, we are operating as we were at the beginning of the year. There is really no difference in the operation part of running races or keeping up on the grounds. We’re still running everything that’s on our schedule. We only had to change things when the nitro event was cancelled, so we threw a little top bulb race instead. Again, nothing has really changed in the aspect of us running the track to hold events,” Matcham explains.

This is where the distinction between the IHRA entity and the racetracks is important. What impacts one is not necessarily impacting the other.

Officials at Darana Dragway Milan made this point very clear as well. We spoke to them during the Heads Up Hustle event that visited the facility. They explained that they are operating like they always have and have stayed fairly busy. Their plan is to keep holding events and adding new ones as long as they make business sense.

“Mary Anne and her family owned this track before Darryl bought it, so she understands what it takes to keep things running. She understands the costs and what needs to be done to stay profitable like any other business. Darryl really hasn’t had much say here. He stays pretty much out of the picture, lets us run the track. There isn’t unlimited money behind these tracks, we have to run them the right way and have to show a profit like any other legitimate business,” Lance explains.

Costs Have To Be Watched

A big driver of speculation surrounding the facilities has been the cancellation of events or even the decision to call an event due to the weather forecast. These decisions have all been made based on what’s going to help the track’s bottom line.

There’s a significant cost involved in simply opening a track for an event. Employees have to be paid, plus there are insurance expenses and other operational costs. While it may seem noble to try to fight Mother Nature, the cost of doing so doesn’t always make sense, especially when the forecast could hurt racer and fan turnout.

“If you’re running up and down the racetrack with whatever equipment you have to prep the track, you still have to pay for fuel. Right now, off-road diesel is still $4 a gallon, and this equipment uses a lot of it. Then, we need fuel for the side-by-sides, blower, and other equipment. It costs $1,000 to just pop the lights on, and doesn’t include the costs to keep them running. So, we always have to look at and think about how much we’re spending versus how much we’re bringing in,” Lance says.

Racers And Employees Are Still Getting Paid

As we talked with management at each track, one topic that came up several times was the alleged payment issues involving employees and racers.

The management team at Virginia Motorsports Park wanted to make one point extremely clear: they made things right with their racers in terms of payouts. There was a payment issue earlier in the season, but management stressed that the problem stemmed from the IHRA and not the track itself.

Rumors of the tracks not being able to quickly pay racers in cash were originally based around a structure that was created by the IHRA. According to Matcham, the tracks would have to request checks from the IHRA in advance to pay racers, and they had no issues getting those checks as long as they made the requests well in advance of an event.

The problem was that this process was very rigid and could delay racers getting paid. Additionally, all credit card transactions processed through the track’s point-of-sale system were deposited directly into an account that wasn’t controlled directly by the track.

To solve this issue for racers, Matcham moved to a cash-only policy at the gate.

“It got to the point where if I had to prorate a payment for a racer, there would be a problem using the checks. Somehow it got turned into that the tracks weren’t paying the racers. In reality, I was told that they couldn’t send the checks until the following week, and I would have to let racers know that. I’m not holding a race to tell racers they’re not getting paid today or at the end of the weekend when that’s never been the policy. The solution was to just take cash only at the gate so we could pay the racers right then.”

What’s important to emphasize here is that there was never an issue with paying the racers at the track. It was more about removing an administrative barrier to speed up the process. This decision was made with the racers in mind and to make sure they were paid immediately.

Now, there have been documented instances of contractors and vendors not being paid by the IHRA for work that was completed at national events. Matcham explained that’s not an issue at the tracks. In fact, all of her employees have been paid each week since Cuttell purchased the facility.

No Plans To Close Anytime Soon

You can tell when talking with employees and management at each facility that the weight of the rumors is starting to take its toll. These people are working hard to keep each track open, and the unfounded rumors aren’t helping.

“We are here for the racers,” Matcham says. “The only thing that’s really impacting us in regards to the IHRA situation is people are afraid. That’s impacting our car counts, and it’s causing confusion for our spectators. We are paying our racers, we’re paying our employees, and we’re trying to put on the best events we can, because that’s what we do.”

According to Matcham and Lance, they plan on running the full advertised schedule for Darana Dragway  West Salem. This includes playing host to the IHRA Sportsman Series Team Finals later in September. They’re also already looking ahead and working on building a 2027 schedule.

There’s no doubt the entire IHRA situation has been difficult for the drag racing community to navigate. One thing is clear: if racers and fans want these facilities to remain open, they must ignore the rumors and show their support for these tracks.