The board of directors for Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) has named O. Bruton Smith as executive chairman and Marcus G. Smith as chief executive officer in a realignment of executive officials.

O. Bruton Smith, who has served as chairman and chief executive officer since Speedway Motorsports, Inc.’s initial public offering in 1995, will report directly to the board of directors, working closely with the board and the chief executive officer to engage in the overall leadership and strategic direction of the company, guide senior management, coordinate activities of the board and communicate with the company’s key stakeholders.

In an expanded role, Marcus G. Smith, who has served as Speedway Motorsports, Inc.’s president and chief operating officer since 2008, will work closely with the executive chairman to manage day-to-day operations of the company, provide overall leadership and strategic direction and communicate with key stakeholders. Smith will maintain his roles and titles of president of Speedway Motorsports, Inc. and president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, positions he has held since 2008.

The realignment, approved Wednesday by the Speedway Motorsports, Inc. board of directors, is effective immediately.

IMCA Xtreme Motor Sports Modifieds make a return this season to Oklahoma’s Tri-State Speedway.

The division will be joined by IMCA Sunoco Stock Cars and IMCA SportMods on Saturday shows at the Pocola venue, now owned and promoted by Carey Menasco.

“I’m a fan of IMCA and when my wife Nicole and I purchased this track we converted it back to that sanction,” said Menasco, formerly the promoter at Outlaw Motorsports Park. “There’s already been a lot of inter­est in what we’ve been doing out here. If we can get half the people who drive by on the weekend to see what’s going on to come to the races, we’ll be doing all right.”

Former IMCA national champion William Gould has lent his expertise—and turned some laps—on the 3/8-mile oval. The racing surface was shortened and 350 truckloads of clay added in the process of reconfiguring the corners and banking.

Fans will get their first chance to try out new concession stands and grandstand seating when Tri-State opens with the 36th annual Cecil Harlan Memorial Kegger on March 26-28.

First local track points will be awarded April 4. Modified points earned at Pocola figure toward IMCA’s Jet Racing Central Region standings while Stock Car points apply in the EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region.

“We had a factory class that was fairly close to the IMCA Stock Car division. So many people called to say they wanted to race here for IMCA national, regional and state points that I decided to sanction that class a year sooner than I originally planned to,” explained Menasco.

SportMods also make their debut at Pocola this season. IMCA Modifieds ran there from 1988-2001.

The Richard Petty Driving Experience and the Exotic Driving Experience at Walt Disney World will close in late June to make way for transportation improvements.

"Disney has other uses for the property, and they have the right to do that, and we respect that," said Bill Scott, executive vice president of attractions operator Petty Holdings LLC. "It's not without some sadness that we leave Walt Disney World Speedway. We had a great home here."

Disney would not provide details on what transportation projects would require the speedway's closure. The speedway lies south of the Magic Kingdom parking lot and west of World Drive.

Petty Holdings informed employees Wednesday afternoon about the closure. It has about 70 people working at the speedway, including instructors, photographers and people who check in visitors. About half are permanent employees and 12 are full-time, Scott said. The other half work during special events. Some will have the opportunity to transfer to Daytona International Speedway, which also has the Richard Petty Driving Experience, Scott said. Disney said it will also try to find workers jobs elsewhere in the resort.

The Richard Petty Driving Experience, where fans can drive NASCAR cars or ride shotgun at speeds up to 165 mph, opened in 1997. Four years ago, Petty Holdings introduced the exotic-car experience, where people can drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches. The driving packages start at $99 and go past $2,500 for a 50-lap experience with an in-car video.

Scott said it would be difficult to find a spot for a new traditional speedway, but Petty Holdings wants to open a road course for another exotic-car attraction in Orlando.


"Frankly, that's become much more popular," he said.

The target date for closure is June 28.

NHRA has confirmed that the intense racing of the NHRA Factory Stock Showdown is returning for the 2015 season at NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events across the country.

The NHRA Factory Stock Showdown was designed to showcase the NHRA Ford Mustang Cobra Jet, Dodger Mopar Challenger Drag Pak and the Chevrolet COPO Camaro.

The four year old program will kick off at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Auto Plus Raceway at Gainesville, Florida, March 12-15, and the second event will take place at the Toyota NHRA Summernationals at Englishtown, New Jersey. The third race in the program will be at the birthplace of the event, the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis, Labor Day weekend, September 2-7, and the season will conclude at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, October 29-November 1.

The competition includes entries from two Stock Eliminator classes with each class running as a separate category within Stock Class Eliminations, and a winner being crowned in each.

The two winners will then square off for the NHRA Factory Stock Showdown championship using a staggered start. Each of the two class winners will receive the NHRA class Wally trophy with the run-off winner being crowned the NHRA Factory Stock Showdown champion.

Past winners of the NHRA Factory Stock Showdown include Chris Holbrook, David Barton and Bo Butner.

During the press conference presenting the Le Mans 24 Hours and the FIA World Endurance Championship on February 5 in Paris, President Pierre Fillon announced the 2015 Asian Le Mans Series calendar.



It will consist of three races held in three different countries and the first two will be curtain-raisers to world endurance championship events: October 10 on the Fuji Speedway (Japan), October 31 on the Shanghai International circuit (China), and December 20 on the Sepang International circuit (Malaysia).



This calendar concentrated mainly in the coming autumn prefigures a fuller 2016 season, which should include a minimum of five rounds.



A wider range of car categories will be accepted in 2015 as the new LM P3s will join the LM P2s, CNs and GTs. 



Invitations for the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours will be awarded to the winner in LM P2, the winner in LM P3 (provided that at least three LM P3s race in the 2015 championship) and one or two GTs depending on the number of LM P3s entered.



Thanks to their results in 2014, the OAK Racing Team Total and the AAI team were awarded one and two invitations respectively for the 83rd Le Mans 24 Hours on June 13–14, 2015.



Since December 7, 2014, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest has taken over the organization of the Asian series of endurance races. The Top Speed Company run by Davide De Gobbi based in Shanghai since 2005 will look after the logistics and the operations side of the events.


IRG Sports + Entertainment and the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) announced SCE Gaskets, Inc. as the Official Gaskets of the IHRA.

"We are proud to welcome SCE Gaskets, Inc. as an official partner of the IHRA," said IHRA President Scott Gardner. "We are looking forward to a long and mutually-beneficial relationship with this dynamic and innovative partner, our Official Gaskets of IHRA sponsor."

"We've been keeping a close eye on the direction IHRA's new management is taking and we like what we see," said Ryan Hunter, President of SCE Gaskets. "SCE Gaskets is pleased to be a part of supporting grassroots drag racing. These are our customers, and we're going 'all in' with IHRA!"

Hunter added, "We're posting nearly $60,000 in cash contingency awards for the IHRA Nitro Jam and Summit Pro-Am Tour, as well as the Summit Team Finals. We also plan on supporting the racers through SCE's dealer network, which will be augmented by factory personnel."

Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, SCE Gaskets began as an outgrowth of founder Ryan Hunter's own racing involvement. Beginning with copper head gaskets for drag racing, the company's 360-page master catalog now boasts over 10,000 gasket part numbers for stock replacement kits to street performance and hardcore racing.

SCE Gaskets enjoys distribution partnerships with premier sellers such as Summit Racing and Good Vibrations along with hundreds of others. Operating from two manufacturing plants, in California and Iowa, SCE Gaskets are US made.

The next IHRA Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series event will be held March 13–14 at State Capitol Raceway in Port Allen, Louisiana. The IHRA Nitro Jam Mardi Gras Nationals will feature AMSOIL Nitro Funny Car presented by Aeromotive, U.S. Bounty Hunters Pro Stock, Nitro Harley-Davidson and Jet Dragster competition.

For more information, please contact the IHRA at (419) 663-6666 or visit www.IHRA.com.

Bringing “Wisconsin’s Fastest Half Mile” into the Home Tracks family, NASCAR announced that Madison International Speedway has joined the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series for the 2015 season.

The half-mile, high-banked oval, which also has a quarter-mile track in the infield, is located less than 20 minutes outside of Madison (Wisconsin). Originally built as a quarter-mile dirt track, Madison was redesigned and paved in 1969. With the new partnership, Madison becomes the third NASCAR-sanctioned weekly track in Wisconsin joining LaCrosse and Cedar Lake Speedways.

“We are pleased to welcome Madison International Speedway to the NASCAR family,” said George Silbermann, NASCAR’s vice president for regional and touring series. “Madison is a fantastic facility with a rich history of stock car racing in Wisconsin that features great competition every Friday night and we welcome the opportunity to bring weekly NASCAR racing to its dedicated fans.”

Established in 1982, the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series is NASCAR’s national championship program for weekly short track auto racing. Competitors at more than 50 paved and dirt tracks throughout North America vie for track, state and province, and overall series championships in Divisions I-V.

“We are excited and ready to be a part of the NASCAR family,” said MIS owner Gregg McKarns. “While I am new to Madison, I have worked with the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series before at other tracks in the Midwest. The program NASCAR offers to short tracks is good for the competitors, fans and the community.”

Madison’s first night of NASCAR-sanctioned competition will be Friday, May 15. Late Models are the feature division at Madison, and will be designated NASCAR Division I. The Sportsman will compete as Division II and Bandits in Division III.

Connecticut-based Whelen Engineering is the series’ title sponsor. Whelen Engineering is a leading manufacturer of automotive, aviation, industrial and emergency vehicle lighting. NASCAR tracks and pace cars across North America and Europe are among the many showcases for Whelen products.

For more information on Madison International Speedway, please visit its newly updated website at: www.misracing.com.

Officials from the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) and FOX Sports announced a new multi-year broadcast rights agreement for the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards, under which racing events will be televised on FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2 during the 2015-2017 racing seasons.
 
Ten races will be telecast on either FOX Sports 1 or FOX Sports 2 in 2015, the first of the three-year agreement. FOX Sports 1 waves the green flag on the 63rd season of ARCA Racing Series competition with the traditional season opener, the 52nd Lucas Oil 200 presented by AutoZone, at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, February 14. In addition to Daytona, races from Talladega Superspeedway on May 1; Pocono Raceway on June 6; Iowa Speedway July 17; Lucas Oil Raceway July 24 and Kentucky Speedway September 25 will also air on FOX Sports 1.
 
Both Pocono events (June 6 and August 1), plus the races from Michigan International Speedway on June 12; Chicagoland Speedway June 20; and Kansas Speedway October 16 will air on FOX Sports 2, with a re-air scheduled for each on FOX Sports 1. All races included in the deal also will air on FOX Sports GO, the app that delivers streaming video of FOX Sports content.
 
"FOX Sports continues its long-term commitment to motor sports, securing a multi-year deal with the ARCA Racing Series," said Patrick Crakes, SVP Programming, Research and Content Strategy for FOX Sports. "FOX Sports and ARCA have a long history together, and we are happy to extend that significant relationship with this new contract."
 
According to Nielsen Media Research, FOX Sports 1 is currently available in 85.2 million homes, while FOX Sports 2 is rapidly growing and now available in nearly 50 million US Households.
 
The 2014 season marked ARCA's first full year on FOX Sports. NewsCorp, the parent company of FOX Broadcasting Company, rebranded SPEED in September, 2013. ARCA's relationship with the FOX Sports family of networks reaches back to April 20, 1997, when Speedvision covered the ARCA Racing Series race at Salem Speedway. Cumulatively, Speedvision, Speed Channel, SPEED and FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2 have telecast 218 races encompassing 18 consecutive years of covering the ARCA Racing Series.
 
"ARCA has a well-established history of investing in long-term relationships, and that certainly holds true in the case of our television network partnership," said ARCA President Ron Drager. "We're very pleased that FOX Sports will continue to be the television home for the ARCA Series, a relationship that traces its inception back nearly 20 years. As we build our plan for the future of the series, we're especially enthused to make this major, multi-year announcement. This mutual commitment between ARCA and FOX provides our series the highest quality television platform available to deliver a tremendous value for viewers, race teams and sponsors."
 
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards features 20 events at 18 tracks on its 2015 schedule. The series has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 racetracks in 28 states since its inception. The series tests the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, annually visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as left- and right-turn road courses.

Penske Racing Shocks has joined the growing list of PDRA contingency sponsors for the quickly-approaching 2015 season.

Penske Racing Shocks has been a manufacturer of high-end suspension components for the drag racing industry for several years through its Precision Racing Suspension division.

Penske Racing Shocks Drag Racing Representative, Shane Sweigart, stated, “We are happy to be partnering with Precision Racing Suspension as a contingency sponsor of the PDRA. Penske Racing Shocks or Precision Racing Suspension will have representatives present at all events to assist with sales and technical inquiries. Together, we will be able to bring PDRA racers the best possible suspension components and technical support available.”

Racers in the Professional Drag Racers Association rely on the highest quality parts to achieve speeds of over 220 mph in just 3.5 seconds and 660 feet of track. Penske will be posting contingency in every professional category of the PDRA, as well as Top Sportsman and Top Dragster.

“The PDRA is extremely happy to announce that Penske Racing Shocks has joined us as a new marketing partner this season,” relayed the PDRA’s Mike Congdon. “Penske’s wide range of parts, custom components, and technical support will be a huge benefit to our racers since handling is such an important part of making these high-horsepower machines go down the track.”

The Professional Drag Racers Association Series will begin on March 19, 2015, at the Texas Motorplex in Dallas, Texas.

After a year hiatus, officials with the National Championship Racing Ass’n presented by Precise Racing Products have announced they will sanction the mod-lite division for the 2015 race season.

Currently, nine events have been scheduled with six shows being held at 81 Speedway in Park City, Kansas, and three shows on the quarter-mile makeshift oval at the Bellville High Banks Speedway in Belleville, Kansas.

The mod-lites last ran under the NCRA banner in 2013 and saw Justin Kinderknecht pick up the inaugural championship.

2015 NCRA Mod-Lite Series Schedule

Date – Venue – Location

May 30 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.

June 18 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.

June 20 – Belleville High Banks – Belleville, Kan.

June 28 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.

July 4 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.

July 5 – Belleville High Banks – Belleville, Kan.

Sept. 5 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.

Sept. 6 – Belleville High Banks – Belleville, Kan.

Oct. 17 – 81 Speedway – Park City, Kan.