PBIR Swan Song? (1 Viewer)

Bob, this reminds me of when Lions closed. Of all the tracks I've been to that have closed, Lions hurt the most.
 
this is based on assumption that IRG+sports entertainment operates PBIR. i could not find a date or article on sale of PBIR to IRG.
here's an announcement from 10/2014 of IRG partnering with private investment firm in NYC to do a finance deal with cordova dragway.
the group already had PBIR in their portfolio.....see 2nd paragraph of article
next article: 'controversial redevelopment of PBIR'......portman holdings buys PBIR from 6th St. Lending. the same private investment firm that did deal with IRG back in '14 for cordova
and who already had control of PBIR.
article goes onto to say portman holdings will develop 4 warehouses...... my .02 guess is only 1 of them will be walmart.
this is not a walmart deal. this is a private investment firm in NYC who controls PBIR who sold out to atlanta based portman holdings
it would seem that perhaps 'walmart' name has been hung on this story, but they are not the direct cause of it?; although they could have certainly let it be known they are in
the market for a new distribution center in the area.
the land PBIR is on is not for one warehouse, but for multiple warehouses. the value of PBIR's 220 acres suddenly comes into focus.
all so they don't have to clear forest and bring in fill and infrastructure.
makes me want to puke.
 
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here's another IRG article from 2016 announcing various plans and partnerships.
rod campbell, john coletti, and chris lencheski are named in this article. can anyone comment on the successes or failures of these individuals?
again. this sale of PBIR just seems like it could have been avoided, but if someone or someones are piled up in debt, then it all makes sense.
 
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IRG is currently liquidating all of their drag strip assets. PBIR closing, Budds Creek and Cordova are both expected to complete their sales before the end of the year.
 
IRG is currently liquidating all of their drag strip assets. PBIR closing, Budds Creek and Cordova are both expected to complete their sales before the end of the year.
Did they sell Memphis too or is that also on the sales block?
 
thanks for info mike. they are selling them why? i can't imagine racers don't line up on weekends? too top heavy?
it's too bad someone else couldn't step in and save PBIR, but i imagine with the infrastructure in place on all that land, that portman holdings
probably can/could pay top dollar for the property. maybe way more than an interested track operator.
 
everyone remembers IRG's famous move, moving the world series of drag racing from cordova to memphis. that lasted all of one year.
 
IRG did a pretty good job of running off people from Cordova over the last several years. I can't comment on the actual track operations since I haven't run a real race there in awhile, though. At any rate, it's nice that the ownership is returning to local hands.
everyone remembers IRG's famous move, moving the world series of drag racing from cordova to memphis. that lasted all of one year.
That was a hilarious failure. The head of IRG at the time was not popular in the Quad Cities for non-racing reasons and pretty clearly had a vendetta against the area, so seeing that crash and burn was an excellent case of schadenfreude for a lot of people (myself included).
 
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IRG did a pretty good job of running off people from Cordova over the last several years. I can't comment on the actual track operations since I haven't run an actual race there in awhile, though. At any rate, it's nice that the ownership is returning to local hands.

That was a hilarious failure. The head of IRG at the time was not popular in the Quad Cities for non-racing reasons and pretty clearly had a vendetta against the area, so seeing that crash and burn was an excellent case of schadenfreude for a lot of people (myself included).
PBIR has also run racers off, they don't know how to run a drag race and a lot of the local racers tow to Bradenton or Orlando instead of running in their own back yard.
 
thanks for info mike. they are selling them why? i can't imagine racers don't line up on weekends? too top heavy?
it's too bad someone else couldn't step in and save PBIR, but i imagine with the infrastructure in place on all that land, that portman holdings
probably can/could pay top dollar for the property. maybe way more than an interested track operator.
IRG was originally owned by TPG capital when it was created in 2016. I don't know if that is still the case or not, but TPG has an investment portfolio with assets near $100 billion and I'm guessing they still are the ownership of IRG that they don't see the value in these assets and that's why they are liquidating them. I haven't heard anything about a change of ownership with Memphis, but I'm thinking it can probably be had for the right price if someone wants it. It sucks that PBIR is closing as I always enjoyed going there, but it is good to see that Cordova and Budds Creek will be in good hands with Cordova going to the Crownhart family (who have a great and long history in the area) and Budds Creek going back to Royce Miller, who was the previous owner before selling it to IRG and going to work for them. Both of the tracks have a loyal constituency of local racers that I hope will be willing to give new ownership a chance to prove themselves capable. A lot of the problems that Cordova has run into in the last few years I don't think can be pinned solely on the track operations staff because I don't believe they were given adequate resources to run the track at the level the racers were accustomed to.
 
private investment firm and drag strip really don't belong in the same sentence......ever. i think the owner before IRG was scott gardner who really had
that track running well ....... wonder if they will become nhra div. 3 track again?
 
private investment firm and drag strip really don't belong in the same sentence......ever. i think the owner before IRG was scott gardner who really had
that track running well ....... wonder if they will become nhra div. 3 track again?
I think Cordova's last stint with NHRA was Div. 5.
 
I think Cordova's last stint with NHRA was Div. 5.
It was. When Gardner owned it and switched over to NHRA, he also had Eddyville and Cedar Falls and wanted them all to be in the same division. Also, D5 was the only way Cordova was going to host a divisional because D3 had a full schedule already.

However, when it was NHRA before that, it was D3.
 
I read somewhere that the group that wanted to keep PBIR as a race track was outbid by a measly 5 million dollars. :mad:

Oh well, that 5 million will be made up by all the lawsuits of families of eventual street racing victims.
 
I read somewhere that the group that wanted to keep PBIR as a race track was outbid by a measly 5 million dollars. :mad:

Oh well, that 5 million will be made up by all the lawsuits of families of eventual street racing victims.
So you're saying that the victims will be able to sue the track because it closed down? Don't think that will happen.
 
So you're saying that the victims will be able to sue the track because it closed down? Don't think that will happen.

No, but the lawsuits that people will be placing against the ones that street race and cause fatalities will be more than the 5 million dollars that the group was willing to pony up to buy the track.

Even the county sheriff is worried that the closure of PBIR is going to lead to illegal street racing. The Beeline Hwy is about to become very dangerous.
 
No, but the lawsuits that people will be placing against the ones that street race and cause fatalities will be more than the 5 million dollars that the group was willing to pony up to buy the track.

Even the county sheriff is worried that the closure of PBIR is going to lead to illegal street racing. The Beeline Hwy is about to become very dangerous.
Hey Sam, you're fuckin' delusional, gloom & doom, you don't know what will happen...
 
Dang Bob, don't hold back. Who knows how the PBIR track closing will affect street racing in the West Palm area.

DragRaceResults.com lists North Carolina with 21 drag strips and they apparently still have street racing issues.
Our many time larger state of Florida only has 7 tracks and I'm guessing its not that much worse. I'm ONLY an hour from the nearest track and about two hours to the next closest ones. A few years back when my daily driver was a GT500, I was known to "test" the shifter a time or two while away from the track. (How long IS statute of limitations?)

It would be interesting if some Industrial Engineer or researcher/numbers cruncher pulled true statistics for areas within a 30 minute drive of a dragstrip and compared the data to areas with the same population density but without a dragstrip. But then, we might not like the results.
 
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