Apparently, the rejuvenated IHRA’s statement issued last Friday on the acquisition of seven facilities was based on a matter of interpretation. The IHRA’s statement was titled, “IHRA and Owner Darryl Cuttell Announce Groundbreaking Acquisition of Seven Premier Drag Racing Tracks.”
The acquisitions, the statement read, were made on agreements in principle. That’s the IHRA’s stance, and they are sticking to it, regardless of the conflicting reports circulating on social media.
The tracks listed in the announcement included National Trail Raceway (OH), Maryland International Raceway (MD), Milan Dragway (MI), Dragway 42 (OH), Darlington Dragway (SC), Galot Motorsports Park (NC)
and Kil-Kare Raceway (OH).
“The truth of the matter is there are agreements in place with everyone, all the various tracks listed or that were released last week,” Christian Byrd, CEO of IHRA confirmed to CompetitionPlus.com. “But like anything we’re undertaking, as with the acquisition of tracks, the sanctioning body and other motorsports properties, a lot of due diligence and for lack of a better term, we are trying to cram two years of work into two months.”
On Tuesday morning, Maryland International Raceway issued a statement via its Facebook Page, and this is what brought forth the rumors of tracks not being acquired.
Maryland International Raceway’s Facebook page offered, “In response to a post from IHRA on Friday, March 7, 2025 that Maryland International Raceway was being acquired by IHRA, MIR would like to make it clear that the track is not being acquired by IHRA. The inclusion of MIR as one of the multiple racetracks being acquired by IHRA was an error. MIR was not made aware of the content of the post until after it had been released. To reiterate, MIR is not selling the track to IHRA. MIR has requested that IHRA clarify its post to remove MIR as one of the listed racetracks being acquired by IHRA.”
Byrd clarified, “Everything is under contract and letter of intent, and there are some details that need to be finalized with due diligence. We haven’t been to some of the racetracks and did an inventory of what we purchased. That’s the best word.”
The IHRA President’s Cup Nationals at Maryland International Raceway is expected to be still part of the IHRA’s aggressive return to national event drag racing.
Byrd said the investigative process of the purchases has revealed pending lawsuits, property agreements, and other details that have cropped up along the way.
“Sometimes when you do discovery in the legal part of it, you can have a letter of intent in place, but you’re going to find things that basically allow us to walk away from the deal,” Byrd said. “So we haven’t [totally] bought everything we’ve looked at, I guess is the best way to put it.”
Byrd asked if it was premature for on the IHRA’s behalf to announce acquisitions before delivering the complete due diligence.
“We felt that we had agreed in principle to everything that we announced last week,” Byrd said. “And, principle is the key word. A handshake agreement should go a long way still in this world.”
In general propery sales, the a real estate purchase process can take up to 30 – 60 days to complete all the paperwork. Once this agreement is finalized, the transfer of funds usually takes days.
“The agreements can be up to 50, 60 pages long, and there’s a lot of detail that has to be worked through with lawyers and the business side of these properties, and we’re continuing to work on everything that we announced,” Byrd confirmed. “There’s no change in the vision of IHRA moving forward, and we’ll continue to purchase more properties and add more to the schedule for 2026 and beyond.”
