By John Rogers
With almost three years of legal wrangling out of the way, Tooele County officials have put the Utah Motorsports Campus (UMC) back on the market. The facility is an auto, motorcycle, bicycle and kart racing facility that sits on 511 acres in the unincorporated rural Erda area just outside of Tooele. According to the county’s sale announcement, parts of the installation — such as the Lucas Oil Grandstands are excluded from the offering.
In early summer 2015, the Larry H. Miller Group — which built and operated what was originally known as Miller Motorsports Park — announced that it would not be renewing its lease on the tract owned by Tooele County on which the $200 million installation sits. The move effectively transferred ownership of the racing facility and all of its infrastructure to Tooele County.
Tooele County had no interest in running the park but recognized its economic value to the area. The county immediately asked for proposals from potential buyers to own and continue operating the track as a motorsports facility. In August 2015, the county announced that it had reached an agreement with Mitime Investment & Development Group to sell the park for $20 million. Mitime is a subsidiary of the Geely Group of Companies, which is the largest independent automobile manufacturer in China and also owns Volvo and several Chinese racetracks. Mitime said it planned to continue and expand motorsports operations at the racetrack, use it to train personnel in track operations and motorsports engineering and as a base to build racing vehicles. Mitime also pledged to promote Utah as a tourism destination to the Chinese. Mitime estimated that its planned $270 million investment in Utah Motorsports Campus would bring $1 billion in economic impact to Utah over 25 years.
Then along came Andrew Cartwright and his Center Point Management. Cartwright immediately sued to stop the sale on the grounds that Tooele County accepted a lower bid from Mitime instead of Center Point’s higher bid. Cartwright’s suit claimed the action was a violation of Tooele County ordinances and Utah state law. In December 2016, 3rd District Judge Robert Adkins agreed with Center Point and blocked the sale.
Center Point, a Wyoming-based real estate development company, said at the time that it planned to invest about $140 million to keep the track in operation while constructing condos, homes and an office building at the site.
With the sale to Mitime in limbo because of the lawsuit, Tooele County hired a newly formed subsidiary of Mitime, Utah Motorsports Campus Inc., to operate the park in order to preserve its value until the litigation ended and it could be sold. The county also tried other ways to sell the facility but was blocked by additional legal challenges from Center Point. Media reports indicated that as many as 300 briefs were filed by the parties to the action between its initial filing and its settlement.
Utah Motorsports Campus Inc. ran the track in 2016 and 2017, spending millions of its own money to do so. In January, Mitime announced that it was withdrawing from negotiations to buy Utah Motorsports Campus, citing the unexpected legal challenges the company had faced. Earlier this year, Tooele County announced it had reached agreement with Mitime to continue its management agreement through December and published a 2018 slate of events.
In December, Tooele County announced a settlement of the ongoing litigation with Center Point. The 15-month legal battle ended with the county agreeing to a $1.55 million payout to Cartwright and his company. Under terms of the agreement, Center Point Management received half of the settlement in cash when it was successful in getting the lawsuit dismissed and will get the other half when Tooele County sells the campus. As part of the settlement, Cartwright and Center Point promised not to interfere in any future sale of UMC.
The recent posting of UMC for sale apparently signals that terms of December’s agreement have been met and that the county is free to proceed with disposing of the facility. There is no indication that Mitime will re-enter the process of purchasing UMC.
A release from Tooele County said, “The sale of Utah Motorsports Campus represents a commitment by the commissioners to ensure its proper management and long-term viability to the economic development of Tooele County.”
County Commissioner Shawn Milne said, “We are proud to be home to a world-class race track and event facility. We believe the track will be best managed and will have the most impact for Tooele County and the State of Utah under the ownership and direction of an experienced facility operator. We need to continue bringing international, regional and local events to Tooele. As the seventh-fastest growing county in the United States, the track represents the demand and success of development here.”
Tooele County has set July 2 as the deadline for accepting offers. The complete bid package and contact information is available on the Tooele County website, www.tooeleco.org.