Rinse and repeat

The Punta Gorda speedway in Charlotte County was a circular mess when Kevin Williams and Mike Chase took it over in summer 2010.

Just east of Interstate 75, the track was full of debris and trash. The occasional rotted-out boat and old camper dotted the grounds.

It took a few months, plus a few hundred thousand dollars, but business partners Williams and Chase eventually fixed up the track. They did it so well that the track, property of the Charlotte County Airport Authority, became a popular Saturday night destination. “It took a lot of work,” says Williams, “but we did it all.”

Now Williams and Chase are doing it all again. Only this time the risk is more tangible: The business partners recently became owners, not merely tenants, of the DeSoto Speedway in rural east Manatee County. That's where they will try to turn a $1.5 million investment into a viable, and profitable, business. They recently completed a $200,000 renovation project, and they renamed the track the Full Throttle Speedway.

“It's a real nice facility,” says Chase. “It just needed to be brought back to life.”

Williams and Chase left the Punta Gorda speedway at the end of March. Williams claims the landlord, the airport authority that oversees the Punta Gorda Airport, raised the rent from around $4,000 a month to more than $7,000 a month. Williams says that was too much to maintain even a small profit.

Punta Gorda Airport Executive Director Gary Quill says the Federal Aviation Administration, which provides grant money to the airport, requested the rent increase, an effort to bring it to “fair market value.” The speedway, which has been on airport land since the early 1990s, was scheduled to go up for another lease bid in late May, Quill says.

The dispute notwithstanding, Williams and Chase seized an opportunity to buy the DeSoto Speedway in April. Like the one in Punta Gorda, this track is in dire need of renovations and is also east of I-75. Williams and Chase paid $1.3 million for the track and 63 acres, all off State Road 64, about 30 miles east of downtown Bradenton.

The owners, both with sons who race cars, have other jobs outside the track. Williams owns Port Charlotte-based Southwest Florida Cable Construction Inc., a $2.5 million cable laying firm with 37 employees. Chase, who lives in Fort Lauderdale and has a house on Marco Island, runs an insurance business on the east coast and owns an auto parts company.

The renovations at Full Throttle Speedway, meanwhile, cover everything from $75,000 for new bleachers in the pits to new ice machines and an upgraded kitchen. The track reopened with a series of races in early May, and the schedule varies from entry-level circuits like bandolero and dwarf cars all the way to pro truck.

The owners dropped ticket prices, from $15 for general admission to $13, to draw more spectators. Kids under 5 get in free, and there's a discount for seniors, too.

While that might bring in more people, it will also slash margins. The speedway has a capacity to hold 7,500 people, though Williams says 1,000 customers every Saturday night would be a success. Even counting concessions, that's a lot of busy nights to make the business work.

Chase, further, says that since the track is only open one night a week, there is “no margin for error.” Adds Chase: “We don't anticipate this replacing our other businesses. But we love it.”