Scott Woodruff doesn’t have a title on the nascent Worldwide Scorching Rod Affiliation but when it’s a must to name him one thing, ‘Woody’ in all probability wouldn’t balk at ‘director of enjoyable’ as a result of that’s typically what Darryl Cuttell has requested him to do.
For over 20 years, he was the model and media supervisor at JEGS Efficiency however he most well-liked the ‘make stuff occur man’ title.
However, Cuttell has made fairly the splash within the North American Motorsports scene over the previous 13 months in buying the IHRA model after which increasing it to almost each aspect of the business with a dizzying variety of acquisitions.
He has bought practically a dozen drag strips and started selling an expanded nationwide tour with bigger payouts and elevated fanfare. IHRA has acquired a powerboat racing collection and launched a Late Mannequin tour set to start in April.
Learn extra: Every little thing it’s essential find out about IHRA Inventory Automobiles
As a part of the latter, IHRA bought dormant Pulaski County Motorsports Park in Virgina and Memphis Worldwide Speedway in Tennessee. Most not too long ago, it acquired Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina, which brings it into NASCAR’s orbit as they may host a second-year Easter weekend occasion for the O’Reilly Auto Components and Craftsman Truck Sequence.
Briefly, Woodruff says his job is ‘to make racing enjoyable once more’ throughout all of the divisions and properties Cuttell has began to build up like Infinity Stones.
“For lots of endeavors like this, funding is the massive challenge,” Woodruff instructed Motorsport.com on Thursday. “Funding will not be our challenge. It’s received to be the precise folks in the precise place. Proper now, we’re in the course of a giant two-day planning session and the questions we get to ask ourselves is ‘what would we wish as followers,’ or ‘what would we wish as rivals,’ or as companions.”
Funding, by the way in which, will not be a difficulty as a result of Cuttell is the CEO and president of Darana Hybrid — the electro-mechanical firm most well-known for doing contract work with xAI, SpaceX and Tesla.
His Inventory Automotive Sequence race director, Tim Horton, stated the acquisition spree is about Cuttell’s private legacy.
“He’s bought seven or eight drag strips now, repurposed them, and made deep investments into the infrastructure of the game,” Horton stated. “That is his ardour. He views it as an opportunity to determine a legacy. He’s completed very well along with his enterprise and that is his thought of enjoyable. He owns a number of drag automobiles, energy boats. He loves motorsport.”
So, Cuttell completely has deep pockets however there is also a pure skepticism that somebody that has amassed such a fortune would wish to spend it in an business that doesn’t traditionally have a excessive return on funding.
That’s very true of monitor possession and working regional touring divisions. Because the previous adage goes, to make a small fortune in motorsports, it’s a must to start with a big one and Cuttell actually has the latter.
At face worth, spending thousands and thousands of {dollars} on practically a dozen services and quite a few touring divisions appears to be like like a loss chief by definition.
“Yeah, it isn’t a loss chief,” Woodruff stated. “It is an funding. That is what it’s. In case you look again and also you say, ‘this is this man spending in areas that nobody actually desires to spend on,’ services and infrastructure and purses, no person desires to do this.
“We have got somebody that sees the facility in that, sees the variety of tracks with pedigree and historical past, they usually’re going away so let’s get again in and re-energize them.
“He says ‘let’s plug the battery again in and get it recharged.’ We’re constructing the infrastructure so we will go race. Let’s go exceed folks’s expectations, whether or not it is on the monitor or off the monitor, that is what our objective is.”
At first, Woodruff was a skeptic too.
Even upon his introduction to Cuttell, he needed to know what would occur if IHRA failed, simply to know what the plan could be as a matter of due diligence.
“One of many questions I requested him, one of many first, was what’s your exit technique or what’s your catastrophe plan,” Woodruff stated. “He stated, ‘I don’t have one,’ and I requested ‘what do you imply,’ and he stated he doesn’t fail.
“So, I stated, ‘alright, let’s do that,’ and right here we’re.”
Why purchase Rockingham?
“Our objective is to make use of every facility that we’ve in one of the best curiosity of the followers,” Woodruff stated. “And clearly, Rockingham, we might love nothing greater than to start out this long-term partnership with NASCAR, beginning this yr.
“Our objective is to work collectively. That’s simply how we function.”
That additionally means working with Monitor Enterprises and Bob Sargent, occasion promoters of the NASCAR weekend, who have been additionally making an attempt to buy the monitor from earlier proprietor Dan Lovenheim on the similar time.
Doesn’t that make the connection type of awkward?
“Properly, my final assembly was with Bob and he simply walked out of the door and appeared fairly glad,” Woodruff stated.
For his half, over textual content, Sargent agreed with the constructive sentiment.
Memphis Worldwide Speedway has a NASCAR nationwide touring historical past as nicely. It hosted what’s now the O’Reilly Sequence from 1999 to 2009 and the Truck Sequence from 1998 to 2009.
Woodruff conceded that NASCAR’s latest post-trial restructuring and the vacations has delayed their preliminary conversations however he’s trying ahead to attending to work with them in a wide range of capacities.
“We in all probability haven’t been excessive up on their precedence checklist this previous month,” Woodruff stated. “However I do know that we’ve received a gaggle that’s assembly with them within the subsequent week or two.
How has IHRA determined what to accumulate out of all of the choices on the market?
“Every scenario is completely different and has completely different pluses and minuses,” Woodruff stated. “We take a look at it as a gaggle after which we resolve ‘okay, on a scale of 1-10, how a lot do we wish do that? Is that this facility good or is it essential? That’s one other dialog too. We’re making an attempt to be good stewards of the game and a few of these tracks, we may have walked away and never bought them, however numerous them are crown jewels that simply want a bit of bit of affection.”
A skepticism of Cuttell from those that have interacted with him over his first yr as IHRA proprietor is that he’s only a free-spender with out a imaginative and prescient. Woodruff pushed again on that too.
“There’s completely a imaginative and prescient,” Woodruff stated. “When he first employed me, we have been in a side-by-side at Milan Drag Strip and we pulled up subsequent to this pond. Darryl says he desires to ‘eliminate these bushes’ and ‘put down some parking spots.’ He says he desires to put in plug-ins for motorhomes and water/sewage.
“He instantly instructed me how far he needed it to go and painted this detailed image. I let you know this as a result of he has a imaginative and prescient.
“Final yr was simply very reactionary. Now we have these occasions, they usually got here up on us quick, however now we’ve much more time to have it deliberate out for 2026. I feel that’s going to be an enormous profit for every little thing we’re doing.”
Full circle, working for Cuttell doesn’t imply assembly a backside line, both. So how is success outlined by the brand new IHRA?
“By smiles and glad folks,” Woodruff stated. “Everybody on workers at an IHRA occasion is sporting a blue shirt. Their job is to be there to assist and ensure that everyone seems to be having time.
“In case you stroll as much as somebody in a blue shirt, they’re going to have the ability to reply your query and show you how to out. They will be taken care of the way in which they’d wish to be taken care of. I do know it sounds fairly easy, however it’s, it’s actually that easy.”
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