Denny Hamlin expresses interest in home track but not ready to make proposal
FORT WORTH, Texas. — Denny Hamlin says he has interest in owning the track that he raced at as a teenager, but indicated that he’s not close to purchasing the Virginia facility.
Chesterfield County announced this week that it has issued a Request for Proposals on Southside Speedway at the direction of the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors and interest in the facility.
MORE: Kyle Busch says it is “fun” to watch Denny Hamlin in villain role
Hamlin, who is from Chesterfield, Virginia, went to races there as a child and later competed at the .333-mile track near Richmond. The Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown was held at the track from 2008-10.
The county stated in a Sept. 18 release that it is “looking for a plan that not only returns racing to the site but also provides additional public entertainment space for other uses.”
Hamlin said he met with officials in regards to the track but that was a while ago.
“My interest would be to own it,” Hamlin said when asked Saturday by NBC Sports about his interest in the track. “I would love to run it, but I would love to run something that I owned. We would have to work around that for sure. The county does own it, but if I’m going to put a bunch of time and effort and all that, I would like to have some stake in the facility.”
There is an Oct. 11 deadline to submit a proposal for the facility.
Asked if he planned to file a proposal, Hamlin said: “I don’t. I think the next thing for us would be to follow back up with the county. I basically said to them, ‘We need ‘X’ amount of money to redo this track, really upgrade the facilities, make it super nice.' I know Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. said ‘Listen, you do it, I’ll bring the Cars Tour there twice a year.’ There’s a lot of opportunity and certainly that’s something the county or the state would really see interest from.”
Southside Speedway opened in 1959 and closed after the 2020 season.
In 2022, the county hired a motorsports track consultant to examine the work needed for the facility.
Martyn Thake, president of Motorsports Consulting Services examined the track for the county. In the minutes from the Nov. 16, 2022, Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors meeting, “he stated the entire facility needs significant repair and/or replacement to create a speedway with the safety elements needed.”
He also stated in the meeting that track surface was "deteriorating." He said the fencing would need to be replaced. Buildings would need to be replaced. He estimated in that meeting that it could cost $10-15 million to rebuild the facility.
Chesterfield County purchased Southside Speedway for $4.5 million July 2021. The sale was a 47.1-acre tract of land that included the track. The County’s Request for Proposal is for a 14.8-acre tract of land that includes the speedway.
