New Cayuga County Fair Speedway Closes Gates

 By: Adam Ross (Dirt Track Digest.com)
JULY 19, 2011 – The New Cayuga County Fair Speedway (NCCFS) is temporarily closed for business – that’s one thing both sides agree on. The closure might be the only thing both operator Eric Kingsley and lease-holder World Racing Group (WRG) agree on.
WRG announced this week that Kingsley breached his contract, and he would no longer operate the NCCFS. The announcement came shortly after Kingsley announced he was severing ties with WRG and walking away from the facility.
Kingsley and WRG President Tom Deery began talks in November of last year for Kingsley to operate the Weedsport, New York, NCCFS in 2011. WRG holds the lease to the facility, and Kingsley took on the challenge of running the track.
The new project was problematic from the start. Mother Nature wreaked havoc early in the year and a dispute with the county over a monstrous water bill sparked rumors that things weren’t good between Kinglsey and WRG.
While things seemed to be on the rebound, a situation developed when Kingsley opened the rules for his Sportsman division to allow American Racer tires among other non-DIRTcar conforming items. The move was made to boost dwindling car counts. The result was DIRTcar owner WRG taking action.
“From my end the issue is the introduction of American Racer tires in the sportsman division,” said World Racing Group (WRG) President Tom Deery. “That was my breaking point. He breached his contract with us when he introduced different rules for a DIRTcar division.”
Kingsley sees things differently.
“Tom Deery called me and left me a message and said that I backed him into a corner,” said Kingsley. “He has a personal problem with American Racer tires, and he should keep it personal instead of in the business.
“I have nothing against the Hoosier Tire. They’re a great tire. It’s just that we wanted more cars. I was only going to do it for one week just to see if it (weak car counts) was me, if it was the track, or if it was the tires. Our car count doubled. According to Deery he said I was going to do that all along. Totally untrue.”
While some DIRTcar sanctioned tracks run DIRTcar divisions with different rule packages, Deery explains that it’s not acceptable for the flagship speedway in Weedsport.
“We have a lot of spec parts in our DIRTcar divisions,” said Deery. “It’s important that we maintain the integrity for all drivers who support our tracks and series. Certainly at the facilities we own it’s important for us to keep our branding and use our rules.”
Kingsley has a different explanation of where things went wrong.
“He (Deery) said I am not going to sanction them running those tires,” said Kingsley. “That was great news to me. Now he’s telling me I can’t even run the race track if those tires are there.
“I’m telling him the street stock class runs them. Why is that not a problem? What am I supposed to do? I’m not going back to where I was at. I said see ya.”
Kingsley has removed his equipment and product from the speedway, and DIRTcar is preparing to look at options moving forward.
“DIRTcar didn’t change anything or do anything,” said Deery. “We supported Eric in ways people will never know. Everything that has happened is a result of what Eric has done. I won’t say Weedsport is done, but it’s shut down temporarily. We’ll take a cooling off period, and we’ll go from there.”
Kingsley is disappointed that things have derailed after recent progress was made.
“When I announced it (the rule change) all of a sudden they said you are no longer dirt sanctioned sportsman,” said Kingsley. “To me that means do whatever you want to do. If you don’t have cars you definitely aren’t going to have the people. I’m not going to deal with people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
Deery maintains the time for change is during the off-season when rules meetings take place regardless of car counts.
“We have a process in place for rules changes, and the changes are implemented in December not July,” said Deery.
To Kingsley the issue is much simpler, and it seems personal.
“We proved them wrong,” he said. “That’s the biggest problem right there. They told me we wouldn’t gain any cars, and we did. I just want cars.
“The reason they leased that track is because they didn’t know what they were doing. We go in there and work our asses off and we got the place back. I’ve forgotten more about promoting than he knows.”
World Racing Group plans to keep its focus on the future. With big events scheduled for Labor Day and Super DIRT Week, Deery made it clear that the specials would remain unchanged.
“I’ve talked to two promoters already that would operate the Labor Day and Super DIRT Week specials at the very least,” said Deery. “Those events are safe.
“There are several options we will look at in the near future, but at a minimum the specials will be run as scheduled.”
In the meantime the gates to the New Cayuga County Fair Speedway are closed, but for how long?