Suburbs

Well, that plan for the Memphis Motorsports Park sure fell apart like a blown engine entering the first turn of the racetrack.

Fact is, the hopes never even made it to the starting line.

Reporter Michael Waddell, who has covered the celebrated resurrection of the racing venue south of Millington, told the tale this week of how the high hopes and dreams announced for the drag strip in January crashed and burned when it was put on the auction block this week.

To be clear, the local venue was not the only one to suffer such a fate. A dozen racing sites owned by the International Hot Rod Association and Darana Motorsports Holdings were put on the auction block.

The latest news about the Motorsports Park is a far cry from the pomp and circumstances that accompanied a December 2025 announcement from Darana and its CEO Darryl Cuttell, who bought the IHRA in 2024. With the purchase of the local track, the idea was to clean it up, invest in a $60 million transformation and hold major drag races this month.

Big-title event called the 2026 IHRA World Finals on Oct. 22-24.

The first key that things were off track was when Waddell went to the site in April and realized little, if any, work had been done.

With six months until the highlighted races announced with the purchase of the racing facility.

Then came the announcement that, well, things weren’t going to be quite ready on schedule. So they were pushing the opening to 2027.

The lack of progress and the delayed opening finally culminated in this week’s announcement that the renovation not only wasn’t happening, it was going to be done by someone other than Darana.

If done at all.

That becomes the real question, doesn’t it? The track has sat idle for years. The buildings are in terrible shape. The weeds have grown high and overtaken key areas, and the buildings’ broken windows are an indication that it will take a lot of work to get everything in order.

The sad part to all this is the announcement last December that Darana and Darryl Cuttell were going to resurrect the property. Make it viable again. All these visions of grandeur.

And whether because of some financial issues between Cuttell/Darana and Elon Musk are to blame or the work to bring the racetrack back to life was too much to handle, one thing is clear: Memphis Motorsports Park is still sitting empty and looking worse every day. - Suburbs editor Clay Bailey

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