SMI Officials Non-Committal On Closing Kentucky Speedway Deal

By Michael Smith, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) officials were non-committal about closing the deal to buy Kentucky Speedway this morning during the company's Q2 earnings report. SMI Vice Chair & CFO Bill Brooks said that SMI's due diligence is ongoing. "I can't say definitively if we'd go forward with the transaction. ... We don't have an answer about how we'll proceed," Brooks said, mostly because the track was not given a NASCAR Sprint Cup date on the '09 schedule. SMI also is considering moving an existing Cup date from one of its tracks to Kentucky Speedway. Ever since the purchase was announced in May, SMI Chair & CEO Bruton Smith has been adamant that the deal will close. A decision by SMI is expected by August 18 when its 90-day due diligence period expires. SMI bought Kentucky Speedway for $15M in cash and by assuming $63M of its debt.