Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Adding a PS about buying a home a block as the crow flies from a noisy business.  It's hidden behind a tree line and behind a bank and body shop down a dirt driveway.  We often chastise people for buying homes near race tracks but rule 101 of sales whether it's used cars or whatever, don't volunteer information.  I would guess that a lot of them never knew a track was nearby until their first Saturday night in their new home.

I never complained about the noisy business near me but race tracks can be an easy target for neighbors.  My experience is that I could talk to everyone on my block and only one would know what a sprinter is.  He's got a Micro and non-wing car in his garage so that's how he knows.

Stan Meissner

While I've never been to husets (I'm only 35 miles from Knoxville), I would like to see them start racing there again - I think the upper midwest would again benefit from having 3 tracks working together. I'd like to think that a 3 track series would benefit everyone driver and fans (heck I'd even include the 360's).

As for sanctions (mufflers, curfew etc) probly not that far out of line. The Iowa State Fair Grounds (now not only closed - but removed) had to be done by 10:30PM every Friday night excelt during the State Fair. Knoxville is starting to recieve complains again the noise (they have off and on for several years), this years they seem to be getting thing done by 10:30. 

As far as Husets being located in the county as opposed being inside the City Limits - the city could always anexx it into the City or MAYBE the County could just take it over and run it like The Marion County Fair Board does Knoxville.

I've always wondered what would have happened if the owner had decided to work with Jackson and Knoxville. 

At least 3 shows at Knoxville this season were done by 9:30 and the USAC show ended at 10.

There is always a chance things can get worked out but the permit doesnt help sell the place. Who wants to consider paying half the price if the first thing you need to do is ask if you can run it as a race track. 

The auction date always seemed weird to me. What was the exact auction date? When did the permit expire? Do you think Chuck chose that date then backed out of the auction just to make it look like he was trying to be reasonable?

A sale with a pending stop work order makes the tracks value almost zero IMO. Of course you would want the permit before offering the price but it just complicates everything

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

I might as well chime in since I'm local. Getting a conditional use permit is not that hard. Essentially all it is is asking for a variance in the zoning laws. I've done it before and all you do is apply for it and then go before the zoning commission to let them know what your plans are for it. South Dakota is a very pro business state, I think it would get approved but most likely with mufflers and a curfew. As for the noise, I live on the east side of Sioux Falls about 7 miles away I would guess, and I can hear the races from my backyard pretty clearly. Mufflers and curfew would be reasonable to require. I know the president of the Brandon valley chamber of commerce and I know that they definitely want the track in town.

As for what else you could do with the land? Pasture land or you would be able to grow crops on it too. It only floods in the spring time and not even every year. If you think you could get it for $500 an acre you are so wrong it's not even funny. 

I don't know where Madsen thinks he could buy land for $500/acre but it isn't reality within a 100 miles of Huset's, west river SD maybe, maybe.

$3000/acre would be cheap for pasture in this area.    I'd write that check without batting an eye.

Realistically if it had to be sold as ag land, there is about 40-50 acre that could be row cropped.   That portion of the property would likely be valued at $7000+ per acre.   Figure on average for the whole works it would sell for $5000-6000/acre for crop ground/pasture use.

As a race fan, mufflers and a curfew would be a welcome requirement.    My ears don't need more damage and having some extra encouragement to keep the show moving is never a bad thing.

      No brainer. You'd just make an offer with a contingency attached, something like "We will buy this property for $1.98 contingient on obtaining a workable, long-term, conditional use permit".  You could even go one step further and require the seller to get the permit before the sale.

I really hate revisionist history.   While it is true, Chuck had a ton of people who hated the way he ran his track and what he did to sprint car racing in that part of the country,  he did not close the race track because of its performance.   In fact, the upcoming year before he closed it was looking to be its best.   Badlands/Jackson/Knoxvilole had worked out an agreement to quit stepping on each others big dollar shows.   Badlands had added USAC midgets to the USAC sprints weekend.  They had some other big events lined up for success.   More and more people were becoming interested in seeing the Badlands experience.   I know that I was looking at the USAC weekend for my big summer trip of the year.   Going to Hussets was never on my radar before it became Badlands.  However, he had made it a destination to visit. 

It was the legistation that the entire state passed in the election regarding high risk lending that drove Chuck out of the state.  It was not the performance of the track.    The way he handled the election, the way that he decided to leave the state, the pricing strategy of the racetracks are all open things that can be questioned.   Good grief, the amount of moeny he spent on investments on the track could be questioned.  Was that track ever going to break even?     However, please quit that the track Chuck ran was a disaster.   

     I hate revisionist history as well, but I disagree with you. From your post, it sounds like you never went there? If the racetrack was making a profit, no good businessman would have closed it. If the election ran him out of the state, he could have sold the business to someone else then and there. If it was as looking to be as good as you think it was, finding a buyer at a premium price should have been a slam-dunk.

I will agree with you that Chuck had the potential to do something great.  In fact he was doing great things like throwing out loads of money while hosting some shows that were free to the fans.  He took Knoxville head on and most nights (from what I remember) he did have more cars than Knoxville had.  Many people had a bad feeling about him from the start.  Me, personally, I had a bad feeling too.  But I had never heard of the guy by name.  I had heard of Dollar Loan Center but before Husets was purchased I had never heard the name Chuck Brennan.  However I subscribe to the "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."  However, since I didn't know the guy at all, I figured, lets see what he does, I had no reason to "think" that things could go as bad as they did.

For me and I'm guessing a lot of other people the question was why?  Why would a guy who admitted he never cared about Husets or the races that took place there before want to buy the place and throw a bunch of money at it?  My thought all along was he was hoping to buy your vote to keep allowing high interest rates.  Was this the case?  I don't know but it sure looks that way.  If he really cared about racing, or the people that cared about racing he wouldn't have closed the track after the vote passed.

For me, reading the stuff that he says is kind of funny.  You would think a guy in his position wouldn't care about the "armchair internet losers" or however he worded it in his auction listing.  He's a lot like (I am really hoping and trying not to turn this into a political debate with this) our president in that he can't take any criticism and will fire back at them only when they can't respond.  For both of them, you would think they have much more important things to do than worry about than what others think of them.

It's unfortunate you never saw Husets as a destination before Chuck bought it.  I have to tell you that Husets is the only track I've ever been to where I never once saw a bad or boring race.  I've watched youtube videos of Husets and they do it no justice.  Within 5-6 laps of the feature, the leader was in lapped traffic.  My biggest complaint about Husets was there was too much racing on the track and if I looked somewhere else, it was hard to find the leader again.  It was always fun leaving the races there because no matter who you were with always seemed to see something you had missed.

kooks 

Again idiot, $500 an acre for land that can ONLY BE USED FOR PASTURE LAND, NOTHING ELSE, PASTURE LAND ONLY.  I'm not talking about pasture land that could be farmed, the posters said the speedway property was good ONLY FOR PASTURE LAND--nothing else.  If it could be farmed, that's a different story.

You say you would "write that check without batting an eye" for $3000 an acre for land that can only be used for pasture land. You say that pasture land sells for above $3000 an acre.    You obviously don't know shit about farming.  Land in the primary part of the Red River Valley which any farmer knows in Cass county where Fargo sits is as according to the North Dakota Agriculture Dept was selling for a record $4,038 an acre as of 2017.  According to Dakota Farmer magazine, land values in the Cass county part of the Red River Valley averaged $4,480 an acre in 2017.  AND THATS SUPER EXPENSIVE BEET FARMING LAND that surrorunds the monster sugar plant north of Fargo that processes the beets.  And you kooks, (don't embarrass yourself) would not bat an eye for paying $3000 an acre for pasture land.  What the hell are you smoking?  Unless this land has oil wells on it, your cows must be selling for about $5,000 a cow, Sure as hell is not being used on Hardees or McDonald's hamburgers.  $3000 an acre for pasture land, I will certainly get a laugh from my farmer friends.  Beef or pork would have to sell for hundreds of dollars a pound to come out on that purchase price  

There are a few counties in ND that have very valuable farmland, deep black dirt and the entire counties are flat as a pancake.  This farmland, the best in ND, second only to the Red River Valley land, sells for $1100 an acre to possibly $2,000 an acre, and that is land that has not oil value, land is not being leased for possibly future oil finds.  Rocky land fit for onlly pasture land, or pasture land that is flood prone regularly sells for $300 to $500 an acre tops.  

If I could sell my ND farmland (durum, wheat, some sunflowers and flax), which is cash rented to a family friend, if I could sell it  for $3000 an acre, she'd all be gone tomorrow and I'd wish the sucker luck.  

don't know where Madsen thinks he could buy land for $500/acre but it isn't reality within a 100 miles of Huset's, west river SD maybe, maybe.

$3000/acre would be cheap for pasture in this area.    I'd write that check without batting an eye.

Realistically if it had to be sold as ag land, there is about 40-50 acre that could be row cropped.   That portion of the property would likely be valued at $7000+ per acre.   Figure on average for the whole works it would sell for $5000-6000/acre for crop ground/pasture use.

 Lawlessness and liberalism equals Hell.  NY City, 
Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Minnepolis, etc. We saw it. 
Burning hundreds of buildings, a thousand assaults and 
dozens of murders. Getting worser and worser.

So you think that this guy invested a ton of money in Husets to buy votes in an election?    If he wanted to buy votes this would be an extremely bad way to do it and largely a waste of money.    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a state election wasn't it?   If so, then he needed votes in his favor across the whole state.   Did the whole state attend the races at Badlands?    If anything, he had a vision of turning the whole operation into something bigger than it was and then selling it at a profit later.   He didn't get his way, so he took his toys and went home. 

With all due respect, the Red River Valley area of ND and Southeast SD are 2 completely different areas with different circumstances. From Husets if you drive 10 miles to the Iowa border it seems like they add a 1 in front of the land prices and its just a stones throw away. After doing some research, average pasture only ground in the Southeast SD area is between $3500 and $4500 an acre. Take that information however youd like. 

Bingo.

Crop land (tillable) in the NW corner of Iowa (its in the corner of Iowa that is less than 10 miles from Huset's) starts at basically $10,000 per acre and goes up depending on quality and size of the tract.  There has been lots of land sold in the $13,000-15,000 range.

Pasture land in the same area has been selling for $4000+

As for not knowing shit about farming, I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night but I have been filing a Sch F for the past 20 yrs.

Slight digression: The term "revisionist history" has been misused a lot in recent years & it bugs me. It doesn't mean CHANGING the facts, it means re-interpreting accepted facts, or discovering new ones. For example, its been proven that Columbus didn't "discover" America, Vikings beat him by 300 years or so (as well as Native Americans who knew it was here all along!)

From Wikipedia: "In historiography, the term historical revisionism identifies the re-interpretation of the historical record. It usually means challenging the orthodox views held by professional scholars about a historical event, or introducing new evidence, or of restating the motivations and decisions of the participant people. The revision of the historical record reflects the new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation, which produce a revised history. In dramatic cases, revisionism involves a reversal of older moral judgments about heroes and villains."

Please accept my apology for my ignorance now but what is the Holiday Inn joke? I AM CANADIAN and i spend a lot more time watching TSN than CNN. 

To stay on topic i watched Chuck's press conference from when he bought the track. Seemed like some good and ambitious intentions but also seemed a bit rough. I guess that was his public side. Too bad. Beautiful race track.

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Outside of a couple Outlaw races and a few attempts at establishing big shows in it's most recent incarnation we're there any other big races.  By big races I mean multi day shows such as this weekend's modified $40k to win Masters at Cedar Lake this weekend or their $50k to win USA Nationals Late model race in August or their Legendary 100 multi day event in September.  That's where the money is, big multi day events with paid camping on the grounds.  CLS also has a 2 day WoO show and a 2 day non wing event coming up.

I don't remember anything like that at Husets before this fiasco started.  I would shy away from it if they don't have any of those kinds of established shows and the closure has ruined any traditions they may have had.

Stan Meissner

     Holiday Inn had a series of commercials that featured someone talking with authority about something but alway throwing in a qualifying phrase like "I'm not a doctor, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night".

     I was at that press conference. The crowd around me was in agreement that a lot of what he said sounded good, but a lot of what he said sounded very amateurish. He seemed to have surrounded himself with some good people and some solid money, so folks hoped he would learns the ropes and that things would turn out fine.

     At the time there was also an emphasis put on having Badlands be a major concert venue as well as a race track. I think he even mentioned wanting to get some sort of concerts lined up to attract people headed to Sturgis for the motorcycle rally. At the press conference someone asked about whether he would develop a campground at the race track. He said that he couldn't at that time because he had zoning rules that were grandfathered in and that he had some specific guidelines that needed to be followed.

Camping at the track, at least in this part of the country, is what makes multi day events worth attending.  I spent many nights drinking beers around the fire bench racing.  Without on site camping a track can't really have an epic event.  It's not the same driving to a quiet motel after a night of racing with another on the horizon.  Cedar Lake has breakfast on the front stretch, live music after the races and shuttle buses to Apple River tubing.  The lack of camping, no multi day epic events and the permit fiasco would all be deal breakers in my opinion.

Stan Meissner

   I dunno man. You're starting to sound like some old fart getting ready for retirement. Repeat after me- "Hey you kids!!  Get off my lawn!!!" 

     For the record, according to Google Maps, there is a state campground 1 mile away, and another 10 miles away. There is a KOA 6 miles away and another 9 miles away. The nearest motels are 2 miles away.

     I really don't know that any of this is a deal killer if someone wanted to make a go of it, and if the current owners are willing to work with that someone.