Speedway Motorsports, LLC announced Wednesday that it has laid off 180 employees across all of its facilities and subsidiaries and furloughed another 100 employees due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
Those facilities include Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway and Texas Motor Speedway.
Speedway Motorsports also has subsidiaries that include SMI Properties (souvenir merchandising services), U.S. Legend Cars International and the syndicated Performance Racing Network, which broadcasts races and shows.
Here is a statement issued by the company:
“The extraordinary circumstances presented by this pandemic and the subsequent shutdown of the economy have had a significant impact on our business.
“Since the beginning of the shutdown four weeks ago, we have kept our entire team on full pay while our properties remained dormant. In that time, it has become clear that we must be a more nimble, more efficient organization.
“As such, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our business and eliminate many duplicate positions. Unfortunately, part of this restructuring includes eliminating approximately 180 positions across all departments at our speedways and subsidiaries.
“Approximately 100 additional employees have been furloughed. These decisions were not easy. Our company is providing a severance package to each person affected by job eliminations.
“Speedway Motorsports remains committed to providing the very best entertainment experience to all who come through our gates when America’s fight against this pandemic is behind us. This reorganization positions us to move forward at that time and well into the future. In the meantime, our staff will continue to maintain our facilities in preparation for the event days ahead and support our community with outreach efforts during this time of need.”
The company did not specify how many employees are affected at each track or subsidiary, but the job layoffs (not including furloughs) account for 15 percent of all Speedway Motorsports’ overall staff.
The layoffs and furloughs come more than a week after NASCAR implemented layoffs. NASCAR previously had across-the-board pay cuts.