The Bidding war is ove for the Punta Gorda Track

[gary laplant]

Thanks every on for the support your giving and did give.

All I can say is this the airport said the bid we close $5.00 per acre difference and that is very true.

Has se asked for less acre at 20 instead of the 24.75 offered in the bid

I asked for 25 to 30 acre to expand the track


So the bottom line is the Airport took a bid of $1575.00 per month less then my bid. Big Loss of revenue to them??????

But the bid was to go to the highest bidder and the most expedience in running a track

Mr Has se was the lowest bidder and as never ran a track or been a manager of a track.

Every one Know what I have done for racing the what I can bring to the Table
Honest rules, honest purses and My word I always backed up on what I said.


So in three year the Punta Gorda will lose 56,700.00 in rent for the track for going with the lower bid and the income for your country. To help support your airport, So for the board and Mr Quill to say it was close bid is 100% wrong. Did they make the right choice?? Time will tell.

As a business man for over 45 year and have bid on contract with the government for year and have won many I am very loss for word with on this.

I will not go into really full detail but I was asked to do a tasks to have every thing in order to Mr Quill in 24 hour period The main problem was to get it done was a performance bid for on year rent in a bond It take 3 to 5 day to get this done per the bond people Mr Quill wanted everything in in 24 hours to me was not ever in reason. And wanted to sign the lease on Wed 6/26 the way it was written and we could modified it at a latter date nor way to do business at all.

To the one that Don't know me my Main business is moving out Military family from Mac Dill AFB all over the world I have had many contract with Contract with Mac Dill AFb over the last 45 years and really do know how they work.


It sad that I could not make the real dream come true to you racer and fan But it was the board call.




Gary Laplant

[petermmg]

Thanks every on for the support your giving and did give.

All I can say is this the airport said the bid we close $5.00 per acre difference and that is very true.

Has se asked for less acre at 20 instead of the 24.75 offered in the bid

I asked for 25 to 30 acre to expand the track


So the bottom line is the Airport took a bid of $1575.00 per month less then my bid. Big Loss of revenue to them??????

But the bid was to go to the highest bidder and the most expedience in running a track

Mr Has se was the lowest bidder and as never ran a track or been a manager of a track.

Every one Know what I have done for racing the what I can bring to the Table
Honest rules, honest purses and My word I always backed up on what I said.


So in three year the Punta Gorda will lose 56,700.00 in rent for the track for going with the lower bid and the income for your country. To help support your airport, So for the board and Mr Quill to say it was close bid is 100% wrong. Did they make the right choice?? Time will tell.

As a business man for over 45 year and have bid on contract with the government for year and have won many I am very loss for word with on this.

I will not go into really full detail but I was asked to do a tasks to have every thing in order to Mr Quill in 24 hour period The main problem was to get it done was a performance bid for on year rent in a bond It take 3 to 5 day to get this done per the bond people Mr Quill wanted everything in in 24 hours to me was not ever in reason. And wanted to sign the lease on Wed 6/26 the way it was written and we could modified it at a latter date nor way to do business at all.

To the one that Don't know me my Main business is moving out Military family from Mac Dill AFB all over the world I have had many contract with Contract with Mac Dill AFb over the last 45 years and really do know how they work.


It sad that I could not make the real dream come true to you racer and fan But it was the board call.




Gary Laplant

Gary, It seems that the Airport Authority finally realized that they were out of line by asking for substantially more rent than what they were getting from Williams. Maybe they thought that there would be 10 or 20 bids on the lease. Well we know that did not happen. Maybe they took into consideration that there have been MANY people that have leased the track over the years (for a lot less monthly rent) that have failed. Maybe they realized that your bid, which you say was $1,575.00 MORE per month than the Haase bid was not realistic. As I said before, I think you got a gift by NOT winning this bid. Time will tell. But as you said before, lets all support these new folks in their efforts to keep the track open.

[gary laplant]

Petermmg

Your 100% right people need to surport the New owner of the track. It all good with me and as you say time will tell.



Gary

[Edm]

Fresh ideas are needed at every track in the state, these tracks are sitting on a ton of property that is never used. I understand the airports position being that strictly racing has not been producing. Business models and execution of those models are everything.

[katlizy]

I think it was over before it started.. Three palms speedway joined Facebook November 2012???? Isn't that around the time the problems started down there with the airport board??

[ocalaisback3]

This is the reply i got when i asked that same question

Three Palms Speedway: Perfectly fine to be curious about that. Both the Facebook and website were made months ago. Reason being was that Haase Investments was at the time looking at the purchase of another track. Since we were still interested in finding another track, decided to just leave everything where it was. Then, fortunately, the race track at Punta Gorda opened up and we were able to win the lease. We feel it is better to prepared ahead of time then to wait till last minute. Hope this solved your question, as well as if anyone else was curious.

[katlizy]

Bull.. Were there any other tracks for sale in Florida in November????? Now I understand why the prior owners took their stands and left...

[ocalaisback3]

I honestly didnt take it as anything but a generic response. I still think there is something more there but only time will tell.

[elmer]

I have a feeling Pam Seay knows all about it.

[Matt Albee]

Bull.. Were there any other tracks for sale in Florida in November????? Now I understand why the prior owners took their stands and left...

There isn't a short track in the entire state that isn't for sale. Some are advertised as such, all the rest will welcome a buyer anytime.

[flvideo]

HA! You are probably right Matt! It like owning a boat, the happiest days are the day ya get it and the day ya sell it! I have had boats all my life and for the most part they are money pits!

[Jane]

You really don't know me Gary but I am very sorry that you lost the track. I am sure you would have worked your behind off to make it go and give the racers and fans a fantastic night of racing. They say everything happens for a reason so I guess this does too. Just hope the new owner does keep it a race track and not another storage place or mall. We have plenty of those but a race track is a very special place and a place where nothing else can give you that feeling of smelling cars going fast. God bless you for trying anyway.

[crimsncat]

Clearing up some of the questions...

Gary, It seems that the Airport Authority finally realized that they were out of line by asking for substantially more rent than what they were getting from Williams. Maybe they thought that there would be 10 or 20 bids on the lease. Well we know that did not happen. Maybe they took into consideration that there have been MANY people that have leased the track over the years (for a lot less monthly rent) that have failed. Maybe they realized that your bid, which you say was $1,575.00 MORE per month than the Haase bid was not realistic. As I said before, I think you got a gift by NOT winning this bid. Time will tell. But as you said before, lets all support these new folks in their efforts to keep the track open.

After reading all the comments on here about the process that Mr. LaPlant and I have gone through in our attempts to get the lease on the track I thought I would go through and respond to those that are not completely accurate. The board does not establish the dollar amount for the rent. That is done by the appraiser hired by the government to establish the value of the land. Blaming the board for raising the rent on the previous promoters isn't valid. The amount of land up for bid was 20 to 24.47 acres. The previous group rented 20 acres which is exactly what we bid on. Mr. LaPlant bid on the entire 24.47 acres which was his right to do but in our meeting with the airport people, following the walk through, they clearly stated to all of us attending that they really didn't want to lease the entire acreage because of some other projects they are currently working on that they could use that 4 acres for. From a business standpoint the land we are talking about brings nothing to the table for the track and will cost thousands of dollars to clean up no matter what you are planning for it. We saw no reason to pay an additional $1400 per month for land that was in our opinion unusable at this time. We would rather put that additional money towards the track itself. The additional 5 acres that Mr. Laplant was talking about was not part of the bid and he would have to work out a separate deal with the airport for additional property. Our primary focus is the track and getting it back and operational not leasing land that does nothing to assist us in completing the task at hand. This was one of the major differences in our business plan and Mr. LaPlant's. We always have the ability to go back to the board should we get to the point of needing more land and working a deal in the future. From a purely business standpoint this is what made sense to us and that is what we offered to the board. Jamie Haase

[crimsncat]

Bull.. Were there any other tracks for sale in Florida in November????? Now I understand why the prior owners took their stands and left...

The response you got from my son was absolutely correct. If you did your homework you would know that there was 3 race tracks in Florida at that time, that we were aware of, that were actively for sale. We did not disclose the name because we signed confidentiality agreements with the owner not to disclose any of the dealings that we had with him because he did not want It to be out in the public eye. That was his choice not ours. We had at that time a verbal agreement for price and start dates but the deal fell through. Since we have been actively looking for a track to purchase for almost 2 years we decided to keep our facebook page and website so that we would not have to re-create all the work that had already been done. We don't believe in re-creating the wheel when it is already done. During our process of looking at the other track we made a number of trips to the Punta Gorda Speedway scouting, at that time a track that we thought would be one of our competitors, to see how they were operating and what we liked about their operation and track. We did the same with all the tracks around Florida, New Smyrna, Orlando, Auburndale, Desoto, Showtime, Sebring, Daytona, etc. With purchase deal no longer a possibility we moved on to other options. We knew of the lease problems that Mr. Williams/Chase were having here and decided to sit tight for a couple of months to see how that all turned out. With them making the decision not to renew their lease we made contact with the board about the possibilities and to see what the process would be. This has all led us to this point. Hopefully this answers your question more clearly. Jamie Haase

[crimsncat]

Absolutely....

There isn't a short track in the entire state that isn't for sale. Some are advertised as such, all the rest will welcome a buyer anytime.

Couldn't agree with you more. If you have enough money I am sure you could purchase any track anywhere in the country. The dollar amount is the determining factor. Jamie Haase