MANSFIELD — When Matt Tifft first walked the grounds a few months ago, he didn’t see a decaying half-mile racetrack on Mansfield’s north side.
All Mansfield Speedway’s new owner could see was limitless possibility on Crall Road.
A former NASCAR Cup Series driver and Medina County native, Tifft recently purchased the 180-acre property from the Milliron Foundation. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the new owner took to social media over the weekend to announce his plans.
The track, which has been known by several names over the years, was formerly owned by Mansfield businessman and philanthropist Grant Milliron. Milliron, who founded Milliron Recycling when he was 18, passed away in 2023 at the age of 88.
Milliron bought the facility at sheriff’s auction in January of 2013 with a winning bid of $800,000. The track had been foreclosed on in 2010 because the former owner, Mike Dzurilla, owed more than $300,000 in back taxes.
Several efforts to pump life back into the track, which hosted NASCAR Craftsman truck series races from 2004 to 2008, have failed over the years. The facility returned to its dirt track roots in 2017 when promotor Cody Sommer partnered with Milliron.
But the track was shuddered after the 2019 season.
The facility has been sold piece by piece since then. A portion of the bleachers was donated to Shelby High School. Light poles and caution lights were sold, as were the SAFER barriers and catch fencing. The walls and other fencing has been removed.
The track is in disarray. Tifft knows a major facelift in in order.
“Just to repair the facility, it will cost over $2 million,” Tifft said. “There’s nothing that has been unscathed.”
It’s just the type of challenge Tifft invites. He’s been overcoming obstacles most of his adult life.
Racing prodigy
The 28-year-old Tifft began racing go-karts at Barberton Speedway near Akron when he was 11 years old. He quickly rocketed up the ranks and moved to North Carolina shortly after graduating from Medina Highland in 2014.
Then adversity struck.
“I had a brain tumor removed in 2016,” Tifft said matter-of-factly.
He wasn’t sidelined for long.
Tifft landed rides in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and XFinity Series. He finished third at the XFinity race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington in August of 2017.
He eventually worked his way into a ride on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2019, racing for Front Row Motorsports. He finished 36th at the season-opening Daytona 500 and started the first 32 races of the season.
Then, before the race in Martinsville, he had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. He missed the final four races of the year.
Tifft was diagnosed with epilepsy. His Cup Series driving career was over.
“Late in 2019 I had my first-ever seizure. That was not exactly fun, but luckily I have had a clean bill of health for many years now,” Tifft said. “That kind of ended my NASCAR career but if it hadn’t happened, I probably never would have bought Mansfield Speedway.
“After my driving career, I did own a Cup team for about three years, LiveFast Motorsports. I’ve been around every bit of driving and the business side of racing.”
LiveFast Motorsports began operations in 2021. Tifft was 24 at the time, the youngest Cup Series owner in history. He landed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2022.
LiveFast Motorsports sold its NASCAR charter for a reported $40 million in September of 2023 and Tifft left the ownership group in November of that year to pursue other opportunities.
A vision for the future
One of those opportunities presented itself in the form of Mansfield Speedway. Tifft, now living in Cleveland, did his homework when he found out about the facility.
“We were looking for a place where we could host our own events,” Tifft said. “It really expanded beyond that once I did some research before even going there and then walking the property.”
So what made the track so attractive?
“First off, it’s the location. You’re within an hour or an hour-and-a-half of Cleveland and Columbus,” Tifft said. “It’s the history there, too. They put on successful races for many years. Before that it was a popular local track for 40 or 50 years. The possibilities are endless there.
“Sitting on almost 180 acres, there’s so many things we can do with this property.”
Tifft plans to use the facility for a lot more than weekly races. He referred to it as a “multi-purpose entertainment property.”
“We really want to tie in community events there, too. We want to do a holiday Christmas light show around the property like Charlotte Motor Speedway does,” Tifft said. “Then we want to have our car-culture events which will be kind of a never-before-seen deal where we almost bring the ‘Fast and Furious’ movies to real life.
“All that being said, we’ve got another 100 acres we can explore. Who knows what that might bring some day? The possibilities are endless. We’ll listen to what fans and residents want and we’ll develop as time goes on.”
While the timeline is fluid given the extent of necessary renovations, Tifft hopes to be staging events in 2026. Or maybe sooner.
“In a perfect world, we would have the Christmas light show this winter, but we’ll see how construction goes,” he said. “We definitely want to be up and going by late-April of next year.”
The track will be restored as a dirt track, at least initially. Tifft isn’t sure what the future will hold.
“It will be a dirt track for a couple years at least. It would cost $2.5 million to go pave the racetrack,” Tifft said. “We can do it far cheaper on the dirt side and we’ve still got the concrete and asphalt middle part there.
“There is always the possibility in the future, if we strike the right deal, to bring bigger asphalt races there if the cards play out right. The facility can hold it. There’s no doubt about that. It’s done it before. It depends on the right deal.”
Could a renovated track lure Tifft out of racing retirement?
“I’ll be getting in the seat for a few of them,” he said. “I’m not going to build a racetrack and not go drive around it.”
With Tifft in the driver’s seat, figuratively, the possibilities are endless. Mansfield Speedway’s future is suddenly very bright.
“We’re hoping to create something that not only people in Mansfield and Richland County are proud of, but something that brings people from Cleveland and Columbus and Cincinnati to the area to spend their money and have a great time,” Tifft said.
“We want to make it so that we’re doing something that’s never been seen at a short track before and create world-class entertainment right here in Mansfield.”