With the summer season set to wrap up, race followers may need seen that the Celebrity Racing Expertise was not tearing it up on brief tracks in latest weeks. Because it seems, the sequence’ acquisition by the Skip Barber Racing Faculty has fallen by, and SRX management mentioned Monday that they intend to sue the college’s operator Anthony DeMonte and DMS Apex Holding.
The Skip Barber Racing Faculty, a racing and driving academy based in 1975, introduced in March that it had bought SRX. The varsity had been wroking as a logistics accomplice of the sequence because the inaugural season in 2021, being chargeable for overseeing transport and upkeep of its automobiles between races.
Though SRX, together with then-CEO Don Hawk, signed off on it on the time, it claims the college had failed to finish the deal by the deadline of 30 April. As an alternative, the college had allegedly not made the required funds regardless of having all however confirmed the acquisition.
“On March 13, 2024, Anthony DeMonte executed an Asset Buy Settlement (“Settlement”) on behalf of DMS Apex Holding, LLC d/b/a Skip Barber Racing (“Skip Barber Racing”) to buy the SRX Celebrity Racing Expertise sequence (“SRX”),” begins a press release from the sequence. “The Settlement acknowledged that the events would shut the transaction on April 30, 2024. The Settlement additionally acknowledged that the transaction was to be personal and neither social gathering would announce the transaction with out the prior consent of the opposite social gathering.
“Opposite to that, and with out Celebrity’s consent, Skip Barber Racing and DeMonte issued a press launch falsely stating that they’d acquired SRX. Actually, DeMonte and Skip Barber Racing have didn’t pay any quantity of the acquisition value or in any other case fulfill their promise to shut the transaction. Consequently, opposite to their false public statements, Skip Barber Racing didn’t buy and doesn’t personal SRX or any of the sequence’ property.
“We now have filed a lawsuit in Rowan County, North Carolina in opposition to Skip Barber Racing and Mr. DeMonte searching for full damages for his or her breach of the settlement. In the meantime, we are going to proceed to discover strategic choices because it pertains to the way forward for SRX.”
The varsity and DMS have but to reply to the matter. DeMonte additionally lately had fits filed in opposition to DMS from fairness companies and cash lenders Summit Capital Funding, Luqidibee and Basic Capital.
In January, SRX introduced the 2024 season had been “postponed” as a result of “market elements which have confirmed an excessive amount of to beat.” Ryan Newman received the newest championship in 2023.
The sequence was co-founded by Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham. Stewart raced all three seasons earlier than the reported sale to Barber, whereas Evernham has lengthy separated from the sequence to concentrate on different tasks just like the Worldwide Race of Champions.
