Cabarrus County is looking to increase its sales tax so it can give $20 million to the owner of Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord. What does Cabarrus County get out of the deal? The speedway stays exactly where it is!
Speedway owner Bruton Smith “worked himself into a super-snit” and threatened to move the speedway from Concord to another part of the Charlotte area. (There was talk about the speedway moving to South Carolina, but those threats were bogus.) Now he’s come to an agreement with the county to invest $100 million to $200 million to renovate the speedway, with $80 million coming from the city, county and state.
Cabarrus County, which has been booming, has serious transportation needs, and is considering increasing the county sales tax by a half-cent to pay for transportation projects. But now the chairman of the county commissioners says “the sales tax boost was one of the ways the county may collect part of an $80 million incentive package designed to keep the track.”
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