Dirt Late Model racer and former NASCAR Cup driver Matt Tifft has acquired Mansfield (Ohio) Motor Speedway, the Cleveland, Ohio, native announced today on social media, with plans to bring dirt-track racing back to the 180-acre property as early as April 2026.

The 0.440-mile oval that hosted the NASCAR Truck Series from 2004-08 and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events from 2017-19 has been closed since August 2019’s Lucas Oil-sanctioned Dirt Million won by Brandon Sheppard.

Resurrecting Mansfield as a dirt track is Tifft’s first order of business as the 28-year-old pointed out in a social media video “it’s going to cost about $2.5 million to put this back to asphalt, just for the paving itself.”

Over time, Tifft and his wife, Jordan, hope to develop the Mansfield property into a multi-purpose facility to host all kinds of events, racing and non-racing alike, such as concerts, car shows and drive-thru Christmas light displays.

Tifft’s long-term hopes for the Mansfield oval that’s centrally located between Ohio’s two largest cities — 70 miles northeast of Columbus and 80 miles southwest of Cleveland — is potentially paving the racetrack again.

But “for the first few years, it is going to be dirt,” Tifft emphasized.

“We’re hoping we’ll be in a good cash flow position to maybe look at doing asphalt in the future,” Tifft added. “But for right now, we’re planning to bring this back as a dirt racetrack, bring new clay out here.”

Mansfield opened in 1959 as a 3/8-mile dirt oval before it converted to pavement in April 1999 and then back to dirt in 2017. Along with the Truck Series and Lucas Oil Late Models, the track has hosted NASCAR’s K&N Series (now ARCA), Whelen Modified Tour and All Star Circuit of Champions sprint car series over the years. 

Bringing racing back to Mansfield won’t be easy with most of the track’s concrete walls and grandstands sold over six years of dormancy.

Tifft has built up his portfolio as a businessman since an epilepsy diagnosis in 2019 forced him to relinquish his NASCAR Cup ride in October 2019. In 2020, he partnered with B.J. McLeod’s Live Fast Motorsports and became the youngest owner in the NASCAR Cup Series until the team sold their charter at the end of 2023.

Tifft and his team will be documenting Mansfield’s resurrection across the track’s new social platforms, including Tifft's YouTube channel, X (@Mansfieldspdwy) and Facebook.