First Posted: 2/25/2011

MAXTON The Maxton-Laurinburg Airport is poised to lose one of the nations premier auto racing events.

Officials with the East Coast Timing Association say they have been asked to find a new home for their time trial races after 2011.

The association, which hosts five races a year at the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport, announced this month that the group would be leaving the region after 14 years in Maxton. The move comes after the Gryphon Group, a military training company based in Florida, said that it planned to make full use of its property leased at the Maxton airbase.

It is the position of the Gryphon Group that 2012 will see an increase in their training and traffic, which will require them to fully use their leased area, the Timing Association posted on its website. In other words, they have written us a letter stating that it is their intent not to allow us any further use of the facility in 2012.

The racing group will be allowed to use the runway through October. Five events are on the 2011 schedule at Maxton, with the first race set for April 2-3.

Michael Vaden, founder and CEO of the Gryphon Group, said that the arrangement that the company had with the airport always included a time frame for growth.

The bottom line is we support them, but while weve been building, it was always understood that our operations would be in full bloom and it would not allow us to shut part of our training area down, Vaden said. The airport already came to this conclusion. So we worked out where we can support them this year, and gave them plenty of time. Were bringing jobs to county and we want to help develop the city. Thats the reason they (the airport) leased it (the land) for us to use and the reason were here.

The Gryphon Group signed a 20-year lease in 2009 to expand its training programs to areas near major military bases such as Fort Bragg. The Gryphon Group, with more than 60 employees and $3.2 million in annual spending, provides training to the military base.

But East Coast Timing Association President Joe Timney said his group also makes a sizable contribution to the county in terms of tourism and name recognition.

Its unfortunate that this current situation has happened, Timney said. If we lose Maxton, we have to find someplace else, and its just a shame to lose it. We have about 250 active racers and a racing family of over 700 people. Weve been coming here since 1996 and Maxton is our North Carolina family.

Timney said his group also put a lot of sweat equity in cleaning up the Maxton facility.

We removed over 450 tons of debris and spent $350,000 since 1994 to repair the race area that we use, Timney said. We kept up with the facility, we built the tower, we built guard rails and we made it all usable. No one has maintained the runway except us. We believe that weve been excellent stewards of the property.

The East Coast Timing Association came to Maxton in the 1990s for its two-mile runway a must have for land-speed racers.

We want East Coast Timing to stay, said JoAnne Gentry, interim executive director of the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport. Theyve been here for almost 18 years and we enjoy them being here. Its a lot of good, clean fun for a weekend at a low cost and were hoping that we can look at an alternative way to kept ECTA here.

But, we have to look at the safety of the airport. The Gryphon Group agreed to work with them this year, but theyre growing. Thats why they came here. In their first year or two they were in the building stage and now their training has grown and they need to use the runway.

The East Coast Timing Association was formed by two Utah salt flats racers, with the idea of providing its members with a place to run speed trials in the eastern half of the United States.