Evergreen Speedway behind on its bills

Published 4:51 pm Friday, March 13, 2009

Johnson Productions LLC, the company responsible for motorsports operations at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, is behind in payments to a variety of organizations, including Snohomish County and the state of Washington.

“Yes, they do owe us some money,” county spokesman Christopher Schwarzen said. “We have payment plans in place to get those payments and we are in constant contact with them.”

Schwarzen said the amount owed to the county is about $32,000 — $28,000 for a lease payment that was due in October of 2008 and the remainder for back rent on offices that Johnson Productions leases at the speedway.

Lex and Danni Johnson, the husband-and-wife owners of Johnson Productions, have told the county they will provide a letter of credit from a financial institution by today “to guarantee the performance of all contractual obligations for the (2009 racing) season,” Schwarzen said.

The first practice session at the track is scheduled for Saturday, weather permitting.

Two touring series, the ASA Northwest Late Model Tour and the Northwest Legends, are scheduled to open their respective seasons on March 28 at Evergreen Speedway. Northwest Late Model Tour director Scott Ellsworth said he wasn’t aware of any problems that would affect the opener.

The local racing season, with Evergreen Speedway’s five divisions of oval and figure-eight racers, is set to begin April 11, and a demolition derby and fireworks show is scheduled for April 4.

Reached by phone, Danni Johnson referred all financial questions to her husband. Lex Johnson did not return phone messages left by The Herald this week and was not available when a Herald reporter visited the speedway office Thursday afternoon.

Johnson Productions assumed the speedway management contract from longtime speedway promoter Mickey Beadle’s International Productions Inc. (IPI) last June.

“Our lease is with IPI, and IPI handed it off to Johnson Productions,” Schwarzen said. “Mr. Johnson assumed an existing contract.”

Lex and Danni Johnson have been familiar faces at the track for more than a decade — Lex Johnson as both a driver and, along with Danni Johnson, co-owner of Concept Racing and Graphics, the sole source of racing tires and fuel at the speedway since 2003.

The Snohomish County Council approved the contract reassignment in June of last year. Deputy county executive Mark Soine finalized the reassignment by adding his signature later in the week.

Schwarzen said the lease fee for 2008 was $160,000, with payment made in seven monthly installments during the April-October racing season. The lease amount rises to $165,000 this year, still payable in seven installments, with the first due in April. The monthly office rental cost was $700, Scharzen said.

The county’s current motorsports operations contract runs through 2009. Schwarzen said the county will begin the process later this year to put the contract up for bid.

The county isn’t alone in being owed money by Johnson Productions.

A search of public records revealed a lien placed on Johnson Productions on Feb. 5 by the state of Washington’s Employment Security Department. Mark Varadian, communications manager for the Employment Insurance Division, said he could not speak about specifics of the lien.

“Typically we would only put a lien against a company because they owed us money … and they are not in any kind of deferred payment plan,” Varadian said.

In addition to the state and the county, Johnson Productions owes a variety of local small businesses, including one that recently won a default judgment against the company in small-claims court. Laura King-Marino, owner of Sport Cuts in Monroe, was awarded $5,029 by the Evergreen District Court on March 3.

King-Marino said she paid for advertising space at the speedway for the 2007 racing season and provided a billboard for that purpose. She decided not to renew her advertising contract with the speedway and asked to get the billboard back in May 2008, intending to put it in another location.

After months of unreturned phone calls, King-Marino said, she took Johnson Productions to court to recoup the cost of the billboard and lost revenue from not having the signage up elsewhere.

Vern Foster of Foster Press in Lake Stevens said he, too, is owed money.

“I’m trying to collect the money that I’m owed from last season,” Foster said. “There’s quite a lot of money owed, actually.”

Although he declined to give a specific amount, Foster said the last time Johnson Productions made a payment was in October 2008, and that was a partial payment for printing services provided in July.

Foster Press began working with Beadle and IPI in 2001, and because of that long-standing relationship, Foster said, he has tried to be reasonable and work out a repayment schedule.

Another small business owed money by Johnson Productions is Northwest Trophy in Seattle. Gary Anderson, one of the co-owners, said the last payment received from Johnson Productions was at the end of May 2008.

“In today’s economy, being a small business, this is a substantial amount of money,” Anderson said. “We have gone way beyond patience with Johnson Productions. … There has been ample opportunity to set up a payment plan, but we got no return phone calls.”

Anderson said Northwest Trophy has referred the Johnson Productions account to a collection agency.

Scott Whitmore: swhitmore@heraldnet.com.