TOOELE, Utah — The Ford Performance Racing School in Tooele is expanding, and the school’s president Dan Mckeever said keeping the expansion local was important.
“There was no way we could recreate the kind of terrain that Utah has,” Mckeever said. “The terrain in Utah is perfect for the Ford Raptor. So as we look to kind of continue that off-road programs, this is the perfect place to showcase that vehicle.”
The racing school, which started in what was the Miller Motorsports Park in 2006, has now shifted to teaching owners from across the country how to drive their Ford Raptor trucks off-road. It’s a partnership with Ford to provide this racing school program, taught by professional race truck drivers for owners across North America who buy these vehicles.
Mckeever says Ford benefits from this partnership on more than one level.
“Because we use the trucks in an offline environment continually, we work a lot with the engineers and provide them some sort of after-development feedback,” Mckeever said. “So, there's a number of changes that have been made to the trucks based on some of our feedback.”
Tooele Mayor Debbie Winn says the facility helps the city in many ways, including upgrading its image.
“Coming and building this new, beautiful facility in Tooele City is something that we're very grateful for. They are going to bring thousands of people here to see the beautiful valley that we have, and to be able to enjoy the recreation that we have here.”
Mayor Winn also says there is also a boom to the city’s economy from the school’s expansion.
“The economic benefit here is we'll have employees here. We have this beautiful building that is going to bring more buildings, more economic development to our area, which is very important to us," Winn said.
The racing school also includes 200 acres of desert land in Tooele County for putting these trucks through their paces.
