re: Hot Rod racer tries to burn Musk for $800 million

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here in real America we all drive trucks

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I use the perch from my 3/4 ton diesel truck to notice that I pass multiple Teslas a day in Mississippi.

I guess if you live in your mother's basement then seeing 2 or 3 in your life is about right

0.000001% in Alaska.

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If he had good attorneys to begin with

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Pulp wood hick in Mississippi questions Elon Musk

More at 10

If this guy would have just acted with integrity he would have made absolutely tons of money.

Nope, gotta be a jackass and try to swindle someone. Some folks just can’t act right.

Never understand why crooks think they can get away with stealing that much money. If he would have kept it below 10 million he probably would have never been found out. Different way of thinking than me I reckon.

Here is a great story on the Hagerty Insurance website how this guy took the money he looted from Musk and used it to buy tracks all over the country as well as other toys such as a private jet.

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Ten owners, 10 attempts to elevate the second-tier IHRA to racing relevancy that might possibly rival the dominant, 75-year-old National Hot Rod Association (NHRA): The current unpleasantness is the most sport-shattering misfire of them all, as the IHRA’s current owner is blaming, by name, the richest man in the world.

Really? Elon Musk is responsible for the collapse of IHRA drag racing?
So says Darryl Cuttell, 61, who bought the IHRA in December of 2024....
Cuttell, himself a master electrician, is the owner of 30-year-old Darana Hybrid, an Ohio company...

The $1.25-trillion merger earlier this year between Musk’s Space X and xAI, Cuttell said, was when the problems began. xAI promptly paid the invoices Darana Hybrid sent in. Space xAI, now the curator of Colossus and its data-center siblings, hasn’t. Musk’s properties, including Tesla and The Boring Company, have earned a slow-pay reputation that may or may not be warranted. “It’s what Elon does. He goes out and takes on the small guys and just buries them,” Cuttell told WMC, the Memphis NBC affiliate. “I’ve never been treated so unfair for doing such a good job. That’s the worst part. I overextended myself, gave him everything he wanted, and now I’m getting trashed.”

Typically, Musk and his companies ignore critics. Not this time. Last Thursday, Space xAI filed a federal suit against Darana Hybrid, and the 40-page complaint is just brutal. And if you were wondering what drag racing and the International Hot Rod Association had to do with all this, here it is: Along with Cuttell himself, the IHRA is actually named in the suit. That suit alleges that Darana and Cuttell overbilled Space xAI “by hundreds of millions of dollars while selling out their own suppliers and subcontractors along the way,” and “diverted money to Cuttell’s personal side projects,” which would be the IHRA, the dozen or so racetracks he bought both before and after that acquisition, and a peculiar list of other competitive sports leagues he purchased, including a snowmobile racing series, 10 classes of jetski racing, at least five truck and tractor pulling leagues, 32 classes of Inshore and Offshore boat racing, drag boating, Formula 1 boat racing, and finally, “rodeo and bull riding.” Almost overnight, the IHRA went from being almost out of business to sanctioning 137 different classes of competition.

Now, though, it sounds like there’s very little left of the money Cuttell was paid. He told the Daily Memphian that he owes $200 million to vendors and isn’t sure how he will pay them. Presumably that’s in addition to what he owes drag racers and support staff, as well as purses for the other non-drag racing series he bought, plus the notes and taxes due on his racetracks....

Cuttell typically arrived in style, aboard a newly acquired helicopter or in the Darana Hybrid private jet, a Bombardier Challenger 300 with VIP seating. Once, he sent his jet to pick up drag racing pioneers “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, 94, and his longtime nemesis, Shirley Muldowney, 86, for a personal appearance at an IHRA track. Pro racers were impressed. Sportsman racers—those who do it primarily for love, not money—felt like they’d died and gone to heaven. By mid-season, they changed their tune and figured they’d only got it half right.

Garlits says he is still owed the $5000 appearance fee he was promised....

In January, when he appeared in Memphis to announce his purchase of the moribund Memphis Motorsports Park, Cuttell visited St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and gave the administrators a check for $10 million. He said there would be more....

So the IHRA is effectively done. Again. There’s nothing left. So many people and companies have not been paid, including the racers who won in that first and only Triple Crown event. Tracks have not been paid. Emergency workers and concessionaires, most all of which fronted the money it took to get to the races and stay for the duration, are out that investment. At last word, the production company that provided the free, high-quality live digital feed of the major races hasn’t been made whole and is owed well into six figures. Even some of the companies that rented Cuttell the mandatory Ferris wheels that spun lazily over every major IHRA event are left standing in line....

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Hagerty Insurance website

I seriously doubt Musk's fingers are anywhere near this deal. He's not going to get involved in the minutia on this kind of project.

I was at the site on Monday … impressive !!

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I seriously doubt Musk's fingers are anywhere near this deal. He's not going to get involved in the minutia on this kind of project.

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These days he’s not. That would have been different 7 years ago.

Ask him how many Illinois' governors are still in jail.