LOXLEY — A dispute over lease payments has idled racing at Deep South Speedway in Loxley, but the track’s owners, Benny and Madeline Darby and their son, Michael, are set to see racing start up again on the 156-acre property.

“We have Chuck Day from the Atmore-Brewton area ready to go, and we hope to be racing by next weekend,” Michael Darby said in a telephone interview. He later indicated that April 4 should see racing resume at the track.

Deep South was previously leased by Bill and Karen Webb of Pensacola. Michael Darby claims that the Webbs failed to pay the lease on the track.

“We gave them week after week,” Michael Darby said. “My father let them run the “World of Outlaws” without a lease.”

Concerns over payment and potential liability, says Darby, led the family to reclaim operation of the property, off of Highway 59.

“Without going into the specific financial aspects of the arrangement, I met with Benny and Madeline (Darby) last Thursday and they were supposed to have a new contract presented to us so that we could move forward,” Bill Webb said in a press release sent out March 20.

“Then we had the World of Outlaws event on Friday night and apparently they felt that they could raise the stakes on us based on the crowd that attended the event.  It’s a major letdown for us to have to go through this type of interruption especially with all the investment of money, time, manpower and equipment that we have put into transforming Deep South Speedway into what it is now,” continued Webb.

Michael Darby says that the family, who lives in Loxley, began work on the track in 1997, and racing began on the red clay oval in 2004.

“We didn't build it because we want to race ourselves,” Darby said. “We like to watch.”

But the Darbys quickly learned that running a track took a lot of time.

“We wanted to have more family time,” explained Darby, adding that his daughter plays varsity softball for Robertsdale High. The family leased the track to the Webbs in 2007.

“We’re nice folks,” said Darby. “We really tried to work with them. We don’t want the racing to stop. Anybody who knows the Darby family knows who we are and what we are.”