Motorsport Park Hastings is a 2.15-mile, 13-turn asphalt road course that hosts a wide range of on-track events, including sports car and vintage racing, as well as motorcycle and go-kart racing events. The track is also host to a club for owners of high-performance street and race cars, high performance driver education schools and drag racing events on the road course’s front straight for licensed, street-legal cars and trucks.
“Jeff brings years of motorsports experience as well as a unique combination of marketing, communications, editorial, performance driving education and racing knowledge to our team at Motorsport Park Hastings,” says Terry Klatt, one of the owner/partners of the facility and owner of Klatt Motorsports. “We’d been contracting with Jeff for several years in a Race Director role for several years now. This summer the opportunity presented itself to bring him on full-time as General Manager for our entire facility. His passion for grassroots and professional motorsports is unmistakable. Combine this with his professional marketing and communications skills, experience and industry connections and I think it is fair to say we are genuinely excited about the future of our unique facility.”
Lacina began his in-car instructing career in 1997 with the BMWCCA, PCA and Audi Car Clubs and then in 2001, Lacina graduated from the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving and just one year later, developed and launched his own high-performance driving education program, Track Guys Performance Driving Events. Lacina and his Track Guys program was then contracted by Ford’s Special Vehicle Team (SVT) to conduct performance driving clinics for Ford SVT owners across North America until 2007.
In 2012, Lacina competed in and won his class in the One Lap of America. He is also a licensed Instructor for the National Auto Sports Association (NASA) and has won regional championships competing in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Solo II / autocross events. Lacina also served as Great Lakes Region Race Director for the World Racing League in 2018 and to date, he has driven or instructed on 99 different racetracks across North America.
Prior to joining Motorsport Park Hastings, Lacina served as an international sales representative for Sydney, Australia-based Speedmaster, marketing & communications manager at LTA Manufacturing and Castle Creations in the Olathe, Kansas area, as well as manager of marketing communications for John Deere Financial in Johnston, Iowa and marketing manager for Accessible Technologies, Inc./ProCharger Superchargers/Inovair in Lenexa, Kansas. In 2011, he formed Lacina Marketing & Communications Group in 2011 and worked for numerous automotive and motorsports clients and helped relaunch the Fun Ford Series events that same year.