No evidence of a lawsuit used as an excuse to close the motocross track in Lake Elsinore was found in Riverside County Superior Court records on Monday, November 4th.

Roadracing World Editor at Large Michael Gougis, a former newspaper reporter covering court cases (and currently a college journalism professor), looked at the court’s online records today and found nothing.

Gougis reported, “An electronic search of the civil cases filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Riverside, revealed no litigation with the name of the deceased child. There were no civil cases with the child’s last name and the name of the track, and the last case with the track’s name was filed in 2017.”

The Lake Elsinore track is located in Riverside County.

THIS JUST IN:

A person who identified himself as being Pat Fowler from Lake Elsinore MX Circuit called the Roadracing World office and said he wanted to talk about a press release. He was told that he needed to to talk to an editor and would get a call back. When Michael Gougis called him back, Fowler said he had been served papers, but declined to provide any further details, declined to provide the name of the law firm representing the track, and when asked to send copies of the papers he had been served, said “That’s none of your business” and hung up. A call back to the number was not answered. We will provide more information as it becomes available.

MORE, INCLUDING THAT THE ACTUAL PROBLEM MAY BE “An unexpected loss of operating revenue for the land owner”:

Comments from Lake Elsinore Mayor Steve Manos, as posted on the Whats Up Lake Elsinore Facebook page:

Very unfortunate chain of events… absolutely terrible news.

I have to make a few corrections to the comments on here that are incorrect, rumors, or flat out lies.

1. The City doesn’t own the land that the motocross sits on.

2. The application for a warehouse on that site is dead.

3. When the recent owner approached the City about a development (the logistic space), in addition to expressing serious concerns about traffic mitigation, the City had made it clear that the motocross track was important to the community and that any development should include a plan to relocate the track.

4. This closure announcement was a surprise to the City. We didn’t see it coming.

5. The City is not a party to the lawsuit.

6. The City is not a party to the motocross track’s business operations outside of being a regulatory agency.

7. I personally have no personal business connection to the land owner or business operator. Never have. This can be tracked through 700 filings.

8. The motocross track operator leased their space from the land owner… the owner could’ve shut them down a long time ago. My understanding is that this is an unexpected loss of operating revenue for the land owner.

9. There’s nothing approved to replace the motocross track any time soon. Any project would take at least two years to go through planning. Site might sit for a decade.

10. Motocross is part of the DNA of the City of Lake Elsinore. It’s part of the reason we adopted the Dream Extreme motto. Not a good day.

This is a loss for the operator, land owner, City residents, and… most of all… the family for the little girl that lost her life. Just a tragedy all around. We’ll discuss internally, but this is a private operation… I’m not sure what the city can do to help.