Speedway LLC
 |
|
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail (convenience stores) |
| Founded | 1959 |
| Headquarters | Enon, Ohio |
| Number of locations | 1,463 |
| Key people | Tony Kenney, President |
| Parent | Marathon Petroleum |
| Website | www.speedway.com |
Speedway LLC is the operator of a chain of combination gas stations and convenience stores in the Midwestern and Southern United States operating under the Speedway brand name. Speedway LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Marathon Petroleum Company. It is the largest chain in central Ohio.[1]
Contents |
History [edit]
Speedway [edit]
Speedway 79 was a gasoline chain based in Michigan for much of the first half of the 20th century. In 1959, Marathon, then known as the Ohio Oil Company purchased the chain and promptly converted its outlets to the Marathon brand.
As self-service gasoline was legalized in many states, Marathon decided to use "Speedway" (without the "79") at higher-volume self-service stations with convenience stores. The concept turned out to be one of the few bright spots for Marathon during this time, and quickly expanded this concept across Marathon's main territories across the Midwest and Southeastern United States. Part of this expansion was through the acquisition of various other smaller regional gasoline station chains, including GasAmerica,Starvin' Marvin, Gastown, Wake Up, Bonded, United, Cheker, Port, Ecol, and Value. These stations were converted to the Speedway branding.
SuperAmerica [edit]
SuperAmerica convenience stores began in the 1960s in St. Paul by Northwestern Refining of St. Paul Park, Minnesota. It was centered on the upper midwest and Florida.
Ashland Petroleum was a refiner based in Ashland, Kentucky. It marketed full-service stations under its own "Ashland" brand. As self-service was legalized, it used the brands "Solo", "Save Mart", "Save More", and "Rich", along with others.
Ashland purchased Northwestern Refining and the SuperAmerica chain in the 1970s. It converted most of its outlets in its core territory to "SuperAmerica", while withdrawing from Florida. It maintained a few outlets under its other brand names to keep the trademarks valid.
Combined History [edit]
In 1997, Marathon and Ashland formed Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (MAP), a joint venture combining the companies’ refining, marketing and transportation businesses, with Marathon owning 62% of the operations while Ashland owned 38%. In the process, Ashland's SuperAmerica and Marathon's Speedway convenience store chains were merged to form Speedway SuperAmerica LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of MAP.
When the merger was completed in 1998, the Speedway and SuperAmerica brands began to market together. In 2005, Marathon purchased Ashland's share of Marathon Ashland Petroleum, which became Marathon Petroleum Company LLC, retaining the SuperAmerica and Rich brands that was originally owned by Ashland. At this time the locations outside the Upper Midwest were converted to "Speedway" and the "SuperAmerica" brand was restricted to that market.
Marathon sold SuperAmerica to Northern Tier Energy, a newly formed company backed by the private equity firms ACON Investments and TPG Capital, in February 2011. Today Speedway and SuperAmerica are unrelated chains.
Today [edit]
Today, Speedway LLC is headquartered in Enon, Ohio. The chain is still prominent in the Midwest, but pulled out in the Southeast in 2003 when Marathon sold off Speedway's operations to Sunoco. Around the same time, Speedway's truck stop chain was merged into the Pilot Travel Centers brand after Marathon and Pilot Corporation entered into a partnership to form Pilot Travel Centers. Pilot has since bought out Marathon's interest in Pilot Travel Centers, now Pilot Flying J. The Speedway brand is used in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Speedway's main rivals include BP, Circle K, Holiday Stationstores, Kwik Trip, and Casey's General Stores. Sheetz competes directly with Speedway stores in West Virginia and eastern Ohio.
Store Features [edit]
Stores sell fresh coffee during all hours of operation, hot specialty drinks (such as hot chocolate and cappuccino), a variety of fountain drinks, a deli case for cold subs and sandwiches, and a roller grill for hot food. Most stores also have a hot cart, where breakfast and lunch offerings are available during selected parts of the day. Select locations sell fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts, whereas other locations instead sell packaged Dolly Madison doughnuts and other pastries.
Speedy Rewards Card [edit]
In 2003, Speedway launched its Speedy Rewards Card program. The Speedy Rewards Card is a free card for customers to use when making purchases at Speedway and SuperAmerica stores in order to earn Speedy Rewards Points. These points may be redeemed for coupons for fuel discounts, free food, or giftcards.
A Speedy Rewards Card can be registered (name, address, and PIN are the required registration information) at a Speedy Rewards Terminal in any Speedway location, or online.[2] In addition to the points program, the Speedy Rewards Card features "Clubs" that do not require registration. For many items included in these clubs, a rewards card member buys six and gets their seventh free (the exception being car washes, for which a rewards card holder receives their sixth wash free after buying five). These clubs dispense coupons for free beverages, chips, energy shots, and other items. However, redemption of any points for free items does require registration of the card.
The Speedy Rewards program is sometimes used to make targeted offers in the form of coupons that are dispensed with the Speedy Rewards point balance at checkout. These offers are targeted to customers based on their location or shopping habits.
Made Fresh Now [edit]
Select stores now have what is called a "Made Fresh Now" section within the store. Made Fresh Now was developed in mid-2012. With these new sections in the store, customers can now walk to a counter where they will come up to a touchscreen terminal. The touchscreen terminal will have a number of food categories for the customer to choose from, which ranges from paninis, specialty pizzas, and 12" subs, which the customer can custom make all of these selections. The store has a goal of 4-5 minutes to give the customer their food. The process is up and coming and soon will be in most Speedways across the Midwest.
2012-13 Expansion [edit]
Acquisition of GasAmerica [edit]
On February 13, 2012, it was announced that a deal had been reached with Indiana and Ohio convenience store chain GasAmerica to acquire all 88 of its locations.[3] As part of the purchase agreement, Speedway will also acquire all trademarks, trade dress and intellectual property from GasAmerica.[4] The deal also includes several parcels of undeveloped real estate for future development. The transaction was finalized on May 29, 2012, for an unknown price.[5]
Purchase of Road Ranger stores [edit]
On June 5, 2012, it was reported that Speedway, LLC signed a deal with the convenience store chain Road Ranger. The deal gave Speedway nine Road Ranger stores in Kentucky, and one in Ohio, in exchange for cash and a truck stop in the Chicago metropolitan area.[6] Rockford, IL-based Road Ranger operates approximately 80 truck stop and gasoline convenience store locations in seven Midwestern states. Like Speedway before it, Road Ranger has a partnership with Pilot Flying J.
Entry into Pennsylvania and Tennessee [edit]
In 2012, Speedway announced a planned expansion into Pennsylvania and Tennessee. While expansion into Tennessee has focused on the Grand Division of Middle Tennessee,[7] it also confirmed an expansion into Western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh.[8] In both cases, Speedway has had a presence before: the Tennessee stations were included in the 2003 sale to Sunoco when Speedway exited the Southeastern United States, while Speedway had a brief presence in Pittsburgh in the early 2000s when the SuperAmerica stations in the area were converted over to Speedway; those stations have either since switched over to standard Marathon stations or have been sold off to competitors such as GetGo. The return of Speedway in Western Pennsylvania also coincided with Marathon taking over the retail contracts of several Exxon-branded stations in central Appalachia and greatly expanding its presence in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, where Marathon's former parent company U.S. Steel is based.[9] ExxonMobil would subsequently offset its Pittsburgh losses by taking over several Shell-branded stations in the area and convert them to the Exxon brand. As of May 2013, Speedway has opened locations in Tennessee, but has yet to open stores in Pennsylvania.
References [edit]
- ^ Family-owned company gobbles up BP stores
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Hirsch, Stuart (2012-02-13). "Speedway will acquire 88 GasAmerica stores » Local News". The Herald Bulletin. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
- ^ InsideINdianaBusiness.com Report. "Speedway to Acquire GasAmerica - Newsroom - Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick". Insideindianabusiness.com. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
- ^ "Speedway completes purchase of 87 GasAmerica stations". Thecourier.com. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
- ^ "Speedway buys Road Ranger convenience stores - Dayton Business Journal". Bizjournals.com. 2012-06-05. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
- ^ http://www.speedway.com/Pages/GasPriceSearch.aspx?lat=36.1958946&lng=-85.44858490000001&st=Algood%2c+TN
- ^ "Speedway considers 7 locations in W.Pa.". TribLIVE. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
- ^ "Gas station operator converting 18 to Marathon brand". TribLIVE. Retrieved 2013-04-20.
External links [edit]
- Speedway's Official Web Site
- Marathon's Official Web Site
- Marathon Petroleum's Official Web Site
- Speedy Rewards
- [2]
- Marathon Petroleum
- Companies based in Dayton, Ohio
- Clark County, Ohio
- Economy of the Midwestern United States
- Economy of the Southeastern United States
- Convenience stores of the United States
- Gas stations of the United States
- Oil companies of the United States
- Automotive fuel brands
- Companies established in 1959
