Jay Hatfield says he wasn’t eyeing the Wichita market for another dealership site, but that’s where the Columbus-based auto and motorsports dealer is locating next.
Jay Hatfield Motorsports of Wichita will open at the northeast corner of Kellogg and Greenwich where the Scholfield luxury dealership used to be.
“We’re on our way,” Hatfield says.
The new store is happening as a result of Mid America Powersports closing last fall.
Hatfield says Honda and Kawasaki contacted him.
“They needed a new dealer out here,” he says.
“We like the business, and they asked.”
Hatfield is already confident in the market.
“We’ll be catering to the Wichita market, but we’ll be attracting a lot of people from out of this market. We will bring a lot of people to Wichita with that business.”
How does he know?
“Because I drag people to Frontenac, Kansas, about 800 a year. . . . You know, that’s only a town of 20,000, not a town of half a million.”
Hatfield has two motorsports dealerships. One is in Frontenac near Pittsburg. The store, Jay Hatfield Motorsports, sells Kawasaki, Can-Am, Polaris and Yamaha motorcycles and ATVs.
Jay Hatfield Motorsports of Joplin sells Suzuki, Yamaha, Polaris and Honda.
His new Wichita store will start with Honda and Kawasaki.
“We’ll see what other brands we can get.”
Hatfield says he’ll have motorcycles, ATVs and side-by-side utility vehicles.
“That’s a big seller,” he says of utility vehicles.
He says those are popular with customers from rural areas.
“They tend to drive to a bigger town,” Hatfield says. “They’re going to buy where they’ve got the best selection.”
He says pricing is a big driver as well.
“This industry’s very price driven. If you want to do volume, you have to be very aggressive on price,” Hatfield says. “Our strategy is to be very, very aggressive on pricing.”
Hatfield says he plans to slightly remodel the 37,000-square-foot building at the corner of Kellogg and Greenwich for the motorsports dealership.
“We’ve got to modify the big building to make it more motorsports oriented, but not a lot.”
There’s some general maintenance he needs to do as well.
“That building has been empty for two years.”
There’s also a 14,500-square-foot building on the property where Hatfield plans to move his Jay Hatfield Mobility, which is a wheelchair accessible van business he started here in 2006. It’s currently about a half mile down Kellogg on Zelta. Hatfield says he plans to sell or lease that 6,000-square-foot space.
There are eight or nine employees at the mobility business, and Hatfield says he expects to hire a couple more.
He says he’ll hire about 15 employees for the motorsports business, at least to start.
Hatifled has about 240 employees total, including his four car dealerships.
He owns a Chevrolet Buick dealership in Columbus; a Chevrolet Buick GMC Cadillac dealership in Chanute; a Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram dealership in Frontenac next to his motorsports dealership; and a Ford dealership outside of Joplin.
Hatfield hopes to open his new motorsports store by April 1, though he says he would prefer March 15.
He says he’s never looked at Wichita for more car dealerships before, and he’s not now, but that could change.
“We’re just open whenever it happens.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 2:43 PM.