The main promoter at the Spokane County Raceway in Airway Heights abruptly canceled more than a dozen weekend events scheduled through the 2018 racing season, potentially dealing a major financial blow to the raceway’s leaseholder.

The promoter, Rick Nelson, informed raceway operator Craig Smith on Tuesday that he is canceling the remainder of this season’s events on the half-mile Super Oval track.

“He just said, ‘I’m done,’ and that was it,” Smith said Tuesday evening. “I haven’t had a chance to sit down with him yet.”

Smith and county spokesman Jared Webley said they are confident another promoter will seize the opportunity to host races on the Super Oval this summer.

“There’s no reason to believe Craig won’t secure events for the schedule,” Webley said. “We recognize there’s an active base of race fans and followers, and we feel for those disappointed by the news.”

Smith leases the racing complex from the county for $65,000 a year and absorbs any losses. The complex includes the Super Oval as well as a quarter-mile drag strip and a 2.3-mile road course.

In 2014, after Smith found himself unable to turn a profit on the oval track, he contracted Nelson’s company to run it. The track had hemorrhaged hundreds of thousands of dollars because of low attendance and racing fees.

In recent years, similar half-mile tracks in Portland, Yakima and the Tri-Cities have been shuttered.

Smith said Nelson has typically rented the Super Oval on 26 consecutive weekends each year. Smith would not disclose the value of those contracts but said Nelson owes him for four weeks already.

Just last month, the Spokane Journal of Business reported that Nelson was optimistic about this year’s racing season, which kicked off April 21.

The Journal, which shares a parent company with The Spokesman-Review, reported that Nelson had spent more than $700,000 of his own money to operate the Super Oval, but he hoped to finish this season in the black by capitalizing on activity at the neighboring Northern Quest Resort and Casino.

“We hope to be profitable this year,” Nelson told the Journal. He’s also the owner of Spokane Valley-based Park Model Homes Inc., which specializes in custom-designed manufactured homes.

Reached by phone Tuesday evening, Nelson confirmed he had canceled this season’s oval track events but said he wasn’t prepared to comment further.

In a controversial move, county commissioners purchased the raceway complex for $4.1 million in 2008 after it fell into financial disarray under Orville Moe, a late racing enthusiast who raised money to build the facility in the early 1970s.

Before Smith, several previous operators under contract with the county had lost nearly $1.5 million.

In August, several events on the Super Oval were canceled because of a power outage caused by decades-old wiring.

Spokesman-Review reporter Amy Edelen contributed to this report.