RaceTrac opens second Ohio travel center, eyes Columbus sites

By James Calloway

RaceTrac opened its second Ohio travel center, an 8,000-plus-square-foot store in West Jefferson, the company announced Wednesday.

The store sits about 18 miles from downtown Columbus. RaceTrac said the opening came nearly two years after its Ohio debut in Findlay. The company described West Jefferson as the first of several planned stores for the Columbus area.

In a LinkedIn post on Oct. 16, RaceTrac highlighted Circleville, Lima and Canal Winchester as future locations. The company did not include opening dates for the three sites in that post.

How far does RaceTrac's Columbus-area plan extend?

RaceTrac's Oct. 16 LinkedIn post named three specific future travel-center locations in its Ohio plan, with the operating West Jefferson store already in place.

Circleville, Lima and Canal Winchester are the three named additions. The announced slate includes those sites and the open West Jefferson store. It spans current operations and three future openings.

How does Ohio fit into RaceTrac's multi-state push?

The West Jefferson opening comes as fellow super regionals Wawa, Sheetz and QuikTrip make headlines for expanding into new markets, Dive Insight reported. RaceTrac is pursuing similar growth plans across several states, according to Dive Insight.

In late 2023, RaceTrac confirmed its upcoming entry into Ohio, Indiana and South Carolina. RaceTrac's website lists three stores in Indiana. The company has already opened 18 in South Carolina.

The three late-2023 entries now stand at two Ohio locations, three Indiana stores and 18 South Carolina openings, based on RaceTrac's announcements and website data.

Dive Insight linked the difference between Indiana and South Carolina to RaceTrac's existing base in the Southeast. The announced entries have developed unevenly across the three states.

Why is South Carolina growing faster for RaceTrac?

Dive Insight called South Carolina's faster growth unsurprising because RaceTrac remains heavily concentrated in the Southeast. At the start of this year, more than 70% of RaceTrac's stores were in the Southeast, while the Midwest held only 10 locations in total, according to NACS data.

RaceTrac's 18 South Carolina openings compare with an Midwest count of 10 locations at the start of this year. That comparison provides the geographic context for Dive Insight's assessment.

Last year, RaceTrac opened its first North Carolina RaceTrac in a state where it previously had stores only under the RaceWay banner. It now has 10 stores in North Carolina, according to its website.

North Carolina entered the expansion with an existing RaceWay presence. Its move added a RaceTrac location to a market where the company already had stores.

What is RaceTrac investing beyond new stores?

In established areas such as Texas and Florida, RaceTrac is spending tens of millions of dollars to remodel stores. The company has also improved its technology and strengthened its supply chain over the past several years.

Those improvements include a new distribution center in Louisiana and an expanded partnership with supplier Core-Mark. RaceTrac's buildout now combines store openings, tens of millions in remodel spending, technology work, a Louisiana distribution center and a deeper Core-Mark partnership.

That program links capital spending, distribution capacity and vendor support to the company's store pipeline.

What are the next checkpoints?

RaceTrac's next stated checkpoints are Circleville, Lima and Canal Winchester. The company named them in its Oct. 16 LinkedIn post. The planned additions would extend a footprint that includes three Indiana stores, 18 South Carolina stores and 10 North Carolina stores.

For RaceTrac, the next concrete milestone is the development of Circleville, Lima and Canal Winchester, three future sites that would extend a base of 18 South Carolina and 10 North Carolina stores.