BUTTE - The owner of Staack’s Motorsports in Butte and the owner of Maverick Motorsports in Missoula were at one time pretty fierce competitors.
“I’d call him up and I’d be like, ‘Brian, are you trying to steal a customer out of Missoula from me?’ I was like, ‘don’t make me come down there and punch you in the nose,'” Maverick Motorsports owner Brent Gyuricza joked.
But, they’ve always been good friends and, now, Maverick Motorsports is taking over the Butte business which has been here for decades.
“It was hard, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it went to the right guy, the right people,” said Staack’s Motorsports owner Brian Staack.
Gyuricza, along with his business partner Guy Sharp, decided to buy Staack’s after learning the Butte shop was getting offers from out-of-state buyers. Brian Staack was not looking to sell but changed his mind after talking with his one-time competitor.
Gyuricza said he was sick with COVID-19 at the time.
“Laid in bed for three days with COVID thinking about it. Thinking about, 'boy, if there was one store in the state that I would want to buy, it would be Staacks,'” said Gyuricza.
For Brian Staack turning over the family business to a new owner was really more of an emotional decision than a business one.
“I was really worried about my staff, I wanted them with the right owner. It really wasn’t about the owner necessarily, the offer that Brent offered was plenty, but I was more concerned about the staff. He knows the staff, he’s keeping all the staff in place, this is going to be an exciting time,” said Staack.
The Staack family has more than 50 years of running businesses in Butte.
Ed Staack first ran a Conoco Gas Station before purchasing the current property on East Galena Street in the 1970s, where he ran a repair shop.
In the early 2000s, the Staack family turned it into a motorsport dealership.
