Originally Posted by
rasheed
Looks like Speedway's parent took over Western Refining and its retail. WR has a ton of different brands, so it appears that will go through a branding change soon.
Somehow I doubt California will get the Speedway lower pricing though. The branded/unbranded price differences here are so crazy. Also, it does seem ownership here just change ls every few years as one company gets tired of dealing with the complex and bureaucratic market.
https://gilaherald.com/giant-gas-sta...dway-stations/
Speedway is already open in northern California. Some locations still have cash price/credit price which really irks me as I have NEVER seen Speedway do that anywhere else (as they did under previous ownership Nella Oil; Western Refining changed nothing about those sites). So basically if a site was a former Nella Oil site, it has cash price/credit price. If a site was a former Tesoro/USA site then it does not have cash price/credit price it just has one gas price. In Auburn, CA there are two Speedways right next to each other one is an old USA the other is a former Nella Oil and one has cash price/credit price and the other is same price for either payment method. The one with the cash discount is truly appearing as a discount as the credit card price at both sites is equal. It is just one has cash discount and one does not.
Also in northern California some locations are being rebranded "Speedway Express." These locations still have the convenience store run by someone other than Speedway and are generic "food mart" convenience stores. The stores do not run any Speedway promotions or anything, they are just generic. Most seem to be run by Anabi Oil. Keep in mind Speedway is a convenience store brand not a gas brand so seeing this is also very weird. The whole point of Speedway in the past was that it was on corporate operated stations and then dealer operated stations had the Marathon brand. I have again NEVER seen Speedway do this sort of thing anywhere else before where they use their name on a site where the c-store is not a Speedway store.
So in northern California all of the sites converted to Speedway (not Speedway Express) have upgraded pumps with EMV and NFC but the NFC is still marked as "coming soon." Speedway has spent significant money in these sites they have converted in northern California to add in new coffee, soda, speedy freeze, etc. equipment and put in some new counters, etc. I do believe they are committed to the sites and hope you are wrong when you say they will likely get tired of the state and move on in a few years. However, California has some of the absolutely worst convenience stores in the nation due to the high real estate costs and barriers to entry so it may play out as you predict it to.
The Speedway Express sites were previously branded Shell or Mobil. No sites are keeping those two brandings.
Speedway is also currently converting sites in Utah and Las Vegas over to its brand at present (these were previously branded as Shell, Exxon, or Tesoro).
It appears they may be keeping the Arco brand in southern California... wondering when or if Speedway will appear there.