Intro: As promoter and general manager of Hickory Motor Speedway, Sherry Clifton oversees one of the sport's most famous and historic short tracks. The 0.363-mile oval sits in the heart of stock car country, in North Carolina's Catawba County, known as the home of NASCAR champions Ned and Dale Jarrett and Bobby Isaac. Clifton is a member of another successful racing family from Catawba. Her father, Hal Houston, was a short track competitor for several years; her uncle, Tommy Houston, won 24 races in the NASCAR Busch Series; and Clifton's sister is Teresa Earnhardt, head of Dale Earnhardt Inc. Near the end of last season, Stock Car Racing spoke to Clifton about the state of short track promotions.
SCR: What is your official capacity with Hickory Motor Speedway?
CLIFTON: Everything. I'm the promoter and general manager, and I own the business that leases the track. Although I don't own the track, I am the business owner. The track is owned by a group of businessmen here in town.
SCR: How did you get into leasing the track?
CLIFTON: I was working here for a previous leaseholder as an employee, and he decided he didn't want to do this anymore in midseason. I took over the track with a partner, was offered the lease on it with a partner, and then the partner decided she didn't want to do it anymore. So I formed my own company and took the lease. This was two years ago.
SCR: How long have you worked at Hickory Motor Speedway?
CLIFTON: I've been working here going on my sixth year. I've been coming here since 1953. My dad raced here for 27 years, so I was brought here from the time I was an infant.
Hickory Motor Speedway has...
Hickory Motor Speedway has indeed hosted some of the legends of the sport. Photo by Michael Paul
SCR: Given your perspective as a longtime observer and participant in the sport, what do you consider the biggest challenge facing short track promoters today?
CLIFTON: Obviously, I can only speak for myself because from March through November I'm here and don't get a chance to visit other tracks. But I do talk to other promoters quite often. We compare notes and dry each other's tears. I don't think there's any one biggest challenge. It's just the challenge that all small businesses are up against right now: We've got a volatile economy. You've got the price of fuel rising and dropping at the oil companies' whims. Consequently, the price on all other products goes up, and the cost on all your supplies goes up, whether it be racing fuel or tires or concessions or toilet paper. I mean, everything that has to be delivered, they pass the price along to you. But like I say, that's true with all small businesses.
SCR: Have you adjusted ticket prices recently to reflect that?
CLIFTON: No, we've kept grandstand ticket prices the same as they've been for years. It's $10 for adults and everybody else gets in cheaper. This area still hasn't come back from the recession from a few years ago. We had lots of furniture factories close down. Furniture was our number-one industry, and then the hosiery industry was the same. A lot of the hosiery industry is going out of the country for manufacturing now. And fiber optics was a big business in this area and that industry has had plants close down and scale back. There are still a lot of people in this area who are either out of work or have had to take a job that they really weren't trained for or set for, and their disposable income has dwindled.
SCR: How has all that changed your job in the last year or two?
CLIFTON: Well, of course it makes it tougher. You have to offer people more value and give them a destination that makes sense for them to get up out of the chair, a destination that makes sense for them to put $3-a-gallon gas in their car to go somewhere, where they could stay home and watch CSI and watch Cup races on TV or watch American Idol. You've got to give them a good reason to come on out and see something different that they can't catch on TV.
SCR: In that vein, have you done anything different, such as add divisions or programs to bring additional value?
CLIFTON: Well, one thing we did that seems to work well is we actually cut our lap count on the Late Model division. In the past we would run 100-lap features on the weekly show. We cut it back to 50 laps, which means there's no following the leader and waiting until the end. If you're going to win that race, you've got to go from the green and you've got to go wide open as hard and fast as you can go. It has made for some very exciting racing.
SCR: So doing that one simple thing really made a difference.
CLIFTON: That and we're continuing to tweak our tire program. We limit the number of tires that a race team can buy. We found them a very good tire in the Goodyear 2602's, and we keep them from buying four tires every week. That helps their bottom line, too, and more racers can afford to come out and race on a two-tire night than on a four-tire night.
SCR: What kind of car counts are you getting?
CLIFTON: Our car counts have risen dramatically. I've been very pleased. I think this year we're averaging 22 Late Models per event. As part of that-you were asking before what we've done to make it more exciting and bring people out-we've cut down the number of divisions racing each night. I mean, there have been years past when we've had seven or eight divisions racing each night and you don't get out of here until 12:30 or 1 o'clock in the morning. And I'm talking about the fans, not the track workers. We cut it down to five, six divisions at the most with a small lap count, and we keep it moving. We try to eliminate dead time. When one division is on the track racing, the next one is being lined up. When you can get families out of here on a Saturday night by 10:30, 11 o'clock, they appreciate it. When you see the kids going out the gate and they're asleep and they're whiny and it's 12 o'clock at night, these parents aren't going to be real eager to come back and do this next week. But when they're still all in a good mood and happy at 10:30 on their way out, yeah, they'll come back again.
SCR: What are your core divisions?
CLIFTON: Our Late Model Stocks, of course, a NASCAR-sanctioned division. Limited Late Models, Late Model Super Truck, Street Stocks, Hobby Stocks, and a Pro 4 division. And we'll rotate those. Then on any given night we'll have a touring division, say, the Allison Legacy, the Legends, the Pro Challenge, and we'll alternate them throughout the course of the year. It gives the fans some variety when they come to a race, but it also gives the drivers and race teams a week off every once in a while to catch their breath and lick their wounds and say hello to the wife. They can have a life of their own instead of being at the racetrack every Saturday night from March through November.