Local Racing Promoters - Top Of Their Game

Part of the trouble with promoting, Powell says, is the changing times. Once, people would have sat in the South Carolina heat for several hours. Now they won't. York says there was a time when fans would sit through anything, but now there are too many things they can do. They won't sit through a six-hour program that should be two-and-a-half hours. So you need to keep them interested and get them out of there on time.

During the November 2006 World Short Track Championships at The Dirt Track at Lowe's Motor Speedway, there were lots of wrecks and cautions to slow down the racing. People in the press box feared they would be there after midnight. Amazingly, or maybe not so amazingly, the last race started and finished on time, and Slack had everybody heading to the exits by 11 o'clock.

One important thing, York says, is a top promoter won't put the feature race at the end of the show, because he or she wants to make sure the feature gets run.

York says he tries to keep the racing reasonably priced. And he won't offer a $10,000 first prize and $100 for second. He prefers $400 to win and $150 for last. He wants to see a good car count, and he wants to develop hometown heroes.

Not much to ask of a top promoter, is it?

Most of all, York says he wants to meet the fans.

"I go in the grandstands, shaking hands," says York, whose track is successful even though Idaho isn't a hot bed of racing. "I personally tell them I'm happy they're there. I'll stand at the front gate and thank people for coming."

Ah, the sign of a good promoter.

When Charlie Powell and a partner bought Florence (South Carolina) Motor Speedway in 1996, they didn't hold the press conference at FMS. No, it was held 10 miles away in the press box at Darlington Raceway.

Why? Powell and Jim Hunter, Darlington Raceway's president at the time, were friends. Hunter, now the chief publicist for NASCAR, wanted the local short track to succeed, and he knew Florence would get more press at his track.

It seems that promoters at Nextel Cup tracks keep an eye on nearby short tracks. Humpy Wheeler, the president of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and the preeminent promoter in the sport, says that small tracks such as nearby Concord (North Carolina) Motorsport Park are important.

"That's the backbone of racing," Wheeler says of short tracks. "That's where fans are developed, where drivers are developed."

For years, Charlotte (now Lowe's) Motor Speedway ran a Road to Charlotte program in which drivers at regional short tracks could earn their way into a Busch Series field at Charlotte. Dennis Setzer, a longtime Busch and Craftsman Truck racer, got his start through that program. Economics, including the fact that Busch cars are pretty much like Cup cars, ended that program a few years ago.

"[Charlotte] was the only Winston Cup/Nextel Cup track that did something for local short tracks," says Concord Motorsport Park's Dwight Davies.

Wheeler runs a weekly program, the Summer Shootout, on a quarter-mile track inside LMS, but it only lasts in the summer, and it's run on Tuesdays. The Legends Cars, which run the Shootout at Lowe's and events at other Bruton Smith-owned tracks, have been a springboard to bigger things for a few drivers.

Wheeler chooses not to run a weekly program at The Dirt Track, across from LMS, because it may hurt the local short tracks, particularly Concord.

Roger Slack, who handles events at The Dirt Track, says he wants to see the short tracks succeed.

"The Concords, the East Lincolns, the Cherokees, all the local dirt tracks, there's a lot of history at those tracks," he points out.

"Our relationship [with Lowe's] is good, although we don't always agree," says Larry Thomas, Concord Motorsport Park's publicist. "We have a lot of respect for them, and they have respect for us."

Powell says short tracks are concerned that more and more Cup races are being held on Saturday nights, the big night for most bullrings. Still, the short tracks don't necessarily avoid the big tracks on their schedules. When Powell was at Summerville (South Carolina) Speedway in the '90s, he'd put TVs around the track so fans could keep up with the July Pepsi 400 at Daytona. And fans would still go out to see racing at the 4/10-mile track.

Last November, Concord held its North-South Shootout on one of the nights of The Dirt Track's championships, and it didn't seem to hurt the crowd.

Concord's Davies says CMP has tried running a night program the same day of a Busch race at Lowe's, but traffic was a concern.

Jody Deery, promoter of Rockford (Illinois) Speedway, says she won't have a regular program the weekend of a race at Chicagoland Speedway, which is about 90 miles from Loves Park.