How do race track owners get this kind of short track racing action and put people in the stands? Fewer are surviving and tracks are closing.
A couple of years ago H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, the clever and seasoned promoter extraordinaire of Lowe’s Motor Speedway, deemed the nation’s short tracks were in trouble and shutting down.
 H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler is one of the foremost racing impresarios in the country. He knows that short track racing is in crisis and has solutions – which all require reducing the cost of racing. |
It was time for an update on the state of short tracking from him. Some of you might not completely embrace what he is going to say. [Like your Editor – Ed.] But he has the stripes and wisdom of long experience selling racing.
For instance, he faced irate police when he dropped racing leaflets from a small plane to promote a short track race -- back when laundry was hung out to dry and wet clothes and paper didn’t mix so well and angry housewives called the law. Today he’s made Lowe’s and parent company Speedway Motorsports into a powerhouse. He’s got clear business vision, knows racing and entertainment better than anyone, and makes money at it.
OT: Do you remember saying short tracks were hurting?
Humpy Wheeler: I probably said that we are in a crisis with weekly racing. And we’re still in that crisis. The crisis has not passed. I‘m not sure it’s even peaked yet. Track after track have closed down. This might have been one of the worst years we’ve ever had – ‘06 – at the track level.
Yet there are tracks that did quite well. So the model is definitely changing. And the track operators and sanctioning bodies that can go with that model change, or help the model
change, or even make the model change are going to survive. The ones that don’t just simply won’t. They just won’t.
We have, since the early ‘50s, lost a tremendous amount of short tracks across the country. A lot of has been due to urban growth. Speedways are more valuable as real estate than operating. The American public has a lot more diversification in entertainment than they ever had.
Home’s a great place now. You’ve got 300 channels. You’ve got HD TV. Your air conditioning works now, most of the time. The refrigerator’s got cold beer in it. What more do you want? How do you get ‘em out of the house? That’s a problem that maybe 25 years ago, we didn’t have as bad.
