'Growing Up NASCAR' is typical 'Humpy' Wheeler: No holds barred

By Bob Henry

ThatsRacin.com Editor

If you thought H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler was aggressive – he was a boxer, a football player and a small-town racing promoter who became one of the biggest-time racing promoters, after all – Wheeler knows someone who might top him.

Bruton Smith, his former boss.

"Bruton is absolutely the most aggressive human being I have ever known or could even imagine," Wheeler says in a book soon to be released.

Wheeler's “Growing Up NASCAR” isn't all about his relationship with the colorful and controversial Smith, the Speedway Motorsports Inc. founder and head man. Wheeler was a major player in the building and operation of Smith's speedway empire until his retirement in May 2008.

You wouldn't have to look far for a Humpy story. And most of the tellers were pretty much stunned when Wheeler and Smith parted ways. One of my favorites is still this one told by ThatsRacin.com and the Observer's late friend David Poole.

The book lets Wheeler tell his own.

"We argued constantly," Wheeler writes. "Bruton wanted more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, and I wanted the races to be better, better, better because I knew instinctively that no matter what we did or how gorgeous we made the track, if we didn’t have the product when the green flag dropped, we wouldn’t sell tickets.

"Of course all this massive expansion has come back to haunt him as many tracks today fill less than seventy percent of their seats."

Wheeler was a giant among the men who promote stock car racing well before he helped oversee his final 600-miler at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Other giants, with such names as Earnhardt, Petty, Foyt, Pearson, Baker, France and Allison considered Wheeler their friend. There were many others.

That he'd grow to such stature might have looked a little unlikely early in Wheeler’s career. But he was a fast learner. And he never was one to forget a helpful lesson, no matter the teacher.

He figured out pretty quickly that promoting races at his hometown track wasn’t just about selling tickets. Some of the spectators had to be chased out of the trees that afforded a free view of the racing action.

And once he heeded his mother’s advice – and didn’t cut down the trees – Wheeler came to understand that getting fans to climb down was only a first step. So he set about learning how The Show could make people more willing to buy the tickets he was selling.

And he learned it well enough that they were glad – maybe even proud of themselves – for having done so.

Such lessons were surely never lost on Smith.

Following are some excerpts from Wheeler’s “Growing Up NASCAR.” Smith is a major player in this chapter.

We'll soon have more from the book, along with information about its availability.

From Chapter 16: Bruton and I

Bruton and I didn’t have a boss/employee relationship even though that’s what he tried to promote. When I’m pushed around I can be one mean son of a bitch, and Bruton truly knew that. He would push everyone else around, but for years we had a pretty close relationship, because he knew he couldn’t elbow me without my knocking his teeth out. Also, I really liked many of his ideas, and I was grateful he pretty much gave me license to do whatever I wanted.

We were two intense, creative, aggressive men in a business loaded with violence, intrigue, mystery, and two-fisted testosterone – where the Wild, Wild West met the Scotch-Irish toughness of the Southeast.

Bruton is absolutely the most aggressive human being I have ever known or could even imagine. He seemed to want it all, so in order to get it I worked all the time – days, nights, and weekends.

We argued constantly. Bruton wanted more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, and I wanted the races to be better, better, better because I knew instinctively that no matter what we did or how gorgeous we made the track, if we didn’t have the product when the green flag dropped, we wouldn’t sell tickets.

Of course all this massive expansion has come back to haunt him as many tracks today fill less than seventy percent of their seats. I felt that we weren’t selling a race ticket – we were selling drama. I argued this with everybody, including Bruton and Bill France, Les Richter, Mike Helton, Tony George, and anyone else I encountered in races I was promoting.

I wanted color and excitement. I didn’t like black race cars, even as great as Dale Earnhardt’s car was. You just couldn’t see it because it blended in with the track.

Going into the 1980s, everyone was starving for financial sustenance. Even a small company has a financial base, something to fall back on in hard times. Not so for the race teams before the 1980s. They had a shop, equipment, and parts, but they did not have cash.

And when a team decided to get out, a lot of what it had couldn’t be sold for much. There was no franchise system. In the past, car owners looked to Ford or Chrysler for help, and sometimes a rich guy like Carl Kiekaefer came along, but usually, if you wanted to race, you were pretty much on your own.

Until R. J. Reynolds came along, almost all the sponsors were connected with automotive services and parts. STP sponsored Richard Petty, for example. But after RJR came into racing, there was a consumer revolution in racing. You began seeing non-automotive sponsors like Hanes, Coca-Cola, Texas Jeans, Hardees, Gatorade, and Busch beer.

Hanes had a brilliant marketing guy by the name of Jack Watson. It was Watson who put Wrangler together with Dale Earnhardt, a great move. When Hanes got into it, it was this old-time Southern textile company acknowledging the fact that a stock car race was a way to sell product. They didn’t have to go to the ACC college basketball tournament or the Masters golf tournament. They could go racing.

There was another distinct reason why so many sponsors were now non-automotive, and that was the influx of women coming to the races. In 1976 I did a survey of fans coming to the Coca-Cola 600, and fifteen percent were women. I felt we were in trouble because that was far too low.

I came across a very interesting study in Fortune magazine about what oil companies did during World War II to get women to come to their filling stations. Before then, it was their fathers or husbands who went to service stations. Women felt out of place there.

What the oil companies did was install beautiful new restrooms, and they cleaned their places up. I remember as a kid working at a gas station. The guy in charge would be on me all the time asking, “Is the women’s room clean?” He never once asked me about the men’s room.

I decided, “Let’s build some really nice restrooms.” Bruton agreed. I did one other thing. I started changing the sort of people we had at the gates of the Speedway. We used to have prison guards, gruff people who would bark at the customers. I began hiring teachers, coaches, salesmen, and saleswomen – people used to handling the public and putting them at ease. We stopped barking at them like we used to. We planted flowers and began treating everyone with great respect.

We started to get a lot more women, and then an amazing thing happened: The security problems dropped drastically to the point where we hardly ever had an altercation at a racetrack. That’s because she’s just not going to let you do it."