Wheeler A Dealer In Barnum

   The plan for the Coca-Cola 600 pre-race show a few years ago was perhaps the wildest ever concocted by Humpy Wheeler, president of the race track then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway.

   After a dazzling array of aerobatics, a stunt pilot would fly over the infield to salute the crowd.  His route would be from Turn 1 to Turn 3.

   Upon buzzing across the Turn 3 wall, the pilot would dive into a deep gulch behind the track.  Out of sight of the crowd, it would look as if his plane had crashed.   Simultaneously, a huge charge of dynamite would be set off in the gulch, creating a thunderous explosion, fire and smoke.

   The pilot would pull up and and, still out of view, fly along a ravine that existed at the time behind the Turns 3-4 area of the layout that has been renamed Lowe's Motor Speedway.  He would circle back over the grandstands moments later, buzzing the crowd.

   "It'll be an incredible trick!"  Wheeler gushed to speedway staff members.  "People will talk about it for years!"

   Ed Clark and Eddie Gossage, associates of Wheeler on the speedway management team at the time, were aghast.  Both seriously disagreed with their boss.

   "I remember telling Humpy, 'What it'll be is an incredible disaster," recalls Clark, now president of Atlanta Motor  Speedway.

   Added Gossage, who has moved on to become president of Texas Motor Speedway, "There aren't enough doctors in the Carolinas to treat all the heart attack victims we'd have."

   Eventually, Wheeler scrapped the idea of a phony disaster in an air show.

  "I really doubt that Humpy ever would have gone through with something as bizarre as the 'plane crash' idea," continued Clark.  "I feel that suggesting it was his way of shocking me and Eddie and prodding us into thinking of alternatives.

   "But with Humpy, you can never be sure."

   As the Nextel Cup teams visit Lowe's Motor Speedway this week for the  UAW-GM Quality 500 they will be helping Humpy Wheeler mark an anniversary.  He took over day-to-day operations of the 1.5-mile track just before the fall 500-miler 30 years ago.  In the intervening three decades he has become one of the most recognizable, popular and powerful executives involved in NASCAR.  He also has become a hall-of-famer, having been inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association shrine last fall in Darlington, S.C.

   Wheeler is widely known for his often-wild pre-race shows.

   Why produce them on such a scale?

   Few other tracks go beyond having either country or rock-and-roll bands.

   "My philosophy is that to have a great event you have to create tension," said Wheeler.  "Tension is why heavyweight title fights and Super Bowls attract so much attention.

   "Pre-race shows quickly became a tradition at our speedway.  Fans began getting excited in anticipation of what we were going to do next.  That's a form of tension."

   Wheeler added that scheduling intriguing pre-race shows encouages fans to arrive early, lessening traffic problems.

   Humpy's list of productions varies widely.

   There have been numerous thrill shows, featuring daredevils flying through the air in cars, school buses and motorcycles.

   Also a car-eating mechanical monster, Robosaurus...A trapeze artist performing on a device hanging from a helicopter hovering hundreds of feet above the track...Military re-enactments of the invasion of Grenada and the first Gulf War...A circus...Big-city cab drivers banging fenders in a race with "junker' cars...Two-hundred parachutists dropping in to honor Richard Petty during his "Farewell Tour" in 1992.

   That was a chutist for each of Petty's record 200 victories.

   Rather humorously, NASCAR almost nixed the circus.

   Les Richter, then the sanctioning body's vice president of competition, was concerned that an elephant might go beserk and damage the race cars lined up on pit road.

   However, in true Humpy Wheeler and P.T. Barnum tradition, the show went on.

   That time.

   On one occasion it did not go on.

   Over a span of so many years with two shows annually the law of averages almost certainly meant there would be a clunker.

   It came about in the mid-1980s when  Wheeler decided the entertainment would be "The World's Largest Band."

   It would be comprised of 5,000 high school band members bused in from around the Carolinas.

   "We had no way of knowing that was going to be the hottest day for that date in October since weather records have been kept," said Wheeler.  "The temperature was close to 90 degrees.

   "The kids were in uniforms that mostly were pretty warm and some of the teenagers had to march a long way to get in place.

   "Jay Howard, who directs our pre-race shows, got an uneasy feeling early on about the heat getting to the students.

   "Within just a short amount of time, six band members went down.

   "Jay said, 'The show has got to stop!'

   "I said, 'The show goes on!'"

   "Then eight more went down and Jay again said we had to stop.

   "I said, 'The show goes on!'

   "Then several more fainted and I said, 'The show must not go on!'"

   Dozens of kids were treated for heat exhaustion.

   "That day turned out terrible for us," concedes Wheeler, even though no one got seriously sick.

   Wheeler began promoting races in 1961 at Robinwood Speedway near Gastonia, N.C.

   His vivid imagination immediately came into play.

   Among a colorful cast of drivers he pushed onto newspaper pages was "Jungle Boy Lane," billed as a "wild man" from Gaston County.

   "'Jungle Boy' wasn't wild at all," Wheeler confessed a few years back.  "He got that nickname when we were just kids growing up nearby at Belmont and Cramerton.  He became 'Jungle Boy' because he loved to go to Tarzan movies on Saturday afternoons.  He'd then go home and put on shorts and run around the neighborhood woods screaming and making like he was swinging on grapevines deep in the heart of Africa."

   During his first few years at the big Charlotte track Wheeler adopted a practice popular at Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway in which international celebrities were brought in as grand marshals.

   Humpy's list included Liz Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Telly Savalas, Dick Clark, David Carradine, June Allyson, Mamie Van Doren, Playboy Playmate Barbi Benton and heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, who sang the national anthem.

   The most unusual singer of the Star Spangled Banner given the microphone by Wheeler, however, has to be a woman dressed as Chiquita Banana.  Take it from me, folks, you haven't lived until you have seen and heard a gal hit those high notes while wearing fruit on her head.

  "Gradually, we found that we didn't need celebrities to improve ticket sales," said Wheeler.  "The fans were more interested in seeing Dale Earnhardt, Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, Rusty Wallace and Darrell Waltrip and the other drivers."

   Wheeler still harbors from years ago an idea that may be more far-out than the "plane crash" production.

   He envisions fans arriving at the track to see a huge glass tank filled with water positioned on the grassy area between the start/finish line and pit road.  In the tank would be a sizable shark.

   The production would be called "Man Versus Shark, One Must Die."

   "I figured on talking Moon Huffstetler, the marathon swimmer from Gastonia, into going into the tank and killing the shark," said Wheeler.

   Clark still shakes his head about this scheme.

   "I told Humpy that 'Moon will have no chance against a shark.  Moon will die,'" said Clark.

   "Humpy said, 'Well, we'll get some of that strong, space-age metallic material and make a suit to protect Moon from any bites.'

   "I said, 'Moon will drown.'"

   Gossage opposed on another point.

   "I told Humpy that the animal rights people would have us for lunch," recalled Gossage.  "I said, 'Humpy, there will be demonstraters all over the place.'

   "Humpy slapped his desk and said, 'You're damn right!  And if there aren't you better hire some!'"

   Humpy Wheeler may yet produce a "Jaws Show" of some kind for a pre-race spectacle.

   So fans shouldn't be surprised to arrive at Lowe's Motor Speedway some day to hear the cry, "There's a shark in the water!"