Humpy Wheeler steps aside, was it his choice to leave mid season?

[DebWilliams-GFN]

By: Deb Williams

CONCORD, N.C. (May 21, 2008) – H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, COO and president of Speedway Motorsports Inc. and president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway, stunned the motorsports world Wednesday with the announcement of his immediate retirement, but declined to elaborate on the reason for his hasty exit.


Wheeler's retirement becomes effective after Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at LMS.

“It's just one of those things. It's time to go,” Wheeler told the media and about 50 to 60 speedway employees during a Wednesday press conference at his beloved race track. “It's not anything I'm really looking forward to, but there just comes a time and a place when you have to move on.

“I've been thinking about this for some time, but I really started tossing it around about a year ago. We began to talk about this about six months ago. One thing led to another and we finally agreed it was time. Some of it is on my own terms. I won't say it all is, but some of it is, and I will let it rest at that. There are other factors involved here that I'd rather not get in to.

That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it; to do it quickly, suddenly. I didn't want a lot of fanfare. I didn't want to drag it out. I didn't want to have 'Humpy's Last Year.' People don't buy tickets to see me, they buy tickets to see Kyle Busch and other people race.”

Wheeler, who joined the speedway in 1975, became general manager in 1976 and president in 1980, said he had other interests he wanted to pursue.

“I made a deal last week with a major author to do a very unique book about racing, the inside and the meteoric rise of NASCAR, and also my delving into Indy Car and the Bonneville Salt Flats, and a lot of other things that I think that will give an insight into auto racing in the past 40 or 50 years,” Wheeler said. “I'll resume the 'Humpy Show' on SPEED Channel, probably this fall for The Chase. I look forward to serving as chairman of the Charlotte Regional Partnership in 2009.

“I want to design another race car; a grassroots race car. I want to make something that you can run at Bowman-Gray Stadium, Concord, or Thunder Road. The biggest thing that worries me about racing in the future is that we don't get the great race drivers. That we leave out the next Kyle Busch or the next Dale Earnhardt Sr., because a guy can't afford to race and he gets stuck in the cornfields of Iowa because he can't move up because the cost of racing has gotten so expensive. I still think we can build a Saturday night race car and sell it for less than $20,000 and race it for less than a couple hundred dollars a race.

“I'm going to have a lot of fun. I want to continue to work over at Belmont Abbey College with the motorsports program. I enjoy going over there and lecturing.”

A graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in journalism, Wheeler described himself as “nothing more than a writer.”

“I don't think I could write quite as short as you guys do now, but I enjoy doing it, and I'll probably get back to doing some more of that,” he commented.

Wheeler, 69, said he also planned to spend more quality time with his family and friends.

Bruton Smith, SMI's chairman and CEO, didn't attend the press conference, but sent prepared remarks.

“Humpy Wheeler is a true legend in motorsports and his contributions will be missed,” Smith said. “His career with Lowe's Motor speedway and Speedway Motorsports Inc. has been filled with many innovative promotions and I am sure that he will be remembered as one of the greatest promoters in racing history.

“We owe Humpy a tremendous debt of gratitude for all he has done for Speedway Motorsports and Lowe's Motor Speedway. We wish him all the best in any future endeavors and hope that he and his wife, Pat, have a great retirement with their family.”

Marcus Smith, SMI's executive vice president of national sales and marketing, said nothing should be read into the fact that his father didn't attend the press conference.

“I know he's been under the weather,” the younger Smith said. “You saw him yesterday, you saw that he was coughing. I don't think he wanted to take anything away from the day today. Certainly, it was a great time to listen to Humpy recount some stories and I enjoyed it. I think it was appropriate for this to be Humpy's time.”

Wheeler's successor has not been named, but SMI has scheduled a press conference for 3 p.m. Thursday.

Wheeler said his wife was extremely excited about his retirement.

“She is thrilled; she is beside herself,” Wheeler added. “She got up this morning and said, 'Yeah!' She usually says, 'Yeah' the day after the race is over.”

For many LMS employees, Wheeler, a Belmont, N.C., native, has been the track's only president and general manager since they joined the facility.

“That's the man who brought me to the dance. He was my Harvard Business School education. I've learned a ton from him and I will appreciate him as a member of my family for the rest of my life,” said Wanda Miller, vice president and general manager of the Speedway Club. “I have huge respect and admiration for him. I can appreciate sometimes he's 'Grumpy Humpy', but he is a very good man. There are untold amounts of integrity there and I think he is going on into the stratosphere. I think we will all look back and say many positive directions were fostered from this. I think there will be good things for all.”

In Wednesday's hour-long press conference, Wheeler recounted the good and bad times at the speedway, and addressed his concerns about the sport. He also didn't rule out possibly working with NASCAR.

“I probably would be available to do that,” Wheeler said. “I have had a close relationship with them for a long time, and I talked to Brian [France, NASCAR board chairman and CEO] and Mike [Helton, NASCAR president] this morning, and I feel like there are a lot of challenges there, but we'll just have to see. I'm going to take a little time off after this race, that's the main thing, rejuvenate things and see how that goes.”

Wheeler described himself as the “biggest pain in their [France's and Helton's] butt that they have. They have mixed reactions about all of this, because they know I'm going to get on them even worse. They have welcomed objective criticism in a very positive way and I don't think they want me to stop.”

When asked about the type of management the facilities needed for the future, Wheeler replied they have to make sure they have “bright, young management coming up that understands racing.”

“Track management needs to understand the drivers, the crew chiefs,” Wheeler continued. “They need to get to know them where they can talk to them and motivate them to do better. If you understand them, you understand the product. You can't just leave that up to NASCAR or the car owners. That's why short-track training is so important for management at speedways, because that's where you really learn what racing is all about. We need racers running the sport, and in some cases, that's not happening right now and it's creating some problems.”

Wheeler cited other major concerns: the sport's cost, the COT, and driver accessibility.

“I do think the best drivers in racing right now are in NASCAR Cup racing,” Wheeler said. “I'm not sure you're [going to get] the best race drivers and that worries me, because, again, I say how many of these great race drivers loaded with talent aren't making it to the top because they get stuck down in some clay race track in Alabama or in the cornfields of Iowa because it costs so much money and they don't have any contacts or anything else.

“The current condition of the Car of Tomorrow concerns me a great deal, as it does many people. I'm convinced there are a bunch of guys down there looking at those computers that act like they know what they're looking at, but don't. That car has become very difficult to get around the race track, and I'm not sure those guys in the garage area can fix it themselves. I think NASCAR will have to do something to that car to make it work better, particularly on the intermediate tracks. They have said to a lot of people that they're not going to change it, but I know they will if they have to. There is no doubt in my mind we will get it to work, but it's going to take more than what we're doing now.”

Wheeler also is an advocate of a wider tire.

“I think a wider tire would help us tremendously, particularly if it was an inch-and-a-half wider,” he said. “I had Goodyear last year talked into spending the money for the molds to make a wider tire. NASCAR decided not to do that, but if I was at NASCAR, that's the first thing I would do.

“I'm also concerned about driver accessibility, because that's what's gotten us here. But when you look at it and compare it to other sports, the accessibility of a race driver compared to the accessibility of a lot of other athletes is still pretty doggone good. So we're not in as bad a shape as we think we are. I do think if I was a car owner, I would make sure whoever was handling my race driver was a real PR person and not a bag carrier. I don't see as much of that as I would like to see.”

Throughout Wheeler's 33 years at LMS, he fostered many ideas, but it was always the people who were paramount with him. He always believed that keeping the fans happy was the key to getting them to return, and it's something he hopes won't be lost on future generations.