Marcus Smith replaces Humpy Wheeler and more!

[DebWilliams-GFN]

Marcus Smith replaces Humpy Wheeler and more!

By Deb Williams

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 28, 2008) – Marcus Smith, 35-year-old son of Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman and CEO Bruton Smith, was named president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway and president and chief operating officer of SMI Wednesday.

Smith had endorsed his son for the positions, but SMI's board of directors had to approve the younger Smith for the jobs before it became official. Marcus Smith had served as a director and executive vice president, national sales and marketing for SMI, working on behalf of all 10 motorsports-related operating units of the company, including seven speedways, Performance Racing Network, SMI Properties and 600 Racing.

Marcus Smith replaces H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, who resigned his position last week after 33 years of running the 1.5-mile Cabarrus County track and serving as COO and president of SMI ever since the company became a public corporation in February 1995.

"Marcus has been training for this opportunity throughout his professional career," Bruton Smith said in a prepared statement. "He's come up through the ranks at Charlotte, proven his business savvy with our most recognizable sponsors and handled our sanction negotiations with NASCAR.

"But the thing that's made Marcus a success and will continue to do so, is that in his heart, he's a race fan. He never loses sight of the fact that our customers are the key to everything we do and he always wants to put our fans first."

The younger Smith has spent most of his life around the speedway business and from junior high school spent his summers working at Lowe's Motor Speedway. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in advertising from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith joined the speedway's corporate sales department as a marketing assistant and was promoted to account executive in 1996. He was promoted to manager of new business development for SMI in 1998. In that role, he negotiated the first naming-rights agreement for a NASCAR speedway as Charlotte Motor Speedway partnered with Lowe's Companies Inc.

"This sport is in my blood," Marcus Smith said in a prepared statement. "I'm going to bring the same passion to work each day that the race fans bring to the track every week. I'm competitive, and I want to be sure we're doing everything we can to provide a fantastic motorsports experience to our fans.

"We've got the best management team in all of sports, and I look forward to working closely with them as we move forward. We've got a lot more to accomplish this year, and 2009 will be even better as we celebrate the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway."

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