Ex-president, promoter at Charlotte Motor Speedway creates alliance of national short tracks
H.A. ''Humpy'' Wheeler has another big idea.
Wheeler, the longtime Charlotte Motor Speedway promoter who is now an industry consultant, announced the formation of a new short track alliance called "Speedway Benefits." The idea is to unite some of the 1,200 grassroots tracks with buying power so the facilities could get a high-volume discount from vendors.
The grassroots tracks host more than 50 million fans per year collectively and represent more than $200 million in buying power, according to Speedway Benefits.
"As the motor sports scene changes, grassroots racing is seeing significant success because of its tremendous appeal to the working people of this nation," Wheeler said in a statement. "However, they are doing it alone and our new alliance will bring them more fans, higher revenues and less expense.
"We are going to stick strictly to these grass roots tracks and not the big tracks ofNASCAR, Indy and NHRA. This collectivism of all the short tracks will change the face of racing."
Wheeler said short tracks are the backbone of racing but have been "shorted on television, advertising and media coverage." He announced his intention to "fire the rockets" to help change that.
There is no cost for a founding member track to join Speedway Benefits. The organization is not a sanctioning body for racing, just a marketing alliance.
"There is more excitement in racing at such tracks as the Carolina Speedway (Gastonia, N.C.), Lebanon Valley (West Lebanon, N.Y.), Skagit (Allen, Wash.), Bowman Gray (Winston-Salem, N.C.), Eldora (Rossburg, Ohio) and Thunder Road (Barre, Vt.) than most superspeedways," Wheeler said. "These grassroots tracks just never got the investment that fueled NASCAR's growth in the last 25 years.
"Imagine what can be done to bring a newly united sport with 50 million avid race fans in the next decade."
0 comments:
Post a Comment