Humpy Wheeler’s Speedway Benefits attacking the problems facing short tracks

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For many of us who know Humpy Wheeler, we know him as the promoter who spent over 30 years of his racing career at Charlotte Motor Speedway building it into one of the premier tracks in the country. But in 2008 Humpy left Speedway Motorsports to tackle issues facing short tracks around the county spending his time working with local tracks, which started his career when he began promoting dirt races at 21.

Recently Humpy has been very vocal on the issues surrounding racing by producing several videos on Youtube on topics of what’s wrong with racing and what he would like to see be done in order to fix the problems facing not only drivers, but fans also.

“After leaving that position of 34 years I began to go back to the short tracks and giving speeches to promoters at various workshops. I began to see the age old problem of short track racing. It has always been cyclical. Track A has big crowds and great car counts. The competitors take over and soft tires, big engines, etc. become the rule and suddenly the feature late model race has nine starters instead of 24 and the grandstand is half full. This sophisticated racing has ruined many tracks.” Said Wheeler

Just last week Humpy and his team assembled to bring to the racing community an idea of Speedway Benefits which will bring together a collective of tracks around the country. By using Speedway Benefits tracks will be able to leverage collective bargaining for advertising in which Wheeler says could bring a 300 percent increase in advertising which could amount to as much as $20,000 in addition revenue for a small rural local track.

“We will also work to show these tracks on how to increase car counts via rules to make racing much less expensive for the competitors. One of the big things we will work on is a universal short track tire that can work on dirt and asphalt. In my younger days I was director of racing for Firestone and so I am going to bring that experience to the forefront. The tire issue is one of the most problematic in racing. When I created the Legends car we went with a radial tire that was the same on all four wheels and we ran the same tire on all tracks — dirt, asphalt, road courses, etc. You know what.  It worked and it saved tremendous dollars. While late models were spending as much as $800 a race for tires the Legends cars couldn’t spend that in a whole season. Tires today are crutches for drivers and to a great extent have taken much of the passing out of racing. Look at the old movies of short tracks back in the 50s to 70s when tires where narrower and much harder. The races were much better and didn’t have the runaways we have today.” Said Wheeler

In addition to the advertising revenues Speedway Benefits would be able to leverage suppliers for products that tracks buy on a weekly basis bringing the cost down as much as 100 percent based on early estimates.   

Wheeler and his team will also bring the latest in technology to track patterns across the county from drag strips to kart racing and local weekly tracks.  Bringing in the use of social media and other outlets in order to bring in younger races fans who typically follow racing through online outlets instead of coming to the track, which will increase ticketing revenues for the tracks.

So far Wheeler and his team have already heard from 400 tracks across the county with a goal of having 500 signed on by January 1, with nothing more than a five year commitment to Speedway Benefits. Once signed on the team will work with the tracks on issues like low car counts, promotion of races in local markets, appearance of the track and fan amenities.

“We see a great future for short track racing if the operators will pay attention to the pattern. Pattern making is essential to success today whether you are a department store chain or a dirt track. What is successful overall? Copy it and it will work.” Said Wheeler

Speedway Benefits is made up of Trip Wheeler who will serve as President, Lauri Wilks who served as Humpy’s assistance and attorney at Speedway Motorsports will be on board as Vice President, Todd Adams previously was head of merchandising for Speedway Motorsports, and Clint Elkins will head up track relation.

Speedway Digest Staff
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