Durham is not the fourth largest city in North Carolina, despite what the census people would have you believe. The fourth largest is Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
At least it is during the three major race days of each year, when 200,000 fans and staff populate the Speedway’s 1,200 acres. To accommodate the influx of people, Lowe’s provides 1,700 toilets, 7,000 trash cans and a small medical staff. Heat exhaustion and alcohol poisoning are the most common ailments (besides NASCAR fever), but last year there was a rather unusual medical emergency.
After a race, H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, the Speedway’s president, rounded up the staff to tell them: “I know for a fact someone got into the race for free.”
Given the speedway’s dedication to security, the staff was befuddled. It turns out a woman had given birth in the grandstands during the race, which means the kid got in for free. “Why she would come out that far along in her pregnancy, I don’t know. It tells you something about the dedicated fans we’ve got,” said events executive Jerry Gappens. (It certainly does.)
Lowe’s speedway has been an innovative track. It’s the first to offer trackside condominiums and to host boxing matches, a three-ring circus and a reenactment of the battle of Grenada as prerace spectacles.
But the most desired and exclusive place to be is the Winner Circle, where the champion gets to stand with his car, race team and many sponsor caps and receive the adulation of 200,000 adoring fans. It’s not all that exciting in the cold light of day when workers are repaving the track, but I used my imagination as I stood in the middle of the ring surrounded by empty seats.
With the declining textile mill industry, stock car racing has been essential for North Carolina’s economy, said Gappens. Over the past 15 years it’s been a huge business, accounting for 27,000 jobs in North Carolina and pumping $5.8 billion into the economy. The average pay for employees is $70,000 (although race car drivers and other executives inflate the mean).
This week it was announced that Charlotte was chosen as the home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame (beating out Atlanta and Daytona). Gappens thinks Charlotte can use the attraction: “We don’t have beaches or mountains.”
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.
