Bruton Smith

Ollen Bruton Smith ( * 1927 in Oakboro, North Carolina ) is a motor sport event organizers and owners and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which owns several NASCAR race tracks. Smith is regarded as one of the most powerful men in the U.S. motorsports and is out for the year 2006 in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans ranked 278 with an estimated fortune of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars. In 2007, Smith was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Background

Bruton Smitch saw his first car race at the age of eight years. His first race car he bought with 17 At the age of 18, he organized the first car race in Midland, North Carolina. He claimed he could defeat the NASCAR legends Buck Baker and Joe Weatherly. At his mother's request he gave up racing.

Operations

Speedway Motorsports

Smith built the Charlotte Motor Speedway, today's Lowe 's Motor Speedway in 1959 for 1.5 million dollars, with the financial support of his wealthy brother in law. The well-known racing driver Curtis Turner helped with the advertising for the race track. As the chapter zuneige went, led a court-appointed trustee initially business with the help of unpaid Smith before he again gained sole control several years later. Smith is also the current Chief Executive Officer of Speedway Motorsports.

Later he founded Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI ), which is owned by seven NASCAR racetracks. These include the Lowe 's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Sears Point Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway. In 1995, he stunned the motor racing world when he went public with his company. The shares of Speedway Motorsports, Inc. were the first of a motor sports company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Smith is also the current Chief Executive Officer of Speedway Motorsports.

Lowe 's Motor Speedway Controversy

To a large controversy surrounding the Lowe 's Motor Speedway came in September / October 2007, when Smith plans to build a dragster race track introduced near the Speedway that already exist. In the population of Concord, North Caroline, there was resistance because they feared the construction would lead to more noise and congestion. The city council of Concord then changed the development plan for the region concerned, so as to prevent the construction. On 2 October 2007 called for Smith to undo the changes or he would close the Speedway and rebuild to a different location within the urban area of ​​Charlotte, which would have meant the loss of several hundred million U.S. dollars for the town of Concord. Smith was to bring such a project with 350 million U.S. dollars and in just eleven months to complete. Under pressure from the mayor and the governor of North Carolina Michael Easley, the city council took back the change.

November 26, 2007 Smith announced to leave the Lowe 's Motor Speedway to its current location in Concord. His decision was a response to an offer from City, County and State, which had an estimated value of 80 million U.S. dollars. As part of the offer is the Speedway Boulevard, the access road to Lowe 's Motor Speedway, renamed and expanded in Bruton Smith Boulevard. Three other major road projects are also part of the offer.

Other shops

• Smith is also the founder of Sonic Automotive, a group of about 200 dealerships spread across the United States.
• Smith was a partner of the Kannapolis Intimidators, a baseball team, along with Dale Earnhardt.

Social Commitment

Smith supports projects to help children with his charity Speedway Children's Charities. He also donated 50 million U.S. dollars for a monorail project close to the original Charlotte Speedway, where the first official race of NASCAR took place. The monorail project was partly responsible for that Charlotte was awarded the contract for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It is the Hall of Fame with the connecting Lowe 's Motor Speedway.

Criticism

Smith acquired along with Bob stretcher in 1996 half of the historic and popular with the fans North Wilkesboro Speedway. Due to the age of the circuit, the outdated facilities and relatively small audience capacity to stretcher and Smith decided to move the two races of the Winston Cup on Withdrawable New Hampshire International Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway Smiths. To this end, Smith earned criticism from the tradition intent on NASCAR fans. They accused him of NASCAR gone out in favor of larger racetracks to change from its origins in the smaller towns in North Carolina with its many short tracks with a higher seating capacity, ignoring the history of NASCAR.

Award

• International Motorsports Hall of Fame (2007)
• North Carolina Business Hall of Fame (2006)
• Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame (2006)