May 27, 2008
By Allen Madding
Howard Augustine "Humpy" Wheeler, Jr. was born in Belmont, North Carolina in 1938. At 8 years old, Wheeler’s family was living in Florida as his father was serving in the U.S. Navy. Wheeler managed to attend a motorcycle race at Daytona, and his love for racing was ignited.
After the family returned to Belmont, Wheeler began bumming rides to the old Charlotte Fairgrounds racetrack and began working odd jobs at the track. At age 13, he began organizing bicycle races and operating a part-time bicycle shop. He would continue to operate the bicycle shop until he left for college.
Wheeler attended the University of South Carolina on a football scholarship and graduated in 1961 with a degree in journalism. While at the University of South Carolina, Wheeler was a member of the varsity team as a defensive lineman and became an amateur boxer.
After graduation, Wheeler worked as a sports writer, a television director, a real estate manager and managed several dirt tracks before being named the director of racing for Firestone Rubber & Tire Co. in 1964.
Wheeler was hired at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1975. He was named general manager in 1976 and was named president in 1980. Wheeler set out to make Charlotte a gem among the tracks the NASCAR Winston Cup Series competed. When Wheeler could not resolve the traffic jams prior to races at Charlotte, he decided to schedule dramatic pre-race entertainment to encourage race fans to arrive at the track several hours earlier than normal.
Some of those pre-race events came off without a hitch, while others had some unexpected happenings.
One year, Wheeler scheduled for 5,000 college and high school band members to perform prior to an October race. The weekend was a bit hotter than expected and the heat was intensified for the marching band members on the field wearing heavy wool uniforms. Part way into the performance, band members began dropping on the field and track medical staff had to treat around 100 band members for heat exhaustion.
Under Wheeler’s management, the track built the first condominiums at any NASCAR track. A revolutionary lighting system was added in 1992 to the tune of $1.7 million marking the first track in NASCAR over ¾-mile in length to host night racing. In 1995, Wheeler and track owner Bruton Smith, took Speedway Motorsports public becoming the first Motorsports company on the New York Stock Exchange.
Charlotte was one of the first tracks in NASCAR to sell the name of the facility for advertising when the track was renamed Lowe's Motor Speedway. Under Wheeler’s direction the seating at the track was expanded from 75,000 to 167,000.
Wheeler was inducted into the Carolinas Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2006. He is also a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame, the Belmont Hall of Fame, the World Karting Association Hall of Fame, and the North Carolina Public Relations Hall of Fame.
Wheeler is the past chairman of the Charlotte Convention & Visitors Bureau, he has served on the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, the Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce, the board of Charlotte Catholic Services, Mercy Hospital, the Boy Scouts of America, the National Head Injury Foundation, the board for Belmont Abbey College, the National Motorsports Council, the Governor's Sports Commission, the President's Advisory Committee at the University of South Carolina, and as a trustee of Speedway Children's Charities.
A book could be written on the honors and awards that Wheeler has received during his 33-year tenure at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and has been fondly dubbed the P.T. Barnum of Motorsports.
Wheeler will become the chairman of the Charlotte Regional Partnership in 2009 and many believe he is a strong runner for the position of director for the NASCAR Hall of Fame scheduled to open in 2010 in Charlotte. He also plans to write a book and host a television show.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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