The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 14

I4A THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER Sunday October 1 1995 RISK AT EVERY TURN utting everything on the line ID chats with driver Cale Yarborough (right) on May 21 1980 after he won the World 600 pole At 17 he paid $700 for his first race car a white-and-red Ford After high school Smith worked in the mill sold some cars on the side and organized a few dirt-track races He was drafted during the Korean War but go overseas Smith dated but he always made his priorities clear said he would never marry before he was at least 45 He wanted to become a very rich person said Edna Coles a retired Pine Ridge SC bookkeeper who dated Smith during his two years at Fort Jackson the Army post near Columbia Smith looked like Marlon Brando when she first met him at a Columbia drugstore just thought he was the most handsome man I ever said Coles 68 was always dressed so nice and always drove such nice big Gutsy young promoter After his discharge in 1952 Smith moved back to his home in Concord and made a living selling cars and promoting dirt-track races in Concord Shelby and other Piedmont towns If not for his devout Baptist mother Smith might have stuck to driving the cars himself He lived with Moilie Smith for his first 39 years except for his military service His father died in the mid-50s just kept pleading that I would stop (racing) Finally when she started to pray 1 felt she was fighting dirty and better stop It just going against Mom It was going against Smith recognized that promoters not drivers made the most money in racing His imposing build a stocky 5 feet 1 0 came in handy Many drivers were exbootleggers and the crowds were rough and tumble looked like a middle linebacker and the drivers realized that he could probably whip their tails if there was a disagreement" says Charlotte marketing executive Max Muhleman a Charlotte News sportswriter when he met Smith HA Wheeler then an upstart promoter himself recalls Smith mixing it up a time or two but no serious brawls drivers push him said Wheeler now president of Charlotte Motor Speedway knew he could never back down because if you ever did you might as well give them the keys to the place and go Smith knew how to get what he wanted Trees blocked view at the old Charlotte fairgrounds track and its owner refused to let him cut them down So without asking the owner Smith chopped off all but a few limbs By age 28 he was getting rich He earned $128050 in 1955 and $151984 the next year The numbers surfaced in 1962 when he was indicted for not filing federal tax returns for those years He pleaded guilty paid back taxes and a $4000 fine and received a one-year suspended prison sentence Out-hustling a legend Stock-car racing was getting hot in the late '50s Large paved tracks like Darlington Raceway in South Carolina were drawing huge crowds to see such stars as Curtis Turner and Fireball Roberts large pool of racing fans made it an obvious spot for a major track With backing from wealthy Concord businessman JW Propst Smith started planning a $2 million speedway But Curtis Turner also was thinking big In partnership with track officials from Darlington North Wilkesboro and Winston-Salem he planned a speedway in northern Mecklenburg County The competition seemed onesided: a revered racer and three track owners versus a 32-year-old dirt-track upstart Then Propst backed out after a heart attack in 1958 and Smith lost his financial support Smith Continued from page 1A partnerships and bitter lawsuits His record includes a conviction for tax evasion and judgments for improperly taking money from his companies He lost millions in a Charlotte savings and loan that went bust And his marriage produced the largest divorce settlement in NC history But he keeps coming back with lots of loans from NationsBank counsel from some of most prominent lawyers and decades of risk taking He quit until he gets his way you are going to fight with Bruton then you better be prepared to fight to the end" said Charlotte lawyer Robert Stephens who has opposed Smith in court he makes up his mind going to have to really fight to change At age 68 Smith is upping the ante again This year he sold to the public $75 million worth of stock in his Charlotte and Atlanta speedways Since May he has bought stakes in the Rockingham and North Wilkesboro speedways And building a $125 million track near Fort Worth Tex that he says will be even more spectacular than Someone born into wealth take such chances friends say have anything to start said former Charlotte banker Luther Hodges Jr "And therefore he has been quite willing to put everything he has on the line year after Smith play golf belong to a church or take family vacations He lives alone in a 10000-square-foot house He registered to vote He smoke or drink He has focused his life on one thing It is business Winner takes all to Ollen Bruton Smith was a workaholic before he was out of high school He grew up on a small cotton farm a mile northwest of Oakboro in Stanly County 20 miles east of now Charlotte Motor Speedway He was born March 3 1927 the youngest of James and Moilie nine children With 1 1 mouths to feed during the Depression the Smiths never had much cash first job at age 12 was in a sawmill At 16 he went to school during the day then worked at a cotton mill until 11 pm Early on he was a winner you were shooting marbles Bruton would wind up with all the says childhood friend Harold Furr a Cabarrus County contractor and real-estate agent Along with drive he had flash He showed up one day in eighth grade with his straight black hair fixed in a curly perm recalls classmate Glenn Teeter a retired Lance Inc sales manager now living in Mauldin SC His schoolmates laughed but it bother him was just Teeter says never cared what anyone In Oakboro High 1944 annual senior Bruton Smith won three superlatives: most athletic most popular and most conceited Yearbook editors described him: answer to a But cars not girls were his passion Racing had been in his blood since age 6 dad and one of my older brothers took me to a race at the old Charlotte Smith says "Hearing those engines roar seeing those cars rooster-tail that dirt into the air this was the most awesome thing ever seen in my life "I was just unbelievably impressed with the whole thing and 1 wait to get to another race And stayed that way" Promoter and pole winner: Smith I contacted Curtis" Smith recalls all the papers described him as a millionaire lumber The two men hit it off Smith was hopeful But several weeks later in May 1959 Turner gave Smith the cold shoulder at the Barringer Hotel meeting had talked with Curtis the day before and the week before and the week before and the week before and so Smith recalls thought gee whiz this is an absolute stab in the Rather than sulk Smith announced plans for his own speedway the next day But he knew Charlotte could support only one track and he have enough money even to get started When group struggled selling the 300000 shares needed to start its project Smith offered to sell 100000 of the shares himself He bought radio ads and drove around the state peddling the stock until it was all sold back then was just like he is today" says Henry James Jr attorney at the time was aggressive forceful and a tough competitor" All told investors bought $300000 worth of stock at $1 a share Construction of Charlotte Motor Speedway began late in 1959 and on June 19 1960 the first World 600 was held attracting 78000 fans to see Joe Lee Johnson win Curtis Turner was leading until his engine blew on lap 175 Speedway in trouble Almost as quickly the new speedway blew its own engine speedway was kind of like building a $200000 house and you only had $130000 to put into Smith recalls a miracle that the place got built because I hire an architect or an engineer The only professional person I hired was a Local banks loan any money Neither Smith nor Turner had enough collateral The millionaire lumber man it turns out wasn't a millionaire (Turner died in a 1970 plane crash) While other speedway creditors waited patiently to be repaid Concord grading contractor Owen Flowe pressed Smith was no question that we citing his past legal trouble as was unfit to control a savings eventually won control but lost owed Mr Flowe Smith said we had a slight problem we have the money" Flowe forced the speedway into bankruptcy court to restructure its finances in November 1961 Charlotte lawyer RN Robinson was appointed to run the business as trustee He discovered a mess: debts topping $500000 a federal investigation into the stock sale and allegations that Smith took a $12500 kickback from Flowe during the construction Smith said he was due the money for renting equipment to Flowe Robinson fired Smith and sued him for misappropriating money leading to a February 1964 judgment in US District Court in Charlotte these payments were a and were extorted from Flowe as a condition of being paid by the Speedway" says the ruling which an appeals court affirmed the next year made a lot of mistakes back Smith says "but I do anything illegal When the accusations start in bankruptcy court you have a chance in hell because the judge has more power than Eventually the speedway repaid its debts Despite the suit and his dismissal Smith worked almost daily with Robinson in 1962 to keep the track afloat With about 40000 shares Smith had much at stake But the continuing controversy over the messy start turned fellow stockholders against him When the company emerged from bankruptcy protection in 1964 Smith tried to regain control Stockholders wanted nothing to do with him When Smith was nominated for a board seat at a stockholders meeting in 1965 chorus of boos and chants swept through the convention at the Heart of Charlotte hotel The Observer reported Instead control went to a group led by Richard Howard a Denver NC furniture store and restaurant owner and former Monroe Mayor Fred Wilson Targeting dealerships Losing the speedway freed Smith 38 to pursue his other dream: owning a new-car dealership Selling cars was far more lucrative than racing them He joined Bill Beck Ford as a salesman in July 1966 Three months later he was sales manager He left the next spring to run a Ford dealership in Colorado owned by Charlottean Jeff Davis In 1968 Ford sold Smith its dealership in Rockford 111 a town of 130000 He put $60000 down and agreed to pay installments over several years Talk about a culture clash: a 4 1 -year-old Southerner selling cars in a union-dominated manufacturing town In 15 months Smith had paid Ford back and owned Frontier Ford by himself Early in his Rockford days Smith decided to show that arrived He attended an auction of 250 late-model Fords in Chicago with about 1000 other dealers On every car that came up for sale Smith bid high just acted like I care what the price was I was going to he recalls after I But it was a storm not business foresight that sparked his cutbacks Smith and his pilot were flying from Dallas to Houston in mid-1979 His enterprises including a small Dallas life-insurance company then employed about 2500 people were thunderstorms everywhere and 1 looked up at the radar and man was it red And I knew red is Smith recalls bouncing around in this jet and asking myself am I doing this realized that I was really working for my employees And I said think 1 want to do this Smith decided he no longer would tolerate two things being tied to a schedule and being surrounded by bureaucracy He now works from a cramped simply furnished office at Town Country Ford surrounded by mounds of old issues of Automotive News and charts showing the daily sales and inventory Just down the hall is the Pit Stop hamburger grill His secretary is the Town Country receptionist who takes messages for Smith and 203 other employees Upstairs is an elegant wood-paneled office with expensive Western paintings and sculptures Smith goes there only for rare private meetings His dress alternates between sports shirts and Armani suits have one of these $50 appointment books that I live without" said speedway chief Wheeler who has two personal secretaries and one of most elaborate offices have a schedule He just Retaking control By the mid-1970s his profits had enabled Smith again to pursue his first love Charlotte Motor Speedway At first he seemed uninterested really know why I have bought a lot of stock" Smith told The Charlotte News during a visit to the 1973 World 600 banker told me 1 must be buying with my heart instead of my head because not that much of a profitable investment can assure Richard Howard the board of directors and everybody else concerned that I have no intentions of getting back into the business of operating Charlotte Motor In truth Smith knew that controlling the speedway could be immensely profitable The reason was RJ 1970 decision to sponsor main circuit renamed the Winston Cup Series big old fat company making a billion dollars a year is going to come in here and advertise your business for you" Smith says "You have to spend any money advertising I thought this has got to be a wonderful Nine months after the Charlotte News interview in February 1974 Smith had enough stock to take control of the board and become chairman Howard resigned as general manager in January 1976 His successor was Belmont native Humpy Please see Smithnext page A bought the first 15 cars the other dealers started backing away figuring I was going to quit" Smith kept buying After taken 35 of the first 36 cars rival dealers left the floor in protest Smith then bought 40 more cars at bargain prices before the auction owner persuaded the other dealers to return He wound up with 105 cars that day Marriage kids millions In Rockford Smith took a liking to a 21 -year-old interior designer named Bonita Harris They started dating after she bought a Thunder-bird at Frontier Ford in 1969 He called her every day for the next seven months Her initial concern about their age difference melted when she realized Smith had a energy There was one catch She wanted to get married and have a family He When Harris threatened to walk away Smith gave in On June 6 1972 they married at First Baptist Church in North Las Vegas Nev Only the pastor attended the wedding She was 24 and had a 4-year-old son Scott from her first marriage He was 45 Their first son Marcus was born 10 months later followed in August 1974 by David Later that year came a blockbuster that Smith calls the pivotal point in his business career Based on his Rockford success Ford picked him from more than 100 dealers most far more experienced to open a new dealership in Houston Lone Star Ford boomed along with the fifth-largest city Last year it sold 3885 cars and trucks topping the Houston 2 1 other Ford dealerships With Rockford and Houston as his base Smith expanded By 1979 he owned 10 dealerships including Dodge Country and Town Country Ford His dealerships ranked No 1 among Ford dealers in Charlotte Dallas and Houston while his Dodge franchises were No 1 in Atlanta and No 2 in Charlotte More legal troubles followed his business success In 1975 he was convicted and fined $100000 in a Georgia state court for diverting assets of one of his companies to private use In 1978 he received a similar fine in an Illinois civil court for evading federal and state taxes and converting partnership assets to his own use In 1983 he and Bonnie Smith settled a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over underpayment of their 1977 income taxes agreeing to oay $71179 Smith says he proud of hat record But given his complex multimillion-dollar financial deals during those years his attorney Daugherty says the amounts in question are small A change of course As quickly as he had built his empire Smith sold or shut down much of it He sold Dodge Country in December 1979 The next March he closed Frontier Ford in Rockford By then his auto holdings consisted of his two Ford franchises in Charlotte and Houston timing proved superb Auto sales plummeted in the 1981-82 recession with Ford and (uysler taking terrible hits agement sued evidence that he and loan Smith $5 million A misstep: Smith huddles with lawyers Fred Lowrance (left) and William Poe (right) at an NC Federal stockholders meeting in 1983 After Smith boughj 40 of the stock its man.