The Charlotte Observer du lieu suivant : Charlotte, North Carolina • 42

14C Sunday May 24 2009 rivay may 44 ZUUV RACEWEEKS cnanotteobservercom 1 ne COCA-COLA 600 A wild ride for everybody charlotteobservercom The Charlotte Observer FIRST RACE' sfromBC r1 24 tale 31 4tvtriipkk Lit4k :14004 Es L1 ''''rlo ''t ITP''' -41 Id l' I Ilid i1 -1)k 'I rl'-4t f' e' i 4 1 44 47 1v2r) 7-: 7-' -e It" 1I: '-'-i 4 rrif Af (5 4 WI 1 iGI Ir i) jc'1 i' Zi ki 4 ---ta iy- 0 A- Ak- 40 I44k OFFICIAL PROGRAM PRICE Icic' OBSERVER ALE PHOTO David Poole covered NASCAR for the Observer for 12 years He loved the colorful people who are so identifiable with auto racing history COURTESY OF NASCAR The race set for Memorial Day was postponed due to construction delays He was reporting on this his next big feature story in the weeks before he died of a heart attack April 28 at his Stan ly County home David was excited about the story behind his home speedway's birth had wanted to tell it for years Now it exists in stacks of notes fetched from his laptop There are interviews and timelines statistics and recollections The storyteller in him surely had some choices to make Every good story as David well knew is an answer to a parade of questions what quotes to sprinkle in what details to sift out And always the most important to ask: Why tell this The easy answer? David loved history Sometimes when he went to races at the Poconos he slipped away from the track to find Civil War battlefields to walk-But anyone who read David or listened to him on radio or sat within a five-chair radius of him knows that he rarely settled for the easy answer In the first sentence of his first column as the Observer's racing writer 12 years ago David bluntly informed readers that he didn't like the term "motorsports" NASCAR he explainetl has always been about the people who put those motors in the car the people who tamed those motors on the track He often came back to them in his stories and some of his finest writing was about them Maybe that was because he recognized their story most countryIdds doing something they loved chasing an adventure before anyone knew how big the dream could be the idea of a speedway on 29 outside the county line" said Max Muhleman then a writer with the Charlotte News and later a sports marketer here "1 would go out there with him (hiring the conceptual stages" Before Charlotte there were two asphalt superspeedways Darlington which opened in 1950 was the first Daytona which opened nine years later and could hold more than 40000 paying fans brought racing's version of stadium envy suddenly everyone had to have one As Daytona was readying for its 1959 opening Smith approached Turner about doing the same in Charlotte "He said 'Let's do it' Smith remembers "Financing? No problem no problem With Curtis anything was no problem when he was talking to you" But Turner apparently had already nodded yes to a group of other partners including Darlington Speedway's Harold Brasington On April 221959 Turn- er held a news conference to announce the Charlotte Motor Speedway "some stupid track" Smith now says Smith called his own press conference later the same day His Charlotte International Speedway would be bigger and better and Smith flashed what he A $1 stoct swears now is an architect's speedwal rendering of the project Muhleman thought then that the drawings looked suspiciously like the Daytona Speedway Charlotte's media had a good chuckle at the dueling proposals In that year's difficult economy building one track was near impossible let alone two Smith and Turner knew this too Within two months they decided to work together "Curtis was the magnetic CEO type" said Robert Edelstein the New Jersey-based author of "Full Throttle" a Turner biography "He would fly in give a big smile bring a bunch of money from some timber deal and fly A $1 stock Speedway A $1 stock Speedway A''- Sf 1' 41 CIA1UOTTE MOTOR SPEf bWAV INC Leel iltkr4atz CHARIOT TE MOTOI SPEEb'QAY ic et--44rat-r60etaten4 1Cr 47- -67 It F4-: -p i-'' A er "177: 'A4(miWOA 7 CIARIOTTE mOTOg INe ih t0441-tk 3( 4 I 61t4tAiltr--0 r' rip) COURTESY OF LOWE'S MOTOR SPEEDWAY certificate sold for the Charlotte Motor certificate sold for the Charlotte Motor track promoters of his day11e drove a little himself before his mom prayed him out of it but he was no softie at a stocky 5 feet 10 inches tall he was unafraid to stand up to the roughneck drivers of the day Then there was Curtis Turner "a movie that was never made" said former Lowe's Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler Turner was handsome charming and some thought the best driver they'd ever seen He was the Kyle Busch of the 1950s running full out as often as he could except back then remembers Wheeler the cars couldn't handle that kind of insult He also was a restless soul always off on his plane or in his black Cadillac to pursue some venture Most in the racing business mistakenly thought he was rich Turner sometimes ran in dirt races Smith promoted at the Charlotte Fairgrounds before crowds of 1500 or so They didn't care much for each other say people who knew them Things didn't get cozier when the idea for a Charlotte superspeedway took root "I started the whole thing" said Smith in an interview last week "You go back to 1956 I talked to Probst Construction in Concord They wanted to partner with me and build a speedway Fd already been working on it but that really lit my fire" "Curtis was the guy who started on A tale of 2 builders back off in search of other possible sources of capital" Bruton was the de facto chief operating officer there for the day-to-day details and the grind-it-out fundraising At one point when money was tight he drove across the Carolinas selling stock for the track at $1 per share He raised $406000 On July 29 1959 the pair broke ground on a patch of land just north of the Mecklenburg County line It was a speedway that would rival Day So this is how we begin David's story with people the two people who built Charlotte Motor Speedway One was Bruton Smith just 32 brash then but not yet the towering figure he would become He was a tireless worker one of the best dirt SEE FIRST RACE 15C me AN 1ICIPAY 0 C-7647) r- "Irk rotO -'4 14 1 0 NrIlt 'er 4' CZ411 ----7 1--7: 7 1 4 1 4' --pwrit- 4A sl 34wv10 -a- iii 71 )f -com17)00 iri 4 0- ''r a' 7 lki'7 i 14 A''' k's 77 jr' ---r7 "7Z1r14'''- 4:2 '-L- 1: 1" 11 tr 04 -4: 7" i1Lt Jt i3-44 '-k AE m- -04 Ap It 1 -4-01' 0 1y 1- i' t'" 1' iii $10' 4 '1A 14 14 "Nit 14 1 flo'- oitir-s- 4 ifeA NI- 4 44' '''''i! 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'1 i' 4tilt ioi11r11' --4' Vlo OBSERVER FILE PHOTO June 19 1960: Charlotte's first Race Day It featured a 60-car field about 60000 fans and a race full of crumbling and flying pavement "There were some mangled automobiles some snorting drivers some tears but no blood" wrote the Observer's Herman Helms "Miraculously there was no blood" LI 4 41 -14 -a14 ---00A41 4-1414It114 afitadi FILE PHOTO norting I.