1on1: Humpy Wheeler (cont'd)

Q: Musco Lighting has gone on to become a huge player when it comes to lighting sports venues, hasn't it?

Wheeler: They've since become the premier sports lighting company. They've done all the Olympics since then.

That was the deal I made with him. The Atlanta Olympics, their whole lighting contract was up for grabs. And I said, 'You do this. Make a deal with us and do it at the right price, and I'll sweeten up all those people from Atlanta for you. This will show them what you're really capable of doing -- because if they see you can light this place, you can light anything. A soccer field will be nothing after this.' And they did get the Olympics. They got Melbourne, Australia, and then they got the Olympics in Greece.

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We need to redo this points system to put more emphasis on passing for the lead. And I think more points need to be awarded to the winner of the races. The emphasis ought to be on winning, winning and winning. That's what people come to see.

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H.A. "HUMPY" WHEELER

Q: They did all right for themselves then?

Wheeler: Yep. And we did, too.

Q: And that guy is probably still talking about getting to do the Petty driving school?

Wheeler: As a matter of fact, he bought a Legends racecar after that. Then he later built a Legends racetrack up there in Iowa. So he kind of got bit by the racing bug.

Q: Getting back to that 1992 race, talk about what else made it so special?

Wheeler: I think the great thing about that race was it was probably the most exciting last lap we had seen in racing, because we had Earnhardt, Kyle Petty and Davey Allison all battling for the win coming out of [Turn] 2. Kyle and Earnhardt were in the lead going into [Turn] 3, and Kyle spun Earnhardt out. He just knocked him right up into the wall. And when he did, Davey Allison dipped down below him -- and Kyle wasn't about to lose the race, so they started smashing fenders down the front straightaway. And they eventually crashed right at the start-finish line.

Davey Allison was declared the winner. But for the first and only time in the history of NASCAR or any major American motorsports event, maybe in the world, the winner couldn't come to the Winner's Circle because he was unconscious. So we brought a wrecked car up there and made the best of it.

And then everybody expected Earnhardt to be furious. He stomped into the garage area afterwards and went over and put his arm around Kyle and said, 'Boy, you sure are a good racer!' Because he knew he would have done the same thing.

Q: Is that the kind of finish you have hoped for every all-star event since then?

Wheeler: The great thing about the all-star race is that the rules are relaxed on contact. And the best thing about it is that there are no points. This point deal we've got right now, we need to do something about it because we're not selling tickets to a points race; we're selling tickets to the race that day.

We need to redo this points system to put more emphasis on passing for the lead. Particularly earlier in the race, so you don't have a bunch of guys just running around the racetrack. And I think more points need to be awarded to the winner of the races. The emphasis ought to be on winning, winning and winning. That's what people come to see.

But it also enables us to be able to go once or twice a year and have a race like the all-star race, and not worry about points and let 'er hang loose. You know, that's a race where the crew chief says, 'Bring me back the steering wheel or the million dollars.' No one ever remembers who finishes second. The only second-place finisher I can even think of right now is Kyle Petty, because he crashed at the start-finish line with Davey Allison in that '92 race. That's it.

It also may be a portent of what we may see way down the road in racing. You may see us go to shorter type races like that.

Q: Some drivers have suggested shorter races recently ... but wouldn't that hurt concession stand sales from your standpoint?

Wheeler: If you keep people at the facility the same number of hours, it actually would work out better if the format of all races was more like the format of the all-star race because people would have a break then. Right now we're the only sport that doesn't have any breaks.

I think if you look way down the road, there will have to be people other than those of us who are running the sport today. And we may see some changes like that.

It's like baseball. Who says it's gotta be nine innings? Somebody made that up somewhere. I don't believe anything in sports should be set in stone. I think you should be able to change when you need to make the product better. That's something that we don't get enough of in pro sport -- and I'm talkin' about all sports. We tend to get bogged down in the past, and somebody back in the day made the decision for 15-minute quarters, or the baseball to be a certain shape, or races to be 500 miles. That doesn't mean it has to stay that way. I believe in innovation, and I believe the all-star race is a very innovative race. And certainly the fans think that, because we sell a lot of tickets to it.