1on1: Humpy Wheeler

It has been 32 years since H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler was tabbed to run what today is called Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., on the outskirts of Charlotte.

This is his favorite time of the year, when for a good chunk of the month of May all eyes in the stock-car racing world are focused on him and his racetrack. This Saturday night LMS will host the Sprint All-Star Race, and during an eight-day span it also will be home to a Truck Series event, a Nationwide Series race and the Coca-Cola 600, one of Sprint Cup's most prestigious races.

The president and general manager of LMS sat down with NASCAR.COM and talked about what's going on in his world, which Wheeler basically controls.

Q: Did the recent controversy stemming from the Kyle Busch-Dale Earnhardt Jr. wreck at Richmond really help fuel ticket sales for this weekend's all-star race?

Wheeler: Nothing beats drama in entertainment. And pro sport and pro motorsports is entertainment as much as Young and the Restless and General Hospital. So without drama, things get boring. I think that's what got us here -- we've had a tremendous amount of drama in this business. People are not going to talk about the ordinary. It's the extraordinary that people are going to talk about, and that was an extraordinary event.

Q: How so?

Wheeler: What was extraordinary about it was, I'm not sure how many drivers would have attempted the pass to start off with -- knowing they had second locked up, and knowing that their car was just a little bit slower than the lead car. It's just so tempting and it's so easy to stay back there and sit, and just say, 'I finished second. I had a good points race,' which is one of the real fallacies we have in this business right now.

The emphasis, everything should be on winning. Second place is something else. I know there are car owners like Smoky Yunick turning in their grave right now. If his driver had said, 'I had a great points day. I finished third,' he probably would have fired the driver right then. They wanted to win.

So the fact that Kyle Busch made the attempt to win the race was a big thing. I definitely think his car was the slower of the two, off by just a hair. And on a real tight racetrack like Richmond, that's a big deal. So it's like many of those races that we sit around and watch, whether they're at Thunder Road up in Vermont or at some little track or a Legends race somewhere of whatever, and you see a bunch of guys running close together with a few laps to go -- and the two front guys are running as close together as those guys were. You would say, 'Hey, who's running third? He's going to win the race -- because those two guys are not going to make it.' And that was precisely what happened. (Continued)