The last thing Ken Clapp wanted was for the representative of a potential sponsor to drive out to the racetrack by himself. In the late 1960s the layout now called Infineon Raceway was a bare-bones operation, a portable toilet about the extent of its creature comforts. Clapp, the track's first promoter, would rather pick up the corporate executive at the airport, whisk him through a blindingly fast tour of the facility, and then rush back to the track's office in the financial district of San Francisco, where they could talk dollars surrounded by nice furniture, fine restaurants, and other things notably missing from the austere road course in the sand-colored hills of wine country.

"We look back on what went on in those days, and we laugh about it," Clapp said. "I'm proud of the dickens of it. Doggone, they've done a nice job up there. The Cup race is so far and away the heaviest attended sporting event in Northern California, I don't care if you had the Super Bowl here. It's a big deal up here. There's nobody that doesn't know that it's there or what it does and understand there's something very, very big that happens up there."

“

I knew from the very, very beginning, absolutely the first day. I knew it would become the biggest sporting event, paid crowd, in Northern California. ... And it did become that, by a bunch.

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-- KEN CLAPP

Something big happens again this week, when the Sprint Cup tour returns to the 1.99-mile road course in the Sonoma Valley. Clapp, who has served the track in a variety of capacities and is about as closely tied to the 12-turn circuit as anyone, will be enshrined on Friday into the facility's wall of fame, joining such notables as NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Ricky Rudd, drag racing star John Force, and track owner Bruton Smith. It's a timely honor, given that this season marks the 40th anniversary of a racetrack Clapp helped get off the ground, and the 20th anniversary of a Cup race Clapp helped bring to town.

"Ken was there at the beginning and at many points along the way as this facility has developed and grown into what it is today," said Steve Page, president and general manager of Infineon Raceway. "He is a true friend, both personally and professionally, and very deserving of this recognition."

It's a recognition that came a surprise to Clapp, now 69. Such honors are usually bestowed on championship drivers, he said, not behind-the-scenes executives who make phone calls and strike deals. But in this case, drivers like Gordon and Dale Earnhardt might never have competed at Infineon Raceway -- indeed, there might not be an Infineon Raceway at all -- had a man who could be considered the godfather of the Sonoma track not helped get it built, made a selfless move to save it, and then lobbied the powers-that-be at NASCAR to add it to the schedule after the closing of Riverside International Raceway left two western dates without a home.

"I never even hesitated that it would be a home run," Clapp, who lives about 45 minutes from the track in Danville, Calif., said of that first Cup event, won by Rudd in 1989. "I knew from the very, very beginning, absolutely the first day. I knew it would become the biggest sporting event, paid crowd, in Northern California. Bigger than the 49ers, bigger than the Giants, bigger than the A's, bigger than the Raiders. And it did become that, by a bunch."

And Clapp played a sizable role in making it happen. When the track's founders needed advice on how to make the facility compatible for not only sports cars but also motorcycles, stock cars, and Indy-cars, a San Francisco racing writer recommended they talk to Clapp, who had gone over the wall with an air gun at 15, worked as a crew chief soon afterward, and promoted countless races along the West Coast. Over lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Sonoma's pretty town square, Clapp shared ideas on how to trim costs and make the facility work. The track's builders responded with an offer to promote most of the events at the racetrack for the next 10 years, and Clapp took it.

He brought the track its first major event, a 1970 Indy-car event won by Dan Gurney. Clapp knew there were plenty of racing fans in Northern California, and had no doubts the facility would take off.

"I was a short track promoter with a lot of success all over Northern California, so I knew this market very well," Clapp said. "I knew the media and how they would react. I knew the fans, certainly not all of them, but enough to get a positive feeling about them. There was just no question. I hate to use the tern slam dunk, but it was just a slam dunk in terms of its appeal to the society."

But it wasn't a slam dunk in terms of ownership. Infineon had a revolving door of owners until Smith added the facility to his Speedway Motorsports Inc. fold in 1996. After the original investors ran out of money the track was bought by Filmways, the television production company that made Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Stalag 17 and Petticoat Junction, some of the biggest hits of the era. There was only one hitch: for Filmways to take over, Clapp would have to step down as promoter. He could have refused, but he knew if he did so, the track might go out of business. So he agreed to a settlement and moved into a new role as the racetrack's vice president of marketing and public relations.

"It was one of those deals where I could have said nope, not for sale," Clapp said. "But had I done that, the racetrack wouldn't have made it. So what was I to gain by not cooperating? So I cooperated."

Clapp eventually went to work for NASCAR, serving nearly 20 years as vice president for western operations, and then as VP for marketing and development. He still acts as a consultant to this day. It was during his long stint as NASCAR's western point man, during a business trip to Portland, Ore., when former series chairman Bill France Jr. posed the idea of his son Brian moving out west for a while, to work under Clapp and learn about the grass roots of racing. Brian France, now NASCAR's chairman and chief executive officer, was 21 when he headed west in 1983, and even lived for a while with the Clapps. He shadowed Clapp to meetings and racetracks, learning the business, and forging a close relationship in the process.

"He's a great kid. We loved him," Clapp said. "He's turned out to be a heck of an executive. He's one of the best marketers in the world. A lot of people find fault with things he does, he doesn't go to the races all the time, things like that. Let me tell you: He gets up in the morning, that mind is working. He has a sharp mind. And he's extremely fair. He is absolutely fair to a fault."

During that time, everywhere Clapp went, young Brian France went as well. He served as something as a mentor to the current chairman, even if he's hesitant to admit it. "I never thought I was much of a mentor. I was so doggone busy getting ahead of the class myself I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and hold his hand and coach him," Clapp said. "But he was a fast study. He says he learned a lot from just riding down the highway with me, flying around in airplanes, being at the racetrack with me and so on. Perhaps he did. I suppose he did. Really, I've never taken any credit for being one of his mentors. His father and grandfather were mentors to me, though, I can tell you that."

It was Brian's father who tasked Clapp with finding a home for one of the Cup dates left behind by Riverside's closing in 1988. At a meeting in a trailer in the Darlington Raceway infield in 1985, they agreed to study the idea of bringing the Cup circuit to the Santa Clara Fairgrounds track in San Jose, a place where Clapp was already the promoter of record. When that project was derailed by proponents of another racetrack posing as a citizen's group, another alternative had to be found. They explored the idea of converting Portland Meadows, an Oregon horse track. They talked to officials at Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif., who expressed little interest. But one man was interested: Glen Long, then the president of Sears Point Raceway, a place Clapp was very familiar with.

Clapp met with NASCAR executive vice president Les Richter and later Bill France Jr., convincing them that Sonoma was the place. Two decades later, Clapp's still proven correct. And Friday afternoon, he'll be honored by facility that he played a large role in creating.

"To be honest, there are a lot of people I look at thinking, 'That guy will be on the wall of fame at Infineon one of these days.' But I never say myself as one of them," Clapp said. "Because I've always been an administrator. ... Usually it's guys like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt and so on who get recognized like that, and not guys who have been sitting behind a desk for most of their career talking on the phone and flying around to meetings. So I was very humbly honored. It probably wasn't a big deal to the world. But it was a big deal to me. I'm pretty proud of it, to tell you the truth."