ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997 TAG: 9703110041
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
Several times a year, Speedway Motorsports chairman O. Bruton Smith will wander into the press box or the media center at some NASCAR track, and a reporter will corner him with a few questions about his plans. Another reporter will wander over, then another and another.
Pretty soon, Smith will be holding court.
Smith relishes the give-and-take at these impromptu news conferences. It keeps him in touch with the NASCAR media and the current line of speculation and rumor.
Besides, Smith is a master at not answering questions he doesn't want to answer. You always get something from him. Usually, it's precisely what he wants to give. Even so, when he talks, people listen.
After a Smith encounter with the media at Texas Motor Speedway in January, his top lieutenants had to scramble to find out exactly what he said, lest they be confronted by questions from stock analysts or stockholders.
Of course, Smith is so busy building the world's biggest speedway company that these media sessions are important simply so reporters can keep up with what he's doing.
Fans who watch the 1 p.m. telecast of today's Primestar 500 on ABC (WSET Channel 13) will see the towering steel girders of a huge, new 37,000-seat grandstand that is going up on the backstretch here at Smith's Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Today's race will be the last under the current configuration, which dates to the construction of the track in 1959 and 1960. Smith plans to move the start-finish line to the old backstretch and reconfigure the track into a trioval clone of Charlotte Motor Speedway. He also is building new garages and media centers and 44 more luxury suites.
Smith expects to have all of this work completed in time for the Winston Cup season-ending NAPA 500 on Nov.16.
Smith would not say whether he's negotiating to buy Phoenix International Raceway or any other existing tracks, but he's considering three different configurations for a possible oval track at Sears Point International Raceway in Northern California.
As for new projects, Smith's latest flight of fancy is to build an oval speedway in Europe. He would not identify the country, however, other than to say it is a country that builds automobiles.
``We've had some meetings,'' Smith said. ``We're very serious. The track is not built, but the land is available. We're just discussing it.''
Smith said Europeans ``have already bought up an awful lot of stock. They don't understand why they can't have one of these [oval tracks] over there,'' Smith said. ``But there's always been a road-racing mentality, and ,if you look back, no one has stepped up to build one.
``They've already bought up an awful lot of stock and we've had some meetings. But we're just discussing it.''
These days, the talk always turns to the growth of NASCAR, and what Smith might have up his sleeve.
Despite Smith's repeated denials, there is constant speculation that he eventually will challenge NASCAR president Bill France's absolute power in running the sport's sanctioning body.
This feeling persists because Smith is a shrewd, bold, take-no-prisoners businessman who thrives on control and power. He has butted heads with NASCAR before.
And there's no question Smith was frustrated by his inability to coax a new Winston Cup date out of NASCAR that would have given him two races this year at his new track in Roanoke, Texas.
Speculation has focused on the possibility that Smith might schedule his own second race at Texas on Nov.23, the same date as the Japan non-points race, which is not a popular event among the Winston Cup teams and competitors. But Smith said he would do that only with NASCAR's blessing. And he reiterated here Friday that he has no interest in starting a war with ``Billy,'' as he calls France.
Smith likes to tell this story about how France approached him in New York in December 1995 and said, ``I want you to help me build NASCAR.''
Smith replied, ``I thought I was already doing that.''
No matter what happens, there likely will always be the tension between the two reflected in this exchange. Both men have a history with the sport that predates NASCAR.
But Smith said there will be no war.
``I have a responsibility to the stockholders [of Speedway Motorsports], but I also have a major responsibility to this sport,'' Smith said. ``Whatever I do, I'm going to do it jointly with NASCAR.''
Other top businessmen in the sport also do not expect a war.
``As long as NASCAR has Daytona, Talladega and the Brickyard, Bruton doesn't have anything,'' said car owner Felix Sabates. ``I don't blame him for wanting another race, but he's not stupid.''
Said Smith, ``You have to ask, what I've done, has it helped better the sport? Has going to Wall Street helped the sport? Has building the facility in Texas helped the sport? If the answer is yes and if all of that is on track, I'm going to continue to do what I have been doing.''
LENGTH: Medium: 93 linesby CNB