One on one with ... Humpy Wheeler, President and G.M., Lowe's motor speedway.(NASCAR)(Interview)

TSN: As a promoter, you've done some pretty radical things over the years. Where do you get your ideas?

HW: I really think a lot like a 12-year-old boy does. That's the last time that we males have unfettered fun. Hormones have usually not kicked in by then. A 12-year-old boy wants to have fun all the time. I can remember all the times I went to races as a kid, and I was waiting for the race to start. I was waiting for something to happen on the racetrack, and it would bore me to death when nothing was going on. I said, "We need to change that, we need to do some things." When I started operating dirt tracks when I got out of college, I tried to do things that would interest a 12-year-old boy, and it always worked.

TSN: Has the increased popularity of stock car racing made it more difficult to come up with promotional ideas?

HW: In a certain way, it's a little more difficult, but I keep warning everybody that you've got to keep the sawdust in this business. If you lose that and you replace it with plastic, you're going to lose a lot of the charm of it, a lot of the reasons why people come to races. I'm not about to replace the bluegrass banjo player with a violinist. I'll take the violinist and tell him to play some fiddle tunes. When a sport gets to a certain level, they all try to fancy it up. A lot of times they don't end up fancying it up, they end up taking all the color out of it. That's when you start losing people's interest.

This has always been a working person's sport, and we're blessed with the fact that our stadiums are so much bigger than football, basketball stadiums because we've got a mile-and-a-half playing field instead of a hundred yards. Therefore, we've got plenty of places to put people, and we've got plenty of places to keep that working person interested in the sport. So many sports have simply outpriced themselves from the blue-collar person that made the sport. We will continue to cater to them, even though there are some strong movements in racing not to. But I fight it with every fiber I have.

TSN: Are you surprised at where Nextel Cup racing is today?

HW: I don't think anybody saw it coming to the extent that it is today. But back when I was operating dirt tracks, I always thought, "We're doing everything possible to run people off. We don't have bathrooms, we don't have concessions, our sound system's awful, ...