Charlotte Track Goes Corporate

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 9, 1999 / 3:17 PM EST / CBS Sportsline

Charlotte Motor Speedway, long known for its innovations in Winston Cup racing, became the first track on the circuit to sell its name Tuesday.

The track will be renamed Lowe's Motor Speedway under an agreement with Lowe's Companies Inc., the nation's second-largest home improvement retailer. Officials with the company and Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns the track, said the deal is worth $35 million over 10 years.

"This opens the flood gates," said SMI president Humpy Wheeler, whose company also operates Atlanta, Bristol, Las Vegas and Texas motor speedways, as well as Sears Point Raceway.

Tuesday's announcement does not affect SMI's other properties, but company officials said they expect other tracks on the Winston Cup circuit to follow suit. Wheeler said the Atlanta and Texas tracks would be the two other SMI properties most likely to sell their naming rights in the coming months.

While selling the naming rights to stadiums and arenas has become commonplace in team sports, the Lowe's deal represents a first for stock car racing's premier circuit.

Charlotte, a 1.5-mile superspeedway built in 1960 in the north Charlotte suburbs, also was the first facility in Winston Cup racing to offer stock publicly and the first to build luxury suites and condominiums.

"This will do nothing but help our identity," Wheeler said. "The folks at Lowe's are great marketers, and that's what we need in this sport. We've got another couple levels to go up in this sport, and I think they can help take us there."

Lowe's, based in North Wilkesboro, N.C., has 487 stores in 20 states. The company already sponsors a Winston Cup team and several stock car races.

Lowe;s spent an estimated $30 million in racing last year and expects that figure to climb to $40 million this year, chairman and chief executive officer Bob Tillman said.

"This makes perfect sense for us because we both have the same target market," Tillman said. "Of all sports marketing activities, this one yields the highest return of all because the fan loyalty is greater in NASCAR than any other sport."

Wheeler said the money from the name change would be used to add seats, roads and parking at the track, which will be able to seat about 156,000 people for the next Winston Cup race, the Coca-Cola 600 in May.