Smith buys Kentucky Speedway

Bruton Smith got a chance to tell his side of the Humpy Wheeler story yesterday.

Wheeler, the legendary racing promoter, stunned everyone in NASCAR by announcing Wednesday that he would be leaving Smith and his Speedway Motorsports racing empire after Sunday's Coca-Cola 600.

But Smith preferred yesterday to focus on his own headline event: the purchase of Kentucky Speedway.

And Smith promised a Sprint Cup date in 2009 at Kentucky Speedway, near Sparta, about 30 minutes south of Cincinnati, and said he would increase seating for such a race to 120,000. Smith declined to specify the purchase price, but Jerry Carroll, the principal owner, has said it was for about $15 million. All Smith would say was, it was "one of the best deals I've ever made."

According to Speedway Motorsports filings, it will assume a $63 million debt and pay an additional $15 million for the track.

Smith wouldn't say much at all about what precipitated the sudden split with Wheeler, who has almost been Smith's alter-ego in racing for the past 33 years. Smith seemed almost upset at being pressed on the issue.

"This was his decision," Smith said, when asked about Wheeler's statement Wednesday that leaving wasn't entirely on his own terms.

Smith said that weak attendance at Saturday night's All-Star race wasn't an issue.

"No, not at all, we had a record crowd," Smith said. "I was very pleased.

"This was not a sudden decision. He had been working on this for a while. Six months ago he came to me, and he and I talked and talked, about how he could leave it, and with what.

"We put him on the payroll for 10 years … so for the next 10 years we're paying $12,500 a month. And he left with 151,000 stock options. So I've been good to Humpy, and he'll tell you that. That's the end of the story."

So, Smith spent barely two minutes discussing the Wheeler situation, after a 30-minute news conference about his Kentucky purchase.

Smith preferred to take the whole story in that new direction. Kentucky Speedway will join Lowe's Motor Speedway here and Smith's other tracks in Atlanta, Bristol, Sonoma, Las Vegas, New Hampshire and Texas in his NASCAR portfolio.

Smith declined to say how he might wrangle a Cup date for Kentucky Speedway, but he indicated he was looking at buying another speedway that has a date on the Sprint Cup schedule -- or perhaps two. He also hinted that his Las Vegas Motor Speedway might get a second Cup date in 2009, if he buys that second track.

All that furor -- and Smith seemed to love every minute of it -- all but overshadowed the on-track action: Toyota's Kyle Busch, big surprise, winning the pole for Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600.

"It's all fun, I can't say anything more than that. I wasn't too pleased with the car in practice, but we got it going," Busch said after his fast lap at 185.433 mph, just a tick quicker than All-Star winner Kasey Kahne, in a Dodge, and Brian Vickers, in a Toyota.

Busch has been winning something on the NASCAR tours nearly every week this spring, although a blown engine in an experimental motor cost him last weekend. "I hope it doesn't wear off after this year," Busch said. "I'd hate to be washed up at 24."

Not hardly.

The early line on the 600: another gas-mileage challenge, because drivers can't race these new NASCAR stockers side by side. "I'm not expecting many caution flags in the 600," Busch said.

Smith's track bosses -- Atlanta's Ed Clark, Texas' Eddie Gossage, New Hampshire's Jerry Gappens, Bristol's Jeff Byrd, Sonoma's Steve Page, and Las Vegas' Chris Powell -- are arriving here for a major meeting today.

Marcus Smith, Bruton's 34-year-old son, appears to be the favorite to take over the job of running Lowe's, even though Lauri Wilks, who has been running this track's day-to-day operations the past few years, might have more experience.

Wheeler's post of chief operating officer and president of Speedway Motorsports (SMI) itself will likely go to Bill Brooks, the chief financial officer and executive vice president of SMI.

However one knowledgeable SMI source pointed out that Smith's seven tracks are generally run as highly independent operations, rather than in the France family style of heavily centralized control of its 12 tracks, and said that independent philosophy thus meant the loss of Wheeler would not necessarily be that critical.

Intense speculation is that Pocono Raceway is on Smith's radar, but he would not be drawn into a discussion about that.

NASCAR has been dead set for years against adding any dates to its already 36-race Cup schedule. So it would appear that if Smith wants to put a Cup race at Kentucky Speedway, he would have to move a race away from one of his other tracks. Smith has vowed never to do that, but yesterday he pointedly declined to rule out moving a date from another of his tracks, saying he was looking at all options.

Asked what NASCAR thought about his current maneuverings, Smith said he had talked with NASCAR CEO Brian France a few hours earlier to inform him about the dealings.

Kentucky Speedway, a 11/2-mile track, was built about eight years ago for about $150 million, and its owners, principally Carroll, have long politicked -- unsuccessfully -- for a Sprint Cup date. Its 70,000 seats are sold out each June for its NASCAR Nationwide race, but that hadn't persuaded NASCAR to add Kentucky to its big league schedule.

Kentucky Speedway officials filed a lawsuit against NASCAR over the issue, although the suit was dismissed in January. That decision is still under appeal.

Kentucky owners had made a bid to buy New Hampshire International Speedway from Bob Bahre, with clear plans to move one of that track's Cup races to the Kentucky track. Bahre turned them down, and last fall he sold the track and its two Cup dates to Smith, for a whopping $340 million.

Carroll was on hand for Smith's news conference yesterday, and Steve Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, will be a guest in Smith's suite for Sunday's race.

■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.