Bruton Smith
Ollen Bruton Smith (born March 2, 1927) is a promoter and owner/CEO of NASCAR track owner Speedway Motorsports, Inc. Inducted into NASCAR Hall of Fame January 23, 2016. He was ranked #207 on the Forbes 400 list with an estimated worth of $1.5 billion in 2005, and fell to #278 (worth an estimated $1.4 billion) in 2006. He is divorced with four children. He was inducted in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2012, Smith was classified by CNN Money as the oldest CEO of the Fortune 500.
Background
Smith was born in Oakboro, North Carolina and watched his first race as an eight-year-old. He bought his first race car at 17. He began promoting stock car events as an 18-year-old at Midland, North Carolina. He claims that he beat NASCAR legends Buck Baker and Joe Weatherly. He quit racing because his mother wanted him to quit.
Business Involvement
NSCRA
In 1949, Smith took over the National Stock Car Racing Association (NSCRA), one of several fledgling stock-car sanctioning bodies and a direct competitor to the recently founded NASCAR, and announced that the series, which sanctioned races across Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina, would establish a “Strictly Stock” division that year; some believe this caused Bill France, Sr., NASCAR’s founder, to accelerate his plans for his own Strictly Stock division, which would later become the Winston, then Sprint Cup Series; it also touched off a rivalry between Smith and the France family. France and Smith discussed merging their sanctions in 1950, and came to a tentative agreement on the issue, however Smith was drafted into the United States Army to fight in the Korean War in January 1951, becoming a paratrooper; two years later, when Smith returned to civilian life, he found that mismanagement in his absence had caused NSCRA to dissolve.
Summary
| Bruton Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ollen Bruton Smith March 2, 1927 Oakboro, North Carolina, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Racing promoter and race track owner |
| Years active | 1949–present |
| Organization | Speedway Motorsports, Inc. |
| Net worth | $1.0 billion (April 2017) |
| Parent(s) | James Smith, Mollie Smith |
Stock car maven O. Bruton Smith attended his first auto race at age 8, promoted events on a dirt track in Midland, North Carolina as a teen, and opened the Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1960 at age 33. He founder and chairman of Speedway Motorsports, which owns and manages eight NASCAR tracks. He took the company public in 1995; his son Marcus Smith is the CEO. The nonagenarian is also the executive chairman and director of Sonic Automotive, which owns 106 car dealerships in 13 states. In January 2016, Smith was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
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