CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bruton Smith, the founder of Speedway Motorsports, the parent company of Charlotte Motor Speedway, was honored Thursday during a public funeral in Charlotte.
Smith's life was celebrated at Central Church on Sardis Road. The service was open to the public and featured several key figures from the NASCAR community, including Hall of Fame team owners Joe Gibbs and Rick Hendrick.
The 95-year-old visionary got his start as a promoter in the 1950s after serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He bought his first race car for $700 when he was 17 years old. During his 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame induction speech, Smith said he gave up aspirations of being a race driver when his mother prayed for him to quit.
"I thought, 'OK, now I've got my career going,'" Smith said. "My dad did not have a problem with it, he just said, 'be careful, boy.' But my mom had a problem with it, and she said I wish you wouldn't do that. My mother was a very religious person, and my mom started praying I would quit. I knew then that when she did that it was time for me to quit because I was not going to compete with that."
Smith got his start promoting dirt track races in the Charlotte area, renting the Charlotte Fairgrounds for races with some of the top stock car drivers in the Carolinas.
By the late 1950s, Smith's vision for a superspeedway in Charlotte was born into reality with the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Smith sold stock in the speedway at just $1 a share to raise the money. The track hosted its first race in 1960. Smith left the speedway for about a decade before becoming the majority shareholder in the 1970s.
Smith's influence in NASCAR continued to grow into the 1980s and '90s and he founded Speedway Motorsports Incorporated in 1994, marking the first race track operator to be publicly traded. Over the years, SMI acquired Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Sonoma Raceway, Texas Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Over the years, Smith and the France family didn't always see eye-to-eye on how NASCAR should operate, but the competition between both organizations made each of them better. Smith's company focused on fan-friendly amenities, with Smith's famous slogan, "We work for the fans" being taken to heart at Speedway Motorsports facilities.
Smith's interests in racing also included NHRA drag racing, as he built state-of-the-art tracks at or near many of his NASCAR facilities. Funny car legend John Force said Smith was like a second father to him.
"He was something else," Force told the Performance Racing Network, a radio network owned by Speedway Motorsports. "He's P.T. Barnum. He built the state-of-the-art tracks. The guy was just unbelievable, and a promoter, oh boy, he worked me but I like to work. It's just amazing the things he did."
He also founded Sonic Automotive, which is operated under the Speedway Motorsports umbrella. The auto group has dealerships in over a dozen states, including the Carolinas.
Smith attributed his relentless work ethic to growing up on the family farm in Oakboro, North Carolina, during the Great Depression.
"My parents taught us what work was all about," Smith said in 2008. "As I look back, that was a gift, even though I certainly didn't think so at the time. A lot of people don't have that gift because they didn't grow up working. But if you are on a family farm, that's what you do. Everything is hard work."