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Preparing for the Race

It takes about 100,000 hours of labor to prepare for a race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte.

Sometime around hour number 75,000, it becomes necessary to test the speedway's toilets – at the same time.

You could have someone run around and pull levers one at a time, but that's just a watered-down test. It's not going to simulate the real world, which happens after the race's first, uh, yellow flag, when all 1,900 speedway toilets are suddenly in use at once for the first time of the year.

Any decent test, therefore, will require a sizable number of participants, whom speedway President H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler conveniently finds sitting in his grandstands in early May during testing about three weeks before the Coca-Cola 600.

"That's why we have the Royal Flush Society," Humpy said. "If every fan who comes to practice can flush one toilet at the same time, we can test the system. So we did T-shirts, and if you come out here during practice and flush a toilet, you get a Royal Flush Society T-shirt."

For this year's test, some 400 society members stood at their stations, linked via two-way radios, and at precisely 7:30 p.m., the command went out: "Gentlemen, flush your toilets!"

The plumbing at the 47-year-old speedway took the shock just fine, and even if there is a problem come race day, the speedway has 50 plumbers on hand to attack any problem, as well as 25 electricians. With several hundred television sets operating in 117 luxury suites and numerous other locations, a few are bound to go haywire. And don't get Humpy going about air conditioners – the Ferraris of speedway operations. If something is going to break down, it's bound to be either those high-maintenance air conditioners, or the plumbing.

Thw two annual Nextel Cup races at Lowe's Motor Speedway both take almost a full year to prepare for. "We'll start on the next 600 literally the week after this year's race is over," Wheeler said.

"One of the first things we do is send out ticket renewals," said Jerry Gappens, the speedway's senior vice president of events. "The renewals go out within 30 days of the previous event."

Each year, most of the facility has to be winterized in the fall, and then unwinterized in the spring, The track, however, is busy all year long, with no less than six driving schools vying with television commercial producers and others for open dates. The staff also must prepare for, and work around, the speedway's twice-annual, four-day auto fairs, which draw 140,000 people.

"I can't even ride my bicycle around here anymore," Wheeler says. "I used to ride my bicycle around the track in the evenings after work. But we use it so much now, I can't get on the track."

New construction always heightens the tension. "That's what is really a challenge – doing construction and getting ready for a race at the same time," said Wheeler. "We're going to rebuilt about 15,000 seats this summer. That'll make October interesting."

No matter what the project, there's no getting around the 100,000 hours needed to stage a race. "If you shortcut that – if you, say, spend only 90,000 hours – something's going to get screwed up," Wheeler said. "Traffic is going to be screwed up, or your parking is going to be a problem, or the plumbing – something is going to go askew."

Basic preparations need to be finished two months before a race, and then the next 60 days are spent tending to details. "From Easter on, it's non-stop for the 600," Wheeler said.

On event weekend, the speedway's staff of 160 full-time employees swells to 7,000 with part-timers, volunteers and others. "That's everybody from concessionaires, to pit crews, to highway patrol officers," said Wheeler. "Fortunately for us, a lot of the people among those 7,000 have been doing the same thing each year for a long time."

"You get a seat of the pants feeling after awhile on what doesn't look right, and you start worrying about that," Wheeler said. "So you start worrying about the track surface, or ticket sales, or the plumbing. One thing is certain: if something is going to break down, it's going to break down during the race, not two weeks later."

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