Starting from humble beginnings, growing up on a farm near Oakboro, NC, O. Bruton Smith has come a long way, evidenced by his annual inclusion in the Forbes 400. As Chairman of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., a New York Stock Exchange-listed company that owns Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Sears Point Raceway, Texas Motor Speedway and 600 Racing, he has also been named as one of ³the top ten most influential people² in auto racing by several different motorsports trade publications. Bruton Smith started promoting various races during the 1950ıs, featuring the burgeoning National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR). At this point, NASCAR was in its formative years, featuring relatively lax rules, a cast of rogue characters for drivers, race cars that basically came off the showroom floor and itinerant racing promoters who often skipped town with gate receipts before the on-track activities were completed. Bruton Smith was one of the first truly professional promoters who paid good purses, tended to the needs of fans and found unique ways to promote the events he staged at the speedways he leased around North Carolina. Since then, Smith has built the 1.5 mile Charlotte Motor Speedway into what many racing insiders consider ³the mecca of motorsports facilities.² The largest sports facility in the southeast features many amenities, including The Speedway Club, enclosed clubhouse seating areas, more than 140,000 seats, the first superspeedway lighting system, condominium units and a large industrial park. Today, Charlotte Motor Speedway attracts more than one million visitors per year by hosting several events, including NASCAR Winston Cup stock car races and the Indy Cars of the Indy Racing League. Bruton Smith took NASCAR and motorsports to Wall Street in February 1995 by forming Speedway Motorsports. The company was the first motorsports-based company to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TRK). Smith owns approximately 70% of Speedway Motorsports stock. Speedway Motorsports has been a tremendous success story. Under Smithıs direction, the company built the Texas Motor Speedway in the Ft. Worth/Dallas market, which opened in April, 1997 with a NASCAR Winston Cup race. The facility features more than 150,000 seats, making it the second-largest sports facility in the world. With more than 30 years of automotive retail experience, Bruton Smith completed a successful public stock offering of Sonic Automotive in November, 1997. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Sonic Automotive owns and operates 23 automobile dealerships, four independent used vehicle facilities and seven collision repair centers in the southeastern and southwestern United States. I had an opportunity to interview Bruton Smith and his son, Scott, President and COO of Sonic Automotive, the week of the Coca-Cola 600 last May (yes, I did stick around for the racethought it might be relevant to the story). Q: Mr. Smith, how did you get into the automobile business? Bruton: Racing driver Curtis Turner and I built the Charlotte Motor Speedway in the late fifties. Although soil reports of the site indicated favorable conditions, dirt and boulders, it turned out to be mostly granite. The $1 million estimate to build the place turned into $1.5 million, leaving us half a million in debt. Well, Curtis and I raised enough money to cover the purse and in June of 1960 ran the first World 600 in front of 35,000 race fans, a good-sized crowd for that time. But within a year, the burden of that extra debt was too heavy and I resigned as vice president of Charlotte Motor Speedway; the track went Chapter 11. Q: So you had to find another way to make your fortune. Bruton: Thatıs right. I had a good friend at Ford Motor Company, William Benton. He had talked to me about getting into the automobile business and becoming a Ford dealer. Well, I knew I had to learn about the business if I was going to get in it, so when I decided I would start in the automobile business I started on the ground floor. I started as a salesperson in 1966. I was very focused and I worked very hard. After three months I was promoted to sales manager and I was promoted to general manager five months after that. Sixteen months later I went into business with Ford Motor Company as partner in my first dealership. I bought out Ford and had 100% ownership in the store within sixteen months. Weıve bought some more since then. Q: I understand that Charlotte Motor Speedway was the first North Carolina corporation to survive Chapter 11 reorganization? Bruton: Thatıs correct. And while I was acquiring more dealerships, I bought back stock in the Speedway. By 1975 I had become the major stockholder in Charlotte Motor Speedway, regaining control, of day-to-day operations. Q: Scott, how did you get into the business? Scott: Dad says he started on the ground floor, but I started on the groundliterally. I swept floors, cleaned cars, was a lot boy, you name it. When I became old enough to sell cars, I sold cars. I really enjoyed it and found that I had a natural ability for it. While everyone else was at the beach during summers, I went from college to the dealership, continuing to work my way through the departments. I eventually worked my way up to general manager of Town & Country Ford and became president and COO of Sonic Automotive when we went public. Q: Okay. Weıve gotten the background out of the way, so now let me askwhatıs behind Sonic Automotiveıs success? Scott: Thatıs easyBruton Smith. As our founder and CEO, he has a tremendous amount of automotive experience. He also has the public sector experience with Speedway Motorsports. That combination made him very attractive to the institutional investors. Q: Bruton? Bruton: I think people are the key ingredient behind our success. My first goal was just to get a dealership; as my business grew, I realized I needed more and more good people. I know most dealers try to hire, groom and promote from within, but one of the things Iım most proud of is the large number of people who started as salespeople and are now dealers themselves. Q: Some say that the opportunity to become a dealer is less today than itıs ever been with all of the consolidation going on. Bruton: I donıt know about that. If someone really wants it, thereıs still a way because there is plenty of money available. Thereıs more money available for this business than there are quality people. Q: How does Sonic Automotive hire, groom and promote people? Bruton: We recruit people. We recruit good people. Then we train them. Iıd much rather take someone moldable than a so-called ³recap², someone who has been around for years, has all the bad habits. Theyıre really just taking up space and picking up a check every week. Scott: The quality of the team we have in place is attractive. Winners want to be around winners. Stock purchase plans, options for key personnel, 401K plans, employment contracts - all are instrumental in our recruitment of good people. Once we bring them on board, we have a training center where we train everyone from sales representatives to the title clerks, F&I personnel, service writers, body shop adjusterseverybody. Our people are trained in a manner which we think increases their job satisfaction. We donıt fling our people into positions or situations theyıre not trained or prepared for. They not only have the training and preparation, they have the confidence to do the job. Q: What does it mean to be one of your dealers? Scott: Bruton originally operated each of his stores individually, each with autonomy. When we started the two-year process of going public, we were looking to maintain a single-mindedness about the importance of people or, more specifically, the importance of good people. Weıve been able to attract some very good dealers who have operated for years with strong management in place. That is key to Sonicıs success. When we buy a store, typically everyone stays, except for one particular dealer who wanted to exit the business. Typically we look for dealers who want to remain active. Even if they donıt want to be active in the day-to-day operations of the dealership, but they have something to contribute, we greatly encourage that. We typically enter long-term employee agreements with the management teams. Q: So a successful dealer, who has answered to no one and called all the shots, now is accountable to a corporation? Cımon. Scott: I know, I know. Early on I was concerned with how I was going to be able to communicate with successful dealers who have been in the business for 15, 20, 25 plus years. But what really happens when a dealer joins Sonic is theyıre exchanging their stock in their one to five or so dealerships for stock in a group with 23 to who-knows-how-many dealerships. Our storesı operating functions have remained autonomous, but financial functions have been consolidated. Floor plan is centralized, cash management is centralized. TV, radio and newspaper are negotiated regionally. The value of their equity in their dealerships can never have the value it has within Sonic. Once we finalize negotiations and have an opportunity to spend some time together, we come to understand each otherıs management style. Q: Thereıs a lot of talk about ³branding² out there; Republic even talks about branding their new car stores as Autonation stores. Why are your stores not branded as Sonic stores? Bruton: I donıt think that thatıs necessarily the thing to do. Weıve bought a lot of dealerships where they had a great name, they had great relationships with their customers and they had name recognition with the public and high QCP. Why would we want to tinker with that just to put the same name on our dealerships? If itıs not broken, donıt fix it. I donıt think that a public company itself is going to sell a lot of cars. It still boils down to a dealershipıs relationship with the community and a salespersonıs relationship with a customer. That doesnıt mean we wonıt change some names. There will be cases where we change a name, but not for the purpose of corporate branding. Q: Bruton, you mentioned a ³salespersonıs relationship with a customer²what is your opinion of selling cars through the Internet? Bruton: A car is the second-largest purchase a person makes and people want to buy from people. I donıt think most people will ever prefer to get on the Internet and buy a car not really knowing who theyıre dealing with. I believe that most people will always want to come to a dealership and deal with a person, a person they can pick up the phone and call. This may change over time, but quite honestly, I hope it doesnıt. Scott: We signed on with one of the largest online car buying services for a few years. We found that they delivered us the exact type of customer which we would least want to work with. The grinders, ³show me your invoice,² practically fleet buyers - plus, many folks would take our quote elsewhere and buy from the first dealer who would beat it - and weıre paying the Internet buying service for the privilege. Weıre working on bringing Internet sales in-house, so we have the control. Q: Bruton, what are you most proud of as a businessman? Bruton: I guess being able to give something back. I believe that weıve been able to help people grow, whereas if somebody has talent and desire, weıve been able to help them and their families by helping them achieve - both in our automobile and our racing sectors. Iım very proud of that. Iım also very proud of what weıve been able to do with a charitable foundation we started, ³Speedway Childrenıs Charities.² Weıve helped over one hundred organizations in different states do a better job in helping children. We raised $1.3 million last year and weıre on task this year to do better than that. We have approximately 700 volunteers throughout the states which we serve to hold our costs down to the point where 83% of the money we raise goes directly to kids. We provide clean audits to document this so that contributors will know that 83% of their money goes where itıs needed, straight to the children. I donıt know of any other charitable organization as big as ours that can hold their costs at 17%and itıs all because of the effort and commitment of our volunteers. Iım proud of every one of them. Q: Whatıs the best thing about being Bruton Smith? Bruton: Meeting wonderful people and having a good time. Itıs hard not to when you enjoy what you do. Iıve been fortunate to be blessed with four wonderful children who have never caused me any problems. Iım so proud and pleased that my sons have followed me into my businesses. What father wouldnıt be proud to have his sons interested in what he does, enough to follow in his footsteps? Besides Scott, my son David just got out of college and heıs decided that he wants to go into the automobile business. My son, Marcus, works with me at Speedway Motorsports. My youngest is 15. She rides horses - jumpers - in competition. Sheıs doing great and weıre all extremely proud of her. Q: Last question, Bruton. What advice would you give to your fellow dealers and aspiring dealers? Bruton: Stay focused. I sincerely believe that anybody can ac hieve their goals if they stay focused on them. At times, people threw jokes at me, kidded me for what I aspired to. But that didnıt bother me. I knew what I wanted, I knew where the goalpost was. I worked harder that anyone around me and stayed focused. As for aspiring dealers, I suggest they follow my example - the room at the top of the automobile business is great and thereıs more room at the top than there is at the bottom.