Smith, Wheeler still feuding

03:35 AM ET 05.26 | Bruton attempted to bulldoze Humpy Wheeler on Saturday. Humpy, the visionary promoter, general manager and then president of the track, worked for Bruton 33 years. He worked for him until the 2008 Coca-Cola 600. I talked to Humpy on Thursday, and he was hurt that Bruton had not invited him to the 600 or to any of the 50th anniversary festivities at the track. "Maybe one day Bruton will recognize I had something to do with the speedway," Humpy said. The Bruton-Humpy relationship ended the way most relationships do. There probably were several factors - money, the drag strip on which Bruton had insisted, Bruton's threat to yank the speedway out of Concord if he didn't get to build the dragstrip. Humpy says he was not a proponent of the dragstrip and did not know about the threat to move until he read about it. He felt like an outsider. And then he was gone. The break-up simmered until Saturday. Bruton apparently had seen, or been told about, at least one television report in which Humpy talked about the lack of an invitation. In fact, Humpy went to Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the invitation of track president Joie Chitwood to help celebrate its 100th anniversary. (Humpy worked at Indy, for Firestone, in the mid- to late 1960.

Charlotte Observer