In the Alphabet Soup world of acronyms that exist in NASCAR, two of the most important are SMI and ISC. This collection of letters stands for two publicly held companies that are well represented on the NASCAR schedule.

SMI is Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which is controlled by Bruton Smith, owns and operates speedways in some of the biggest markets in the United States. ISC is International Speedway Corp., which is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Fla., and is controlled by the France Family that is in charge of NASCAR.
While the two companies share the same goal of providing facilities that host major auto racing events, they are drastically different in how they operate.
SMI likes to do everything “bigger and better” with showcase facilities such as Texas Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Smith is a man who likes to “tear it down and start over,” and that is what he did at Bristol when he took over the track in the 1990s, rebuilding the race track from the ground up to become racing’s short-track palace.
He turned the old Sears Point Raceway into Infineon Raceway and brought superspeedway ambience and grandstand seating to road-course racing. At Texas Motor Speedway, SMI had the luxury of building a new track with a clean sheet of paper, and it remains an impressive facility that first opened in 1997.
SMI tracks promote with flair and imagination.
The approach at ISC is a bit more reserved with its track lineup that includes some older and historic venues such as Daytona Int’l Speedway, Darlington Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway, Richmond Int’l Raceway and Michigan Int’l Speedway along with a few new tracks like Chicagoland Speedway.
Between SMI and ISC, these two companies control the majority of the facilities on the NASCAR Nextel Cup schedule, leaving the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dover Int’l Speedway and Pocono Raceway as the only tracks that are not a part of these two companies.

“At the end of the day, it’s NASCAR’s decision about things related to the events. If NASCAR didn’t take that long-term view, you wouldn’t have these 150,000-seat facilities like we have in both ISC and SMI.” — Wes Harris, ISC Senior Director of Corporate And Investor Communications

The philosophies may be different in how these companies do business, but the goals are the same — provide motorsports entertainment while providing financial return to shareholders.
“Bruton has always been very active and aggressive in promoting and marketing and that’s not lost on Humpy Wheeler or any of the general managers,” said Jerry Gappens, the newly named General Manager at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a track SMI purchased from Bob Bahre earlier this month. Prior to that, Gappens was a key executive at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.
“Look at the amount of experience in racing that our general managers have; it’s an incredible number,” Gappens said. “Most people know who our general managers are and how they operate. Every day you come in figuring out how you are going to sell tickets and move the bottom line. Bruton Smith sets the pace and you either keep up with it or you don’t.”
Smith adheres to the old saying, “You have to spend money to make money.” That is why SMI tracks heavily promote their events through good, old promotion and advertising.
“He’s done a great job through the years of putting money back into the facilities rather than into his pocket,” Gappens said. “You reap what you sow and we farm pretty hard. “It’s a fertile ground to have creativity and vision and a healthy environment that drives us. In Bruton’s family of tracks, you have to act like every event is the biggest event in the world and promote it that way.”
Gappens said SMI respects the goals that ISC tries to accomplish; they just go about it differently.
“We’re in the same industry and it’s a pretty tight industry,” Gappens said. “They respect some of the things that we do, but at the same time we respect what they have to do from a financial side being a publicly-traded company.
“It’s a different era from the 1960s and 1970s.”
There is often a rivalry among the executives that run the SMI tracks in terms of gaining attractive dates or rearranging their schedule.
Now that SMI has purchased New Hampshire Motor Speedway, there is another SMI track that would like to have its date to kick off The Chase rather than the first weekend in November when white tail deer hunting season affects its crowd.
“Bruton has to weigh decisions between seven speedways and what I believe to be in the best interest of Texas Motor Speedway may not necessarily be in the best interest of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.,” said Eddie Gossage, president and general manager of Texas Motor Speedway. “We’re in a great position because our chairman is very active and very aggressive. That’s the way we all are that work for him.
“ISC does a great job. SMI now has positions in the northeast, the southeast, the southwest and the west. We have four of the top 10 markets and two of the markets down the way are special with Vegas and Bristol. We have the Fenway Park of motorsports, the Lambeau Field of motorsports and the Yankee Stadium of motorsports. We are positioned perfectly in terms of markets throughout the country.”
Down in Daytona Beach, Lesa France Kennedy, the daughter of the late Bill France, Jr., runs ISC with assistance from longtime motorsports executives including John Saunders, Grant Lynch and her uncle Jim France.
Wes Harris is ISC’s senior director of corporate and investor communications and spoke on behalf of the company.
“Each one of our tracks will do their own thing in terms of handling their story,” Harris said. “We’re not trying to position ISC as a brand in itself to the motorsports media, but we actively talk from a corporate standpoint with the financial media and investors. It is different communication styles in terms of leadership.
“We’re all trying to do the same things and that’s promoting events, sell tickets and be good corporate citizens to our partners; we just do it in different ways. SMI and ISC are tremendous partners with NASCAR. We’re actually business partners together on Motorsports Authentics. We look at each other as peers rather than competitors.”
SMI and ISC have often been rivals with an adversarial relationship from time to time as each pursues an edge for its own agenda. In the end, NASCAR has a determination how the schedule is drawn up.
“We, just like SMI and the other track operators, want to optimize the schedule to grow it over the long term,” Harris said. “You work hard with NASCAR to try to find a solution that works hard for everyone, not just the track operators.
“That’s a hard thing to do sometimes.”
According to Harris, there is a mutual respect between the two entities.
“Speedway Motorsports and some of the things they have done with their facilities and promotion have done wonderful things to grow the sport,” Harris said. “We have both benefited from each other to try to make the pie bigger for everyone. There are always conspiracy theorists out there, but if NASCAR were giving favorable treatment to one group over the other, you wouldn’t have seen it grow to what it has become.
“We have a seat at the end of the table, but at the end of the day, it’s NASCAR’s decision about things related to the events. If NASCAR didn’t take that long-term view, you wouldn’t have these 150,000-seat facilities like we have in both ISC and SMI.”

NASCAR’s TRACK MANAGEMENT
International Speedway Corp. (NASDAQ:ISCA)
Owns tracks that run 19 NASCAR Nextel Cup events each year

• James C. France
Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Officer Since: 1987
Age: 62

• Lesa France Kennedy
Vice Chairman of the Board
Officer Since: 1987
Age: 45

• Susan G. Schandel
Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President, Treasurer
Officer Since: 1992
Age: 43

• John R. Saunders
Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President
Officer Since: 1997
Age: 50

• W. Garrett Crotty
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
Officer Since: 1996
Age: 43

• Roger R. VanDerSnick
Senior Vice President — Marketing and Business Operations
Officer Since: 2006
Age: 44

• H. Lee Combs
Senior Vice President — Corporate Development
Officer Since: 1987
Age: 53

• W. Grant Lynch
Senior Vice President — Business Operations
Officer Since: 1993
Age: 53

• Daniel W. Houser
Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, Controller, Assistant Treasurer
Age: 55

• Daryl Q. Wolfe
Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Officer Since: 2005
Age: 39

Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK)
Owns tracks that run 10 NASCAR Nextel Cup events

• O. Bruton Smith
Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Officer Since: 1994
Age: 80

• H. A. Wheeler
President, Chief Operating Officer, Director
Officer Since: 1994
Age: 68

• William R. Brooks
Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Treasurer, Director
Officer Since: 1994
Age: 57

• M. Jeffery Byrd
President of BMS
Officer Since: 2003
Age: 57

• Edwin R. Clark
President and General Manager of AMS
Officer Since: 1995
Age: 52

• William E. Gossage
President of Texas Motor Speedway
Age: 48

• Steve Page
President and General Manager of IR
Officer Since: 1996
Age: 52

• Marcus G. Smith
Executive Vice President — National Sales and Marketing, Director
Age: 33

• R. Christopher Powell              
Vice President and General Manager of LVMS
Officer Since: 1998
Age: 47

Dover Motorsports (NYSE:DVD)
Owns Dover Int’l Speedway that runs two NASCAR Nextel Cup events annually

• Henry B. Tippie
Chairman of the Board
Officer Since: 1996
Age: 80

• Denis McGlynn
President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
Officer Since: 1979
Age: 60

• Patrick J. Bagley
Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President — Finance, Director
Officer Since: 2002
Age: 59

• Michael A. Tatoian       
Executive Vice President
Officer Since: 2006
Age: 45

• Klaus M. Belohoubek    
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary
Officer Since: 1999
Age: 47

• Thomas Wintermantel
Treasurer, Assistant Secretary

Pocono Raceway
Runs two NASCAR Nextel Cup events annually and privately owned by The Mattioli Family, Dr. Joseph and Dr. Rose Mattioli
 
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Runs one NASCAR Nextel Cup event annually

 • The Hulman-George family continues to own and operate the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Mari Hulman George serving as Chairman of the Board and Anton “Tony” George serving as President and Chief Executive Officer. Tony Hulman purchased the speedway from Eddie Rickenbacker for $750,000 on Nov. 14, 1945.