NASCAR Hall of Fame set for grand opening, should have no problem attracting visitors in first year
The NASCAR Hall of Fame will open Tuesday. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
CHARLOTTE – The NASCAR Hall of Fame opens Tuesday, and the 150,000-square-foot facility should have no problem attracting people during the first year.
With a theater on the bottom floor featuring a 12-minute movie about NASCAR and then three floors of interactive exhibits, the hall of fame has set a single-day adult ticket price of $19.95. It is selling annual memberships with the hope that people will visit the facility in downtown Charlotte more than once.
And that’s the challenge – to make people want to come back.
The hall of fame will hold its grand opening on Tuesday and its first induction ceremony on May 23, when NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., former NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. and drivers Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson will be inducted.
Even with four floors, not everything the hall of fame has acquired will be on display when the doors open Tuesday.
“We’ll keep changing exhibits out,” Hall of Fame Executive Director Winston Kelley said. “Glory Road [with vintage cars] will change every couple of years. … The artifacts will change out every three to four months. And we’ll have new [inductees] on an annual basis.”
Blake Davidson, NASCAR’s managing director for licensed products, called the hall of fame part entertainment attraction, part celebration of the sport and its stars and part museum.
“The NASCAR Hall of Fame has exceeded our vision for what it could be when we started the process,” Davidson said. “This is beyond any dream that we could have had. I’m as excited about the things that people aren’t going to see on Day 1 that we just don’t have room to put in the facility when it opens.”
The number of interactive displays is enough to keep fans occupied for the full eight hours the facility is open (10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday). Among things visitors can do is: watch videos about 20 of the greatest finishes in NASCAR history; rev an engine dyno; ride in a racing simulator (for an extra $5); and play trivia games. Customers can use a card that collects information from activities during their visit to track their progress throughout their visit.
There is a separate room just for kids and an area that goes through the entire mechanics of a car and how it is built. Another area describes how technical inspection is done (including video screens where patrons can decide which pieces are legal and illegal). On one floor, artifacts of the sport are arranged by decade and another area that highlights families and other historical moments.
“One of our objectives was to have something for everybody – whether you’re a diehard NASCAR fan, whether you’ve never been around the sport, whether you’re 5 years old or 85 years old,” Kelley said.
Included in the exhibits is a moonshine still built by Johnson, a former convicted moonshiner, later pardoned and then canonized in the movie “The Last American Hero,” based on an article by Tom Wolfe.
Johnson had given the hall of fame pieces of the still and then had to be called to help install it.
“He’s got a pipe wrench and a pair of Channellocks that were very well worn,” Kelley said. “He steps into the exhibit and starts connecting it and telling people what to do.”
There is a copy of the report on the accident that killed Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500, and there is an area of remembrance for those who have died.
“Our credibility and NASCAR’s credibility were on the line,” Kelley said. “We tried to include as much as we can [about death in sport].”
The exhibits in the induction area won’t be open until the induction ceremony May 23. It includes cars raced by Petty, Johnson and Earnhardt.
Each inductee will have a spire in the center of the room with their likeness and a video describing their accomplishments. At the bottom will be another likeness of the person where kids create an image to take home with them. The spires of the current class will be in the center, while the rest will line the outside of the room, which is shaped in an oval.
There is a ballroom and an office tower attached to the hall of fame, built by the City of Charlotte for $195 million.
That was about $40 million more than originally projected and nearly $60 million more than the original bid by the city. NASCAR began taking bids in 2005 and took site visits to Charlotte, Atlanta, Daytona Beach, Kansas and Richmond before settling on Charlotte.
The hall of fame is owned and operated by the City of Charlotte with a licensing agreement from NASCAR. NASCAR gets royalties on virtually everything, including 10 percent of ticket sales. The city will not owe NASCAR money until a year after it opens, and all royalties are deferred until the hall of fame shows a positive cash flow.
“To the extent the hall of fame makes money and is profitable, then NASCAR participates in that,” Davidson said. “All our payments are deferred until that point in time. This was about building the right facility that appropriately honors the history of the sport and honors those inducted.
“It’s a lot more important to have the facility, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, right than anything that NASCAR would make off the facility.”
