NASCAR Hall Of Fame Nearing Completion

Friday, March 19, 2010

NASCAR Hall of Fame racing toward debut

Charlotte Business Journal - by Erik Spanberg Senior staff writer

Office life can occasionally include a cramped elevator or the unexpected visit from a VIP who knows your business better than you do.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is no different. In recent days, the office elevator lugged 3,500-pound stock cars from the ground level for installation on a banked walkway, with the last of the 18 cars expected to be in place by the end of this week.

Those arrivals followed a visit on Monday by two-time NASCAR champion Terry Labonte, who stopped in to test recently installed racing simulators. Labonte’s drop-by came on the heels of an impromptu appearance by former driver and team owner Junior Johnson, the famed former moonshine runner who donated one of his stills as an artifact and then made the two-hour drive from his Wilkes County home to make sure it was reassembled with care.

Those are just some of the machinations involved in the race to complete construction, assemble exhibits and install artifacts as the $200 million hall of fame hits the home stretch.

Monday marks the start of a 50-day countdown to opening, with executives at the hall of fame logging extra hours to make sure everything works. At the same time, they’re gearing up for building tours with focus groups and test runs starting next month. The hall officially opens on May 11, with the first class of honorees inducted 12 days later. Between now and then, the 150,000-square-foot building — sheathed in a swooping silver band reminiscent of a banked speedway — must make the engines roar on everything from a 278-seat theater with a 64-foot screen to Labonte’s feel-the-need-for-speed simulators.

“Right now, we’re seeing three years’ work come to fruition,” says Kevin Schlesier, the hall of fame’s exhibits manager. “This is the exciting part — getting everything into the building.”

Working with exhibit design firm Ralph Appelbaum + Associates, Schlesier and the rest of the hall’s staff are overseeing the $30 million in displays and exhibits that will make or break the city’s expensive bet on NASCAR as a tourism magnet. Attractions include 50 to 60 interactive displays and features, and 800 to 900 artifacts ranging from documents and driver’s licenses to the Unocal 76 spotter tower from the Daytona International Speedway infield.

A joint partnership of Turner Construction, BE&K and Davis Construction presides over the main building aspects, while other firms oversee the exhibits. On the ground now: Ralph Appelbaum (exhibit design); Sanders Museum Services (artifact mounting and installation); Electrosonic (audio-visual systems); Unified Field (digital software development for exhibits); iRacing and SSG (racing simulators); and Kubik Maltbie (exhibit fabrication and installation).

NASCAR Media Group, a Charlotte-based production company to be housed on the hall of fame site, is producing a range of videos and movies for hall visitors.

There are other motorsports museums and halls of fame around the country, but none backed by NASCAR. Putting the sanctioning body behind a project that includes architects and exhibitors who have worked on everything from The Louvre in Paris to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington puts a fresh spin on the sport’s history.

“It takes the things you’re used to seeing — firesuits, race cars — and gives it a very contemporary showcase,” says Roger VanDerSnick, chief operating officer at track operator International Speedway Corp. VanDerSnick and several colleagues toured the construction site this month and came away impressed.

“We’re going to work very closely with them because we think we can do a lot of complementary things to help each other sell tickets,” he says.

Access to the construction site will be all but eliminated during the final phase as crews go over every detail. Concerns trickle down to the graphic panels behind the artifacts, an issue exhibit coordinators dealt with this week, shrinking one panel to 24 inches from 48 inches. Such meticulous considerations must be handled at the same time ticket sales ramp up, sponsorships are negotiated and advertising campaigns come to life. (See related story: “NASCAR Hall of Fame sponsorships start to roll in.”)

After all, once construction ends, touring begins. There are no pit stops from here on out.

In recent weeks, the 100-plus part-time workers who will take tickets, answer questions and help visitors navigate the building have been in customer-service training sessions. Winston Kelley, the hall’s executive director, attends each one, putting an exclamation point on his long-running mantra of keeping customers happy so they’ll come back.

“You want to make sure everything is buttoned-up for May 11th,” he says. On April 18, the building should be ready, leaving Kelley and his staff three weeks to bring in small groups for tours to see what works and what doesn’t. Small groups of sponsors and other industry friends will serve as guinea pigs, offering cues on how long people spend looking at each exhibit area, where more or fewer staffers are needed and so on.

Despite NASCAR’s slumping popularity in recent years, hall of fame executives and tourism leaders remain bullish on the hall’s prospects. They’re sticking with earlier projections of 800,000 visitors during the first year of operation, even in the face of several years of declining attendance at NASCAR races and smaller TV audiences. Ticket sales began seven months before the opening date. Hall of fame officials say sales are meeting projections, but they decline to disclose specific figures.

The proximity to the major NASCAR teams housed in the Charlotte region and the eye-popping architectural flourish of the Pei, Cobb Freed & Partners design should spark ample attention and curiosity, backers believe. Later this month, The New York Times is expected to feature a story on the hall of fame and other newly added uptown attractions.

Charlotte landed the hall of fame in 2006 after NASCAR conducted a national search. New hotel-room taxes are paying for construction of the museum and an adjacent ballroom for the convention center. The hall of fame is pegged as the anchor for a cultural district that includes the recently opened Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Knight Theater and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. A consolidated Mint Museum will open this fall in the same area.

In the months ahead, hall historians and staffers will formulate plans for rotating exhibits and artifacts, pushing for enough fresh material to keep race fans hungry to come back when they are in town for the spring and fall races at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Lesson plans for school groups, lecture series and other outreach programs also must be developed. Even the mammoth 18-car installation along Glory Road is temporary, with new historic fleets and themes to be ushered in every two years.

For now, reaching the start/finish line is the lone consideration.

“It’s an all-decks-on-hand period,” says Schlesier, the exhibit manager. “Everything is about making sure we’re ready.”