Local Promoter Ushers Nascar Into The Modern Era

WUNC | By Alex Granados,

Published June 24, 2013 at 10:28 AM EDT

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The Wheeler Company

Howard "Humpy" Wheeler has been involved with car racing since it was junkyard vehicles running on old dirt horse tracks. He eventually became the president and general manager of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he became the foremost promoter of Nascar. He was known for his publicity stunts and close affiliation with Nascar and its racers. Host Frank Stasio talks to Humpy Wheeler about his life in Nascar.

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Alex Granados

Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

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