CONCORD, N.C. -- Before Jimmie Johnson was a driving star on NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series circuit, he was Humpy Wheeler's sparring partner.

Of course, he wasn't alone there. Wheeler often took the hands of youngsters entering the sport of stock-car racing and tried to prepare them for the brutality of it by leading them into the boxing ring. Or racquetball court, or wherever he might teach his valuable lessons.

"I got into a boxing ring with him. Well, we were actually in a racquetball court. It was when I first moved to North Carolina [around 1999] -- and he's a [former] Golden Gloves boxer," Johnson recalled Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway, where Wheeler had abruptly announced his retirement as president and general manager one day earlier. "The first thing he had me do was go around punching the walls, wearing my arms out pretty well.

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I've picked up trash, sold tickets, sold souvenirs, painted plenty of walls. I've been around racing since I was a kid, and I love it ...

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MARCUS SMITH

"And then we square off, and as we're kind of fake boxing, he lands a couple punches on me. And I'm like, 'Man, he's punching me.' So I swing back a few times and he's excited. He's like, 'OK, there we go, now we're gettin' that fire in you.'

"And he's like, 'OK, your gloves are too low. I'm gonna hit you in the head now.' And sure enough, he would hit me in the head. So then I put my hands up and he says, 'That's too high.' And then he hits me in the stomach."

Marcus Smith, the man who appears poised to take Wheeler's place, laughed when he heard that story Thursday.

"I'm not a boxer, but I've boxed with Humpy as well," said Smith, the 34-year-old son of Bruton Smith, chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc. that owns LMS. "We were in a gym somewhere and he just wore me out. He'll definitely teach you to keep your left up. He's great."

While the details surrounding Wheeler's surprise departure were still being sorted out -- Wheeler admitted it wasn't done entirely on his own terms, and Bruton Smith has hinted at lingering animosity between the two -- young Marcus Smith continued to fly mostly under the radar over the last couple of days.

Just who, exactly, is this kid? Besides being Bruton's kid, we mean.

He talks as if he is set to take over at LMS even as he stops just short of making it entirely official. After going on 33 years of Wheeler and his maniacal promotions skills at the crown jewel track of Bruton Smith's ever-expanding SMI empire (he announced the pending acquisition of his eighth track, Kentucky Speedway, on Thursday), the 81-year-old Bruton appears to be preparing to hand over the keys to at least his Charlotte shop to son Marcus.

And young Marcus appears eager to seize them.

"I love racin'. I love our business, Speedway Motorsports," Smith said. "I've grown up in it, and I've enjoyed all the people I've worked with over the years, and I plan to be here a very, very long time. We'll see what happens next. We don't really have anything to announce at this point, but it will be soon.

"The great thing about our company is that we have such a fantastic group of management. Our bench is very strong, to put it into a sports sense. We've got guys and girls who are on our bench that are just fantastic and will do a great job. As you can see around the sport, there are a lot of people that go to the races every day that started work at one of our speedways -- and they're out and about working for other companies right now. We're proud of that, and we'll continue to develop strong management."

His background
Marcus Smith attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied first to be a doctor and later to be a journalist. But his real education always came at home.

And home frequently included Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"I've worked in every department at the speedway," Smith said. "I've picked up trash, sold tickets, sold souvenirs, painted plenty of walls. I've been around racing since I was a kid, and I love it, and watch it or listen to it on PRN (Performance Racing Network) radio every Sunday."

Asked if it was his idea or his billionaire father's plan to have him learn the business from the ground up, Marcus suppressed a chuckle.

"Well, when I was a kid I couldn't come in and run the place. I don't think I was qualified for it. All I was qualified for was to pick up trash and weed-eat, so I did a lot of that," Marcus said.

"I interned in the summertime and that sort of thing. My summer job was always around the speedway."

Back then, SMI was hardly the behemoth it is today. Bruton Smith owned only one track, and Wheeler, beginning in 1976, was the guy who always ran it. Marcus Smith, beginning in the late 1980s, was the boss' little kid with the wicked weed-whacker.

"I was always here because this was the only speedway we had when I was a kid," Marcus said. "Of course since then I've spent a lot of time at the other speedways. We've got fantastic properties and like I've said, great people at all the other speedways.

"But you know, I just love that so many race fans from all around the country get to come to these races and enjoy time with their family and friends, and that we can be part of their lives by providing a place where family and friends can come and enjoy their time off -- and be a part of the passion that they love so much. It's a big duty for us to make sure that they have a great time, and great facilities in which to enjoy their vacations."

The facelift
If Marcus Smith sounds like a salesman, well, that's because he is. He became a director of SMI in 2004, after having served from 2001-2004 as vice president of business development for the company. He also serves as a member of the board of managers of SMISC LLC, a little-known but equally owned and extremely lucrative merchandising joint venture between SMI and their supposed arch-rival, International Speedway Corporation.

Humpy retires

• Wheeler announces retirement
• Track Smack: Fill his shoes?
• Drivers, owners will miss him
• Wheeler best at promotions
• Marcus Smith next in line?
• Garage Pass: Humpy departs

Young Marcus put down the weed-whacker and work clothes and picked up his BlackBerry and custom-tailored business suits long ago, having begun the more serious side of his career as a sales associate at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 1996. By 1999, Marcus was promoted to manager of new business development.

Marcus Smith has been compensated well for his diligence. Although his salary in 2007 was a mere $225,000, he earned bonuses and long-term stock options that pushed his total compensation for the year to $1.402 million, according to Forbes magazine. He also owns about $500,000 worth of SMI stock.

He has earned enough to move into Jimmie Johnson's neighborhood, and vice versa. They've both come a long way since their Humpy Wheeler boxing lessons.

Johnson said that his friendly neighbor is ready for the job, if running LMS is what's next for Marcus Smith.

"He's an extremely well-rounded man who has seen all aspects of the sport," Johnson said. "There are a lot of things behind the scenes that have gone on with the relationship [between SMI and] NASCAR, with the licensed merchandise industry we have in this sport, track management, race operations. He's been around it all and has a very quiet and mellow personality to where he's probably flown under the radar.

"People may not have recognized or realized all he's been doing, but he's a great man, his heart is in the right place, and if he does end up in that capacity [as head of LMS] he's going to do a phenomenal job. But I really think he has so much experience in a variety of areas that this might be one of many options for him. The guy can seriously do anything that he wants to do."

One thing Smith does not want to do is box Jimmie Johnson, or anyone else.

"We're good friends. I don't know that we'll box. We'll eat dinner together, maybe," Smith said.

Johnson added: "No, I haven't boxed Marcus. He's a strong dude, so if I do I would want to catch him at the end of a workout and make sure his arms are tired."

That won't be all that's tired at the end of each day if Marcus shoulders the burden of overall operations at LMS, where he said a major facelift is in order for the facility that first opened in 1960 and was taken over by his father -- and Wheeler in the management capacity -- in 1976.

"We've put a lot of capital improvements in our other properties, whether it's building facilities or expanding facilities," Marcus said. "You haven't seen us go back and remodel in most cases. But now it's time for us to do some remodeling here at Lowe's Motor Speedway. You've seen the start of that with the addition of the drag strip [still under construction on LMS property]. We just added thousands of seats on our frontstretch that were available for the first time during the All-Star Race.

"And of course during the last couple of years, we've improved the infield significantly. The media center is part of that. The outside of the track will have some refurbishment as we go through the next couple of years."

He sounds like a man already on the job.