CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former NASCAR promoter Humpy Wheeler has packed up, moved to the SouthPark area and auctioned off some 350 items of his personal collection this past winter.
[Former speedway owner talks about Tony Stewart situation]
Now, Wheeler has listed on the market his 2,100-square-foot home and 30 acres of property on a peninsula lot on the Huntersville side of Mountain Island Lake, where he’s lived for the past 17 years.
Wheeler for years served as president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, having worked for more than three decades with speedway founder Bruton Smith. Even after his departure from the company in 2008, Wheeler remained actively involved in motorsports and other ventures, which included voicing a cartoon car character in Disney’s “Cars.”
The property Wheeler is now selling has two garages — one to work on cars and one to keep them, as Wheeler put it — that have played host to myriad racing legends during the nearly 20 years Wheeler lived on the property. He contends it’s one of the last pieces of large, privately owned, undeveloped properties with substantial shoreline on Mountain Island Lake, one of the better-preserved lakes in the region because of strict regulations and because most of the undeveloped land on the lake is owned by Duke Energy, Mecklenburg County and the state.
Wheeler said he specifically sought to build a home on Mountain Island Lake in the late 1990s because Lake Norman, where he previously lived, had started to become crowded with jet-skiers and other boating traffic.
“My grandson, who was four at the time, he heard me (complain) so much, he’d say, ‘Granddad, the dreaded jet-skis are coming back,’ — he thought dreaded was a brand name,” Wheeler said, laughing.
He reflected on how he snagged the rare opportunity to buy land on Mountain Island Lake in a recent interview with CBJ. Read more and check out photos of the estate here.
>> Reading this story in our app? The new "Follow the Lead" feature allows you to tap the blue tag indicated with a '+' to subscribe to alerts on the very latest breaking news updates.
Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com:
- Person dies after jet ski crash on Lake Norman, officials say
- Crews responding to crash involving NC trooper on motorcycle in west Charlotte
- NC father killed after wave off Oak Island broke neck to donate organs
- FORECAST: Last day of heat wave before cold front, storms move in
- Deputies: 4-wheeler rider shot, killed after reportedly running two people over
Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
