William Edgar Gossage (October 15, 1958 – May 16, 2024) was an American motorsports executive and promoter. He was best known as the president of the Texas Motor Speedway, a banked racetrack in Fort Worth, Texas, which ran stock car racing and Indy car racing events throughout his tenure. He also was employed at other companies, holding various public relations positions.
Gossage was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1980, he obtained his first major publicity job when he was hired by the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. After a brief stint with the Bristol Motor Speedway, he transferred to be the public relations director for the Miller Brewing Company's racing program for six years. Afterward, he was hired by Charlotte Motor Speedway president and racing promoter H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler in 1989 to become the vice president of public relations at the speedway. In 1995, he was promoted by Speedway Motorsports owner Bruton Smith and placed in charge of building the newly-announced Texas Motor Speedway, becoming the track's general manager. After his retirement from the position in 2021, he focused on a motivational speaking career.
Throughout his tenure at the Texas Motor Speedway, Gossage ran various races and concerts that attracted over 200,000 people per event. A protégé of Wheeler, he has also spurred the creation of a myriad of promotions and campaigns to promote the speedway, later being regarded as the last "old-school promoter" in racing. His advertising campaigns and promotions have sometimes been viewed as controversial in the motorsports landscape, turning Gossage into one of the most polarizing figures in auto racing.
Early life Gossage was born on October 15, 1958, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Howell Lee Gossage (1927–1998) and Martha Lucille Craighead (1928–1994). He is the middle child with an older brother named Jeff. His father worked at a packing house near the Cumberland River after dropping out of high school in his freshman year to serve in the United States Navy. According to himself, Gossage's early childhood heroes were Muhammad Ali and Evel Knievel, both of whom he saw while watching Wide World of Sports. Both celebrities influenced his interest in promoting. He later started his promotional career when he hosted events in his parents' backyard.
According to Gossage, his family lived in the middle class, with the family not having anything except "a roof over our head". While playing various sports for Pioneer Christian Academy in high school, Gossage had ambitions of playing for the Green Bay Packers. Playing as an end for Pioneer Christian, midway through his high school career, he decided to switch his focus towards journalism and writing, instead wanting to become the public relations director for the Packers. Graduating from Pioneer Christian in 1976, he committed to Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), where he majored in journalism. While at MTSU, Gossage wrote articles and was the sports editor for the university's student newspaper, The Sidelines, along with interning at The Tennessean sports department. While working for The Sidelines, he met his first wife, Jane.
Business and promotional career Early promotional career While at Middle Tennessee, Gossage considered getting a job at the local Nashville International Raceway. After getting a recommendation from fellow Tennessean sportswriter Larry Woody, he was hired to become the director of public relations at the speedway in April 1980. He earned $9,000 (adjusted for inflation, $) annually for the job. According to himself, the work he did for the speedway was strenuous; he, on numerous occasions, had to be the janitor, a grass-keeper, the chef, and the pace car driver. He initially regretted the job, stating that he thought his parents had thought he had wasted four years of college education to earn a low-paying job. In addition, the job delayed his graduation from Middle Tennessee to 1982.
In January 1981, Nashville attorney Gary Baker bought full control of the Bristol International Raceway after being the co-owner of the speedway for three years. With the purchase, Baker owned both Nashville International Raceway and Bristol International Raceway. As a result of the purchase, Baker moved Gossage to become the assistant general manager and the public relations director of Bristol International Raceway in February, with Tom Roberts taking his place at Nashville. Under Gossage's work, the Bristol International Raceway saw renovations and improvement, bringing over $20 million (adjusted for inflation, $) in revenue to the Tri-Cities area annually. Along with this, he, along with Baker, negotiated the live coverages of races held at Bristol and for the speedway to host events for the 1982 World's Fair. He also made attempts to try and broaden the market of stock car racing, which at the time had been stuck to a mainly Southeastern and Appalachian market.
In November 1981, California businessman Warner W. Hodgdon purchased half of the interest from Baker for the Bristol International Raceway. By late 1983, Hodgdon managed to purchase complete control of both the Bristol International Raceway and the Nashville International Raceway, where both Gossage and Roberts worked, respectively. Hodgdon was heavily disliked, according to Roberts, who called him "one of the biggest charlatans I had ever encountered"; Gossage and Roberts made efforts to look for another job. By September, Gossage had resigned from his position at the Bristol International Raceway.
The next month, Gossage joined the Miller Brewing Company, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the marketing communications supervisor for the company's racing program. During this timespan, he reported that he had to spend 40 weekends a year traveling to events, exposing him to several types of racing, including CART, IMSA, NHRA, hydroplanes, and tractor pulling. During his tenure at Miller, he hired Roberts, assisted longtime NASCAR driver Bobby Allison in 1985 in his move to Stavola Brothers Racing, and had to announce the injury statuses of both Allison and Mike Alexander, both of whom were injured in 1988. However, by 1989, Gossage grew tired of constant traveling that the company required. As a result, he left the Miller Brewing Company and joined the Charlotte Motor Speedway in February 1989 as the vice president of public relations.
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Gossage worked under the president and general manager of the Charlotte Motor Speedway and longtime promoter Humpy Wheeler throughout his tenure at the speedway. Before his tenure, the position was considered to be one of the most feared, with many having quit in a short time period. According to Wheeler, he called the position "the most pressured job in racing, mostly because of [sic]". Gossage frequently got into heated arguments with Wheeler, whom he described as having "nine personalities". However, he credited much of his success and influence from Wheeler, with Gossage serving the position longer than anyone before his tenure. He stated that, "he made you better... he made everyone do better than they think they can".
He was one of the main catalysts for the "One Hot Night" promotion for the 1992 The Winston, when the Charlotte Motor Speedway put up lights to illuminate the track for night racing, a feat seen as unprecedented because no track of its size had ever been illuminated successfully. During a "grand opening" and the first public testing of the lights, Bruton Smith, Gossage's boss and then-owner of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, was invited to switch on the lights by using a prop switch. When Smith flipped the prop switch, pyrotechnics that shot off the top of the switch malfunctioned, leading to sparks hitting Smith's head, burning him. The incident was recorded by the local Charlotte media and later sent nationally via satellite. While Smith was only treated as an outpatient for burns on his head, Gossage thought that due to the incident, he would be fired immediately. Gossage was told by Smith that he had taken the promotion "a little too far" before Smith headed to the hospital to be treated as an outpatient.
To his surprise, he was not fired by Smith the next day. Wheeler told Gossage to send a fire extinguisher to Smith's office, stating that Smith had a "good sense of humor". Smith later called Gossage to tell him that Smith's friends in Hawaii had seen footage of the incident on television, asking him how the video spread that far. When Gossage told Smith that he had sent the footage out via satellite for a cost of $600 (adjusted for inflation, $), Smith thought Gossage was a "genius" for managing to get the footage out nationwide for a low cost.
Texas Motor Speedway
Early years and turmoil By 1994, Gossage and Smith formed a strong relationship. In that same year, Smith, with the rising success of SMI, wanted to build a new track west of the Mississippi River. Smith called Gossage to head the project in secret, telling Gossage to "not tell Humpy". Three locations were scouted for the new speedway. A location in North Las Vegas, Nevada, was considered until Gossage found out that local businessman Ralph Engelstad had been looking at the same piece of land to build what would eventually become the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Smith agreed with Engelstad to not prospect the land any further, leaving the area to Engelstad. Later, the duo made trips to St. Louis and the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. By November, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Smith and Gossage had made their final choices in either of the two places.
In St. Louis, the duo found various parcels of land that had been recently flooded by the Mississippi River. Knowing that they could not hold racing in areas that could easily flood, the two scratched off St. Louis as the final construction site for the speedway. In Dallas–Fort Worth, the duo met businessman Ross Perot Jr. and flew in Perot's helicopter to scout a piece of land that was owned by Perot. After the two saw the land and its surrounding area, Gossage mouthed to Smith, "This is it!", with Smith agreeing. By November 30, the Star-Telegram reported that the two were going to build a 150,000-capacity speedway in an undetermined location at a cost of around $75,000,000 (adjusted for inflation, $).
Groundbreaking of the Texas Motor Speedway started on April 11, 1995. While Gossage was then told by Smith to worry about "working for Humpy" and not Texas, to Gossage's disappointment, in late May, Smith suddenly offered him the job of running the speedway, which he accepted. According to Smith and Gossage, the track was inspired by many aspects of previous tracks that Smith owned, wanting to incorporate the best aspects from those tracks and expanding on those ideas for Texas. In July 1996, dates for a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race were set, with a date from the North Wilkesboro Speedway being moved to Texas; this move generated considerable controversy, as North Wilkesboro had been a mainstay on the NASCAR schedule since NASCAR's beginning. A date was set in April 1997. The next month, Gossage announced that the Indy Racing League (IRL) would stage the first ever night race held at the speedway, to be held in June.