Phoenix International Raceway. Photo by Steve Lyon.
Rusty Wallace has done many things in his career, from racing to sportscasting, but conducting a symphony orchestra has yet to appear on that list. Later this year, though, he’ll get the chance to do just that when the Phoenix Symphony introduces what could be the world’s first automotive-themed overture at The Sound of Speed, an event designed to help celebrate Phoenix International Raceway‘s 50th anniversary.
Specifically, Wallace will conduct the national anthem to kick off the event. The work that the full 72-piece symphony will debut that night will be conducted by composer Larry Blank, who has composed and conducted for Carnegie Hall, Broadway and Hollywood.
“He’s actually working on it as we speak,” said Jim Ward, the CEO of the Phoenix Symphony. “The music will reflect the theme of speed – it will be energetic, exciting and fast-paced.”
Ward also said that the piece will integrate the sounds associated with cars and with motorsports – revving engines, skidding tires, horns, and more – by bringing cars onto the symphony stage with the orchestra, something that the Phoenix Symphony has never done before.
Photo courtesy Phoenix Symphony.
Ward said the event came about after he heard of the track’s 50th anniversary celebrations. “We’ve always been interested in intersecting with non-conventional and non-traditional audiences,” he said. “This community is big into cars and racing, so our goal was to intersect with that audience.”
In addition to the concert, the event will also include multimedia presentations celebrating cars in film and the cars of the James Bond film franchise, as well as a Barrett-Jackson-hosted car show along Third Street as part of a Pit Road Street Festival.
Photo courtesy Phoenix International Raceway.
Built by original owners Dick and Nancy Hogue, the raceway opened in 1964 as a one-mile tri-oval with a 2.5-mile road course. The first race, an amateur sports car race, took place that February, and a month later A.J. Foyt won the first oval-course race, a 100-mile USAC event.
Over the next dozen years, it would change hands twice, first when C.A. Alexander bought it in 1969, and again when a consortium of bidders stepped in to save it from closing in 1976. Dennis Wood, one of those bidders, over time bought out his partners and not only kept the raceway going, but also brought it to national prominence by attracting the track’s first NASCAR race in the late 1970s and the first Winston Cup race about a decade later.
Wood eventually sold the track in 1985 to rancher Buddy Jobe, who in turn sold it to the current owners, the International Speedway Corporation, in 1997, but Wood stayed on until the late 1990s as the track’s manager. Over the years, the raceway has seen a number of changes, including a reconfiguration of the tri-oval and the shortening of the road course to about 1.5 miles, its current length.
The Sound of Speed event will take place November 6 at the Phoenix Symphony Hall. For more information, visit SoundofSpeed.org.
