Jeff Byrd, President and General Manager of Bristol Motor Speedway recently died after a battle with cancer. I decided to alter the SMI logo to make a mourning version.
I don't know the appropriateness of using the SMI logo for that but BMS (and SMI for that fact) will not be the same without Jeff. So I dropped the car from the logo and put his nick name in its place.
I never knew how to act around Jeff (Mr. Byrd always to me as I could never bring myself to call him Jeff) but he was one of those people that commanded respect without ever saying a word.
I will never forget these specific interactions with him:
1. Making everyone in the entire office watch my rope magic trick and then tipping me for doing it, haha :D That was the first time I ever performed that trick in front of a lot of people and I wouldn't have done it without his incessant prodding.
2. Being upset about the performance of the contracted cleaning crew during race weekend, he sent an all staff email alerting employees that they could find him out picking up trash. I don't doubt that he did, in fact, go out and pick up trash and the message was clear that we all needed to pitch in. This memory is one that I recount often. This summer while attending the Monster Truck Madness I took less than 60 seconds out of my life to pick up trash blowing down the back stretch during the autograph session thinking that Jeff would have done the same thing. I guess my point is that I perceived Jeff as the kind of guy that didn't draw lines. It wasn't someone else's job, it was everyone's job.
3. Opening car doors with his wife Claudia at the drag tower and welcoming people inside. I have never had more than a 3 minute conversation with Jeff in my entire life and I certainly didn't know him personally at the time, but around the time I was interning at BMS I saw the couple back at the drag tower during an event opening doors for guests. Whether they were VIP or what, it still shocked me to run into them just opening doors for people. Servant leadership in a shining example.
4. Never being short with me, even at 2 AM when I was trying to get in the office to take a shower on race weekend. He never ignored me and was never terse even during the most stressful weekends. That is really saying something when someone in his position takes the time to not only talk to fans (customers) but to the employees as well. Following the "we hurt the ones we love" philosophy it would have been easy to drop the act in the middle of the night when no one was around. But it wasn't an act. He had developed virtues and character such that his initial reaction was one of patience.
Lots of people have a lot of great things to say about Jeff and that can give you a perfect picture of the kind of person he was.
Claudia, the children, and extended BMS family and employees are in my prayers.
