Lori Collier Waran once parked cars with her grandfather at Richmond Raceway. Now, she’s the track’s first female president.
Lori Collier Waran’s previous association with NASCAR was enjoyable, but not necessarily the kind of experience usually associated with the president of a track in the major league of American Motorsports.
Waran helped her grandfather park cars prior to Cup Series races at Richmond Raceway when she was a kid and partied with her girlfriends at the track as a young woman. As a newlywed more than two decades ago, she allowed her husband to decorate their bathroom with Dale Earnhardt memorabilia, but cheered Tony Stewart when they watched races together.
Her tangential relationship with NASCAR racing notwithstanding, Waran might just be what the doctor ordered as the fourth president — and first female president — in the 76-year history of Richmond Raceway. A little more than a decade after the track stopped selling tickets for Cup races at 112,000 because it had no more seats, success nowadays would be consistently drawing about half that many.
Generating revenue and interest is exactly what Waran has done in her successful career on the business side of media in the Richmond area, beginning with Autotrader magazine more than 20 years ago. She has since worked as general manager and publisher at Richmond-based Style Weekly before her latest gig as chief revenue officer and associate publisher of Virginia Business Magazine + Media.
She has been president for less than a month as Richmond Raceway readies for its biggest weekend of the season. The track will host a 250-lap NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoff race at 8 p.m. Saturday, ahead of the Cup Series Federated Auto Parts 400 at 3 p.m. Sunday.
“They wanted someone who could connect with the community quickly, had already formed good partnerships and who had a hand in audience development,” Waran said. “What NASCAR, and motorsports, are trying to do is retain loyal fans, but also reach out to engage new fans.”
Although Waran’s sports background in business is slim, sports have been a part of her life since childhood. Her father, Tom Collier, was a longtime football and track coach at a pair of high schools just a stone’s throw from Richmond Raceway’s ¾-mile oval: Henrico and Highland Springs.
“When I was growing up, and he was a football coach, my dad would tell me the No. 1 thing you have to be in life is coachable,” Waran said. “No matter if you’re a subject matter expert or not, you have to be coachable and you have to be willing to learn, so I’m making sure I’m continuing to be coachable.”
Part of that learning curve is leaning on the experience of two women who preceded her in running NASCAR Cup tracks: Julie Giese, president of Phoenix Raceway, and Jill Gregory, executive vice president and general manager of Sonoma Raceway.
“They’ve been incredibly helpful,” Waran said. “They’ve had a lot of success with their tracks, and I think it’s really helpful when you can take components of other tracks that you can possibly apply here.”
Because Giese and Gregory were at their tracks ahead of her, Waran is trying not to make too big a deal of being the first female president at Richmond Raceway. Nonetheless, when she thinks back to parking cars at the track with her grandfather or learning about drivers in depth for the first time by watching races with her husband, she is humbled at her current position in the sport.
“Of course, no, I could not have dreamed [of being a NASCAR track president] back then,” she said. “When you have the distinction of being first in anything, you take it with a lot of gratitude and humility.
“You know a lot of people helped you get there. For me, it was the teams at Style Weekly, Virginia Business and Autotrader and it was my family.
“I’m very grateful that I’m here and would never have believed back then a woman could hold this position.”
