Monday, Lowe’s Motor Speedway revealed a special trophy for the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600 as well as historic program cover designs for both the 600 and the All-Star race. Founder, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc, Bruton Smith, and his son Marcus Smith, the President and General Manager of Lowe’s Motor Speedway were on-hand for the event, alongside two-time Coca-Cola 600 Champion Kasey Kahne and Sam Bass, the official artist of Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
 

“We wanted to have the very best trophy in all of motorsports,” Marcus Smith said immediately before the unveiling.

The priceless prize is 22kt gold-plated and weighs approximately 225 pounds. It features crystals positioned above a granite base with the names of each winner through the years. The base itself includes the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600 logo as well as the original World 600 logo. According to Smith, the project took over 120 hours to design and produce.

Kahne, undeniably, would like to get his hands on the new hardware.

“The history on that trophy is really awesome,” Kahne said. “With the 600 coming up I’m going to shoot for the win like no other just for that trophy. The trophy itself is something that I would love to have.”

The new program covers for the two events coming up this month are of the same caliber as the new trophy.

“I want them (fans) to look at something I paint and go ‘wow, that’s cool, I’ve got to have that’,” said artist Sam Bass. “And, I tell you what, the reaction to these so far has just been that.”

Bass compiled some of the most memorable moments from the history of each race and put them into the Lowe’s Motor Speedway logo.

“There have been so many great moments over the years in both events I just kind of tried to make a broad overview of some of the things,” Bass explained. “There was no way, without it being a big jumbled mess, to put every single driver that had won, every single moment, so I just tried to get a broad overview that the fans could relate to and then have a contemporary spin on it, where the cars inside the car icon of the globe were the current modern day drivers and then revolving around them were all of the different scenes from those particular events.” 

The two masterpieces took up a great deal of Bass’s time but they were worth it in the end.

“If I had painted for fifty years there probably still wouldn’t have been enough time,” he said. “Both of the paintings are well over 150 hours a piece. There’s like 300 hours of my life between the two covers that I will always remember.”

 MORE NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES NEWS