CHARLOTTE, N.C. — O. Bruton Smith, who emerged from rural North Carolina and parlayed his love of motorsports into becoming a NASCAR Hall of Famer and one of its most eccentric and successful promoters, died Wednesday. He was 95.

His death was announced by Speedway Motorsports LLC, the company formed when he consolidated his entities in 1994. Smith made it the first public motorsports company to trade on the New York Stock Exchange three months later. Speedway Motorsports said Smith died of natural causes.

His son, Marcus, the current president and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, on Tuesday posted a tribute to his father on social media. “I had a wonderful Father’s Day weekend. I am so thankful to be a dad, and to have an amazing dad.” The post was accompanied by two photos of Smith, surrounded in both by his family.

Born March 2, 1927 on a farm in Oakboro, Ollen Bruton Smith was the youngest of nine children. He watched his first race as an 8-year-old and bought his first race car at 17 for $700.

“The whole idea at that time was I was that I was going to be a race car driver. I learned to drive, but that career didn’t last long,” Smith said about his early start.

After his mother discouraged him from racing, Smith instead became an entrepreneur and promoted his first race at age 18. He was also a stateside paratrooper during the Korean War in his early 20s.

But his love was promoting and he founded Speedway Motorsports, a company that currently owns 11 facilities across the United States. The tracks host NASCAR, IndyCar and other series in Atlanta, Bristol, Tennessee, Charlotte, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Sonoma, California, Texas, Dover, Delaware, Nashville, North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and Kentucky.

NASCAR races this weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, a track that was purchased by Speedway Motorsports late last year.

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The Pilsen man who set fire to a Chicago police vehicle while wearing a Joker mask amid the city’s May 2020 riots has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood handed down the 34-month sentence Wednesday to Timothy O’Donnell. Because he has already been behind bars for two years, the sentence likely leaves O’Donnell with just a few months left to serve.

“He set a car on fire in the middle of a crowd,” Wood said. “He did it in a way that was intended to target law enforcement. He did it in a way that could have caused serious injury or death. Fortunately, it did not.”

O’Donnell’s case is among the most high-profile to result from the rioting and looting that took place here in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Its notoriety is due in large part to the jarring images of a man in a clown mask amid the chaos that day.

And though a prosecutor said otherwise, O’Donnell’s defense attorney insisted that “he paid the price for wearing that mask that day.”

Before he was sentenced, O’Donnell apologized “to those whose businesses were left in utter ruin” and said he was sorry “if I hurt Chicago’s character in any way.” He said he was “ashamed of myself that I became involved in the problem and not part of the solution.”

Prosecutors said O’Donnell served as that day’s “poster child,” adding to its chaos “for no reason other than to live out his own fantasies.” They said he recorded footage of the protests on his tablet before setting fire to the CPD vehicle, casually joking at one point that it was a “beautiful day for a barbecue.”

But defense attorneys Michael Leonard and Steve Greenberg wrote in a court filing that O’Donnell “is entirely unlike the persona of him created by his wearing of the Joker mask,” which had been a birthday present. They wrote that O’Donnell “is a thoughtful, creative, intellectual, and nonviolent individual,” and that his mother was “a longtime member of law enforcement.”

O’Donnell admitted in a plea agreement last February that after approaching the unoccupied CPD vehicle in the 200 block of North State on May 30, 2020, he “used a lighter to ignite a piece of cloth that he placed in the fuel filler” or gas tank of the vehicle. The area around the gas tank then ignited, and the fire spread to the vehicle’s interior, according to the plea deal.

But O’Donnell’s defense team seemed to walk that back in their court filing. They wrote that “Mr. O’Donnell did not succeed in his efforts to place a rag inside the gas tank and light the vehicle on fire. He failed.” Rather, they wrote that video “clearly demonstrates” that “another individual threw an object or accelerant into or at the vehicle, and as a direct result it went up in flames.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Durkin acknowledged during Wednesday’s hearing that “there were other people” who made the fire worse. But Durkin said O’Donnell “started it.” And the judge pushed back against the argument during Leonard’s argument.

“He set a gas tank on fire,” Wood said.

Leonard explained that there were “literally dozens of people trying to destroy that car,” but “no one’s being punished except for Mr. O’Donnell.” He even argued that O’Donnell shouldn’t be forced to pay the full $58,000 restitution owed to CPD. The judge didn’t agree.

The defense attorneys pointed, as expected, to the separate case of Jacob Fagundo, a School of the Art Institute student who admitted setting fire to another Chicago police vehicle during the riots on May 30, 2020. U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman gave Fagundo three years of probation. Meanwhile, O’Donnell has been in federal custody since June 2020.

O’Donnell’s attorneys wrote that there “is absolutely no principled basis whatsoever for anyone to argue” that additional prison time is appropriate for O’Donnell, given Fagundo’s sentence. Wood said that, “at the end of the day every sentencing is an individual decision,” and she noted that Fagundo had no criminal history, unlike O’Donnell.

Leonard said after the hearing that he was “disappointed” in the sentence, but he noted it was far less than the 46 months prosecutors had sought.

Prosecutors charged O’Donnell on June 2, 2020, after investigators tied him to the incident through a “PRETTY” tattoo seen on the neck of the person wearing the mask. Video provided by a witness showed O’Donnell wearing the mask, holding a lit object and placing it in the gas tank of the CPD vehicle.

A photograph taken by a witness also showed O’Donnell handling the gas tank, according to the feds. In another, O’Donnell appeared to be sitting on the ground, wearing the Joker mask while the vehicle burned.

A third photograph apparently showed O’Donnell posing in the Joker mask in front of the burning vehicle. In that one, the tattoo that says “PRETTY” can be seen on the neck of the person wearing the mask. A CPD photo of O’Donnell revealed the same tattoo.

A family member told law enforcement that O’Donnell lived in a room in an apartment in the 700 block of 19th Place. Authorities obtained a search warrant and searched the apartment. The feds say they found a Joker mask in a bedroom.

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The Pilsen man who set fire to a Chicago police vehicle while wearing a Joker mask amid the city’s May 2020 riots has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood handed down the 34-month sentence Wednesday to Timothy O’Donnell. Because he has already been behind bars for two years, the sentence likely leaves O’Donnell with just a few months left to serve.

“He set a car on fire in the middle of a crowd,” Wood said. “He did it in a way that was intended to target law enforcement. He did it in a way that could have caused serious injury or death. Fortunately, it did not.”

O’Donnell’s case is among the most high-profile to result from the rioting and looting that took place here in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Its notoriety is due in large part to the jarring images of a man in a clown mask amid the chaos that day.

And though a prosecutor said otherwise, O’Donnell’s defense attorney insisted that “he paid the price for wearing that mask that day.”

Before he was sentenced, O’Donnell apologized “to those whose businesses were left in utter ruin” and said he was sorry “if I hurt Chicago’s character in any way.” He said he was “ashamed of myself that I became involved in the problem and not part of the solution.”

Prosecutors said O’Donnell served as that day’s “poster child,” adding to its chaos “for no reason other than to live out his own fantasies.” They said he recorded footage of the protests on his tablet before setting fire to the CPD vehicle, casually joking at one point that it was a “beautiful day for a barbecue.”

But defense attorneys Michael Leonard and Steve Greenberg wrote in a court filing that O’Donnell “is entirely unlike the persona of him created by his wearing of the Joker mask,” which had been a birthday present. They wrote that O’Donnell “is a thoughtful, creative, intellectual, and nonviolent individual,” and that his mother was “a longtime member of law enforcement.”

O’Donnell admitted in a plea agreement last February that after approaching the unoccupied CPD vehicle in the 200 block of North State on May 30, 2020, he “used a lighter to ignite a piece of cloth that he placed in the fuel filler” or gas tank of the vehicle. The area around the gas tank then ignited, and the fire spread to the vehicle’s interior, according to the plea deal.

But O’Donnell’s defense team seemed to walk that back in their court filing. They wrote that “Mr. O’Donnell did not succeed in his efforts to place a rag inside the gas tank and light the vehicle on fire. He failed.” Rather, they wrote that video “clearly demonstrates” that “another individual threw an object or accelerant into or at the vehicle, and as a direct result it went up in flames.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Durkin acknowledged during Wednesday’s hearing that “there were other people” who made the fire worse. But Durkin said O’Donnell “started it.” And the judge pushed back against the argument during Leonard’s argument.

“He set a gas tank on fire,” Wood said.

Leonard explained that there were “literally dozens of people trying to destroy that car,” but “no one’s being punished except for Mr. O’Donnell.” He even argued that O’Donnell shouldn’t be forced to pay the full $58,000 restitution owed to CPD. The judge didn’t agree.

The defense attorneys pointed, as expected, to the separate case of Jacob Fagundo, a School of the Art Institute student who admitted setting fire to another Chicago police vehicle during the riots on May 30, 2020. U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman gave Fagundo three years of probation. Meanwhile, O’Donnell has been in federal custody since June 2020.

O’Donnell’s attorneys wrote that there “is absolutely no principled basis whatsoever for anyone to argue” that additional prison time is appropriate for O’Donnell, given Fagundo’s sentence. Wood said that, “at the end of the day every sentencing is an individual decision,” and she noted that Fagundo had no criminal history, unlike O’Donnell.

Leonard said after the hearing that he was “disappointed” in the sentence, but he noted it was far less than the 46 months prosecutors had sought.

Prosecutors charged O’Donnell on June 2, 2020, after investigators tied him to the incident through a “PRETTY” tattoo seen on the neck of the person wearing the mask. Video provided by a witness showed O’Donnell wearing the mask, holding a lit object and placing it in the gas tank of the CPD vehicle.

A photograph taken by a witness also showed O’Donnell handling the gas tank, according to the feds. In another, O’Donnell appeared to be sitting on the ground, wearing the Joker mask while the vehicle burned.

A third photograph apparently showed O’Donnell posing in the Joker mask in front of the burning vehicle. In that one, the tattoo that says “PRETTY” can be seen on the neck of the person wearing the mask. A CPD photo of O’Donnell revealed the same tattoo.

A family member told law enforcement that O’Donnell lived in a room in an apartment in the 700 block of 19th Place. Authorities obtained a search warrant and searched the apartment. The feds say they found a Joker mask in a bedroom.

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The Blackhawks announced Wednesday a quartet of new leadership titles, fleshing out their front office beneath new general manager Kyle Davidson.

Meghan Hunter and Mark Eaton were named assistant general managers –of hockey operations and development, respectively –while Brian Campbell was named an advisor within hockey operations and Karilyn Pilch was named director of player personnel.

Eaton is the lone person of the four who will remain in the same role he previously held, having been promoted from development coach to AGM in 2020 under ex-GM Stan Bowman. Davidson was one of other two men promoted to an AGM role in 2020; the third, Ryan Stewart, parted ways with the Hawks after Davidson took over as GM in March.

Hunter has risen quickly up the ranks since joining the Hawks in 2016, most recently serving as director of hockey administration. As AGM of hockey operations, she’ll oversee budgeting, team services, contract execution, team security and player services.

Eaton, Hunter and associate general managers Norm Maciver and Jeff Greenberg will together form the second tier of leadership beneath Davidson in the Hawks’ new front-office pyramid.

“Meghan and Mark have both been important parts of our operation for a number of years and we are lucky to have them in these important and redeveloped roles,” Davidson said in a statement. “Their leadership skills, shared vision with the rest of the leadership team and knowledge of the game gives me plenty of confidence.”

Campbell’s official previous role was development coach –which he began after retiring in 2017 from his long playing career –but it had been obvious for some time that a promotion was coming. He and Davidson became close confidants and were rarely seen apart during the 2021-22 season.

Now as an advisor, Campbell is listed third in the hockey operations category of the Hawks’ front office directory –beneath Hunter and Scotty Bowman, the NHL’s all-time winningest coach who remains a senior advisor for the Hawks despite his son’s disgraced exit.

Pilch joined the Hawks last year as a scout after previously serving as general manager of the Boston Pride, a professional women’s hockey team.

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The injuries will not stop.

Shortstop Danny Mendick injured his right knee in the second inning of the White Sox’ game against the Blue Jays at Guaranteed Rate Field and had to be helped off the field after a collision in foul territory with left fielder Adam Haseley Wednesday.

One inning later, right fielder Adam Engel left the game with a sore right hamstring.

Mendick needed assistance walking off and was unable to put pressure on his right foot.

Mendick caught a pop fly off the bat of the Blue Jays’ Santiago Espinal in the second inning when Haseley, running over from his position in left field, banged into him. Mendick was starting at shortstop with Tim Anderson getting a rest on Anderson’s third day back coming off the injured list.

Leury Garcia replaced Mendick at shortstop.

Mendick, who led off the first inning with a single, played very well as Anderson’s replacement while the All-Star was on the IL with a groin strain. Mendick was 13-for-46 (.283) with two homers and 10 RBI in his last 11 games. He owned a career-best, nine-game hitting streak from June 9-18.

The Jays were on their way to salvaging the third game of the series, pounding Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito for 10 hits in the first four innings. Alejandro Kirk homered on a 3-0 pitch in the third inning and Bo Bichette’s grand slam in the fourth gave the Jays a 7-0 lead.

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