Cindy McCain will be at Lowe's Motor Speedway Saturday.

The wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain will participate in the NASCAR Bank of America 500 in Concord. She will be the "honorary race director."

This will be her third visit to the state. McCain previously attended a fundraiser in Raleigh in mid August and U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms' funeral in early July.

She has not given an interview to North Carolina media yet.

Memorial Day will not mean a vacation from the Senate race.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Salisbury Republican, and her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan of Greensboro, both have lots of campaigning going on in the next week.

Of note: Both plan to attend the Memorial Day events in Thomasville on Monday, Barb Barrett reports.

Also notable, Dole plans to ride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle around the track at the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte on Sunday, while Hagan will be traveling to California next week to raise money.

Dole returns to North Carolina for Congress’ Memorial Day recess.

   Comments (0)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole will be the “honorary race director” Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord.

This means Dole, a Republican who is seeking re-election this fall, gets to attend a pre-race meeting of drivers, preside over pre-race ceremonies and hang out in the control tower during the race, reports Barb Barrett.

She also gets a sweet ride in the official pace car at the beginning of the race, and she’ll help hand over the trophy at its conclusion.

North Carolina's lottery is getting into the racing game.

The lottery is hooking up with NASCAR, even going so far as to sponsor a Craftsman Truck Series race on May 16, to promote its games.

The lottery is also planning to introduce a new scratch-off ticket game that incorporates the Lowe's Motor Speedway "Beast of the Southeast" logo, do a live Powerball drawing at the speedway on May 17, and sell lottery tickets at the speedway on two weekends in May.

Bill Graham's wife likes Princess Diana — a lot.

According to an April 18, 1999, article in the Salisbury Post, Shari Graham is a longtime admirer of the princess. When Christie's held an auction of 80 of her dresses in 1997, the Grahams each picked their favorites out of a catalog:

Bill's favorite is a long dinner dress of cream and salmon pink silk with long sleeves. The bodice is of cream silk and is cut to reveal an under-bodice. The skirt is salmon pink and is slit in the back. The cuffs to the sleeves are set with large gilt cuff links with simulated Baroque pearls.

Diana wore the dress on a state visit to Japan in 1986 and at a production of "Swan Lake."

The Grahams hope the dresses will become family heirlooms, planning to leave one to their daughter and one to their son. In 1999, they allowed them to be displayed at a fundraiser at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"I get to appreciate them all the time, but to share them with other people is even better," Shari Graham told the Post.

Bob Orr says he does not oppose all incentives.

In e-mail to Dome, the Republican gubernatorial candidate says that his rival, Bill Graham, misunderstands his position on attracting business to North Carolina.

Orr writes that he does not oppose all incentives, just those targeted at a specific company, such as Google, Dell, Goodyear or Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"However, an incentive policy that benefits a broad range of businesses or preferably all businesses is potentially acceptable," he writes.

He also argues that there is "general acknowledgement" that targeted incentives are bad public policy.

"I would encourage Bill to oppose this system which has exploited our state and local communities rather than fall into the trap of saying that some are OK," he writes. 

The owner of Lowe's Motor Speedway will get $80 million in incentives.

Billionaire Bruton Smith had first threatened to leave Concord two months ago for somewhere else in the Charlotte region after the City Council voted against his plans for a $60 million drag strip, The Charlotte Observer reports.

After the threat, Cabarrus County leaders put together the incentives package.

Details were still not public at a press conference announcing the deal, but Smith provided a "wish list" to the county earlier. Most of the money will go toward road construction. The state will provide about $20 million of the incentives.

The most interesting incentive? Speedway Boulevard, which connects to Interstate 85, will be renamed Bruton Smith Boulevard. 

He also said he has no further plans to move. "We're here forever," he said Monday.

Bob Orr is opposed to new incentives for Goodyear and Lowe's Motor Speedway.

The former Supreme Court justice and Republican gubernatorial candidate said in a statement today that the state should not reimburse Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. supplier PACC Lines for up to 30 percent of its shipping charges, as proposed.

"We simply cannot continue providing these kinds of deals to major corporate entities every time the state is threatened," he said in a statement.

He also said that the state, Cabarrus County and Concord should not spend $75 million to keep the Lowe's racetrack from moving. Part of the money would pay to widen U.S. 29 to six lanes.

"It is impossible to justify such an exorbitant expenditure," he said.

Gov. Mike Easley is getting behind the wheel of another racecar on Saturday.

At the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, he'll race a few laps around the track in Casey Mears' No. 25 car, which is co-sponsored by the National Guard.

As part of the stunt, Easley got pledges from private donors, including the N.C. Bankers Association and Progress Energy, for a National Guard assistance program:

"Their families feel their sacrifice and our National Guard Family Readiness Program helps out with such things as car repairs, late mortgage payments, or things that families with an unexpected drop in income would experience." (Italics ours.)

Given the governor's driving record, we wonder exactly whose car will need repair.