No longer a flyweight

This is not the same Tres Stephenson who, as a 98-pound Sebring Blue Streak, out-wrestled Scott Ison of Naples Lely High School and won the 1981 Florida championship.

This Tres Stephenson champions motor sports. This Tres Stephenson is some kind of a corporate whiz who helped Don Panoz build one of the premier racing facilities in the nation. This Tres Stephenson manages 12 Hours of Sebring, which is watched in Europe and broadcast around the world.

This Tres Stephenson, still with a boyish face at 47, didn't volunteer how much he weighs these days, but obviously he is not in wrestling shape. Of course, no one offers to test that theory.

Truth and myth

Job one at the raceway, said Stephenson, is not really make the checkered flag fall after a half-day endurance race.

"That's what everybody thinks," Stephenson said. "They think the race comes and goes and we all take a long vacation."

That's fiction. The facility, in fact, is used 260 days out of the year, virtually every weekend and many days in between, by Skip Barber's driving school, Panoz, racing teams, car clubs, directors filming commercials...

"That's what keeps our lights turned on," Stephenson said. His "cush" job may be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 10 months out of the year, but from January to March, it's 6 a.m. to whenever.

Even the 12 Hours of Sebring isn't really just 12 hours. As the $100 Superticket says, it's really four days. The 12 hours is green flagged at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 20, but the track opens on Wednesday, drivers test their cars on Thursday and Friday, and there are parties and beach volleyball and Bud Girls and spring break party zones, all day, all night, and all over the 340 acres.

Population boom

This year, up to 170,000 fans are expected to let their hair down. The 12 Hours is so popular, RVs and campers line up at the gate overnight so they can park in their favorite spot. The race has gotten so big, cars are parked off site.

Of course, even the raceway isn't recession proof. Tickets sales were off last year, but only by a mere 4 percent.

Even so, Sebring International Raceway is a profitable business, Stephenson said. "We're expected to make a profit every year."

"I hear a lot of people say they've been coming here for 25 or 30 years. It's four days of fun, four days of racing," said Stephenson, who hasn't actually watched a race in decades. He can't. The gates are open 24 hours a day; the place is packed with people.

"Spectating is not part of the GM's job description," Stephenson said.

Fans can't step onto the track, but they can walk from the starting line to any of the 17 turns and watch Corvettes and Jaguars and Ferraris and Aston Martins and Porsches and Peugeots go zoom and zoom and zoom.

"We bring in 1,500 volunteers through the civic clubs," Stephenson said. They earn money for their clubs and tickets for themselves by assisting the full-time paid staff of 15 loyalists, some of whom have worked there 17 years.

Money machine

Sebring may be just a one-track town, but this is big business: "I had an economic impact study done about 10 years ago," Stephenson said. "On race week, it brings in about $10 million to the county."

Actually, hotels are filled to capacity as far away as Bowling Green. Restaurants hire extra cooks and waitresses to serve the masses, and convenience stores sell gallons of Red Bull and gas.

Exactly how much of this prosperity Stephenson is responsible for can be questioned, but 25 years ago, when he started as an assistant to the general manager, attendance was more like 50,000 or 60,000.

Boyhood ideas

When Stephenson attended races as a 5-year-old, he didn't dream that one day, this would all be under his watch. But as a high school graduate, Florida's flyweight state champ had a decision to make: wrestle at a half-dozen schools like Clemson or Iowa, where he had gotten scholarship offers, or go to Florida.

"I had always wanted to be a Gator," Stephenson said. "And I had cut a lot of weight to get to 98 pounds, and I was burned out."

When he graduated in Gainesville and came back to Highlands County - and in his mind, there was nowhere else - he thought he'd apply at a bank or some other financial institution.

Fate had another idea. He applied at the airport, and now he's Tres Stephenson.

Related story, 12 Hours of Sebring, 25 years of Tres Stephenson NEWS, Page 1