December 1, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Francois receives Comcast Community Champion Award

NASHVILLE—On Giving Tuesday, it was fitting that Curtis Francois was named Comcast Community Champion of the Year.

Francois, the owner of World Wide Technology Raceway, developed the Raceway Gives Foundation to benefit individuals and military families throughout the Metro-St. Louis area. 

As the seventh annual recipient of the award, Raceway Gives will receive $60,000 from Comcast in recognition of Francois’ outreach to the Gateway City.

“This is a tremendous honor for The Raceway Gives Foundation,” Francois said. “The foundation has lofty goals and high hopes for what we can accomplish within our community by providing career opportunities, community engagement and educational experiences for area youth and military families. With this prestigious award and Comcast’s generosity, our foundation will foster transformational change for many people.”

The race track’s relationship with World Wide Technology provides the perfect vehicle to establish STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) programs throughout the area, such as the “Racing in the Classroom” initiative that introduces motorsports education and career opportunities for local youth at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center in East St. Louis, Ill.

“Comcast is proud to recognize Curtis as the 2021 Comcast Community Champion of the Year,” said Matt Lederer, Comcast’s vice president of brand partnerships and amplification. “Each day The Raceway Gives Foundation has demonstrated the importance of making a positive impact in one’s own community. 

“Curtis embodies everything the award stands for and what it looks like to be a champion in their community. I look forward to seeing how both Curtis and his foundation continue to make a positive impact in the lives of their community and in the sport of NASCAR.”

While the Comcast honor was bestowed on Francois, the community and race fans will be the ultimate winners through his tireless efforts to secure a 2022 NASCAR Cup date for World Wide Technology Raceway. 

Prior to purchasing the track known as Gateway Motorsports Park in 2012, Francois had raced at the 1.25-mile oval. A decade later, Francois in being honored on Dec. 6 with the Jack Buck Award by the Missouri Athletic Club for his contributions to racing for bringing a coveted Cup date to St. Louis.

“We built our foundation based on a methodical approach to our business,” Francois said. “We’ve won the most coveted event we could have won. Now we’re in the execution phase in making sure we’ll be ready come June 4, June 5 and it will be a great experience for the fans.

“We’re starting with the basics. We’re doing a lot of painting, a lot of paving, a lot of fan upgrades. All of the things that will make for a wonderful experience for the fans.”

Since acquiring the racetrack, Francois has added more than 11,000 parking spots. The track hired a traffic engineer and has partnered with Illinois Department of Transportation to develop a strategy for race weekend. WWTR is also working with Bi-State and the Metro-East bus lines to establish multiple shuttles for fans and workers as well as a multimodal stop in front of the track for cabs and ride-share capabilities. 

“It’s a completely new look from what we have now,” Francois said. “Our proximity to downtown offers an unparalleled opportunity for the ease of transportation with so many great hotels in downtown St. Louis, so many great hotels in Collinsville (Ill.). So we’re really leaning into that piece of our parking puzzle to make sure that there’s an easy in and out for all our ride-share apps.”

Francois also has addressed the past electrical issues with local power company Ameren, who has ensured the track will have a new reconditioned system back to the substation, including a backup line to a separate substation.

“To see this great cooperation already from Ameren Illinois is exactly what we thought would happen, but now it’s coming to fruition,” Francois said. “The plans are underway—they’re already working on some things—and I think it will be the best opportunity in history to have great electricity transmission lines.”

Since WWTR returned to the NASCAR schedule in 2014, Francois and his staff have traveled to tracks throughout the country to study best practices and incorporate the key elements to his track.

“What we always learn is the attention to detail it takes to pull off an event,” Francois said. “There can really be no stone left unturned anywhere within the entire infrastructure. And that’s what we’re looking at. If I can see it, then it needs to be clean, it needs to be painted, it needs to be organized.

“Really, it’s about a fan-facing walk to make sure that everything the fan interacts with is a positive experience. We’re adding so many fan enhancements, that it should make for a great day on June 5.”