CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If you want an earful on embarrassing moments in NASCAR like the one Kentucky Speedway had Saturday night, look no further than H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler.

"There have been a lot of them,'' the former president of Charlotte Motor Speedway said with a laugh.

Not that the traffic disaster that kept thousands from attending the inaugural Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway is something to laugh at. Wheeler felt for everyone involved, knowing the anguish he's experienced over the past 50-plus years.

But it's not the first time a track or a sports venue in general has suffered a black eye, and it won't be the last. When you're in charge of hundreds of thousands of fans plus competitors, there are seemingly hundreds of thousands of things that can go wrong.

A pothole that appeared in Turn 2 during the 2010 Daytona 500 caused an extended delay. AP Photo/Russell Williams

Some can be avoided. Some can't.

Wheeler had three incidents at CMS he'd just as soon forget. The first was on May 30, 1976, when Janet Guthrie made her NASCAR Cup debut in what then was the World 600.

"We ran out of water halfway through the race,'' Wheeler said. "So many women had come to see Janet Guthrie race and we had overlooked that. At that point it took at least two gallons every time they went to the bathroom compared to maybe a pint for a man.''

Well, you get the picture.

Thanks to volunteer fire departments within a 50-mile radius that rushed in water tankers, Wheeler survived with a small black eye.

Full-blown embarrassment came on May 20, 2000, when an 80-foot section of a bridge walkway collapsed onto the road in front of CMS as fans left the All-Star Race. More than 100 were injured, resulting in 50 lawsuits against the speedway.

Then there was 2005, when Wheeler had the track surface grinded -- a process he called levigation, which smooths out the bumps -- resulting in a record 22 cautions in the May race and 15 more in the October race, causing tire issues for five of the 10 Chase drivers.

That turned into a $3 million repaving project.

Wheeler also has seen his share of black eyes from other tracks. One of the most bizarre occurred at Darlington Raceway in the late 1950s, when there was a quick crash that took out the entire field.