As summer heats up we ask industry executives:

Joie Chitwood III
President
Daytona International Speedway

“For 20 years of my life, from age 5 to 24, I traveled each summer with my family’s automobile stunt show. It was called the ‘Joie Chitwood Thrill Show.’ We would schedule about 120 performances each year from June through October at fairs and speedways in the Northeast and Midwest.

“At the age of 14, during the summer before my freshman year in high school, I learned how to perform the aerial wingwalk stunt at the fair in Harrington, Del. My father would drive a car on two wheels, and I would climb out of the passenger window and stand on the side (imagine surfing). … Later on in my stuntman career, I learned how to drive the car on two wheels.”

• • • • • • • •

“In high school, I was hired one summer by the local Cablevision company to drive around and bust people who were stealing cable — which you could tell by how the wires ran into their homes. I was shocked at the sheer number. To this day, it remains a lesson for me that people are always watching, and you will eventually get caught for bad behavior.”

• • • • • • • •

“When I was 16, I gathered shopping carts at a Target parking lot one summer. The most memorable was when I was an art director summer intern at DMB&B in New York City when I was 19.”

• • • • • • • •

“The most memorable summertime job I had during my high school and college years was working as a summer intern for the Greater Milwaukee Open. I unloaded trailers, installed signs and did a little of just about everything and didn’t make a dime. I learned so much just being around and getting a taste of what it took to put together a golf tournament. It really helped start my interest and career in golf. Another summer I was a ‘cart boy’ at Whistling Straits golf course in Kohler, Wis. For some reason, when tips were compared at the end of the day, I always made significantly less than all the girls.”