Kansas coach Bill Self flashes a smile as he introduces the team to the crowd during the 31st annual Wilt Chamberlain Special Olympics clinic, on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 at Allen Fieldhouse.
Kansas basketball coach Bill Self will be the voice behind some of the most famous words in racing on Saturday at Kansas Speedway.
Self, now in his 18th season at KU, will serve as the virtual Grand Marshal ahead of Saturday’s 4 p.m. Kansas Lottery 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Kansas Speedway. And his biggest role, just prior to the 250-mile race, will be to utter the words, “Drivers, start your engines.”
“Bill Self is an icon both in the state of Kansas and the college basketball world,” Kansas Speedway President Pat Warren said in a news release Friday. “It is a privilege to have him ‘tip off’ our Kansas Lottery 250 Xfinity race.”
Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 250 will be the final event of a full weekend of racing at Kansas Speedway.
Things kicked off Thursday night, with a Cup-Series race won by Denny Hamlin. Kansas City Chiefs’ defensive tackle Chris Jones was slated to be the Grand Marshal for that race.
And the action on both Friday and Saturday will feature doubleheaders, with the Kansas Lottery 250 closing the weekend.
Fans will not be in attendance at this weekend’s races.
A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.
