Golden Corral

Golden Corral is an American family-style restaurant chain serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, and featuring a large all-you-can-eat buffet and grill offering numerous hot and cold dishes, a carving station and their Brass Bell Bakery. It is a privately held company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, with locations in forty-one states.

History

In 1971, James Maynard and William F. Carl conceived the idea that became Golden Corral after several unsuccessful attempts to acquire a franchise with other companies. Golden Corral was incorporated in 1972 and the first Golden Corral Family Steak House opened on January 3, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The company has since expanded to 500 locations across the United States; about 100 of them are company-owned. The others are franchised stores.Gross sales are over $1.53 billion.

The company had more than 500 restaurants by 1987. That year, they decided to begin franchising by licensing 55 distressed restaurants to their most successful general managers. Because of poor training, nationwide concerns about the consumption of red meat, and a shift in market shares to upscale restaurants, sales were falling. The company added salad bars to all of its locations, sacrificed seating in most, and in others sacrificed part of the parking lot to make additions to the buildings.

2006 Golden Corral 500

The 2006 Golden Corral 500 was the fourth race in the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup season which took place on March 20, 2006 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Rain showers forced the green flag to be moved back to the Monday. Television coverage moved to cable's FX channel for the race (with some exceptions).

Race recap

Kasey Kahne sat on the pole with a speed of 192.553 mph, edging Ryan Newman by .002 seconds. Bill Lester qualified 19th in the #23 Waste Management Dodge Charger, becoming the first African-American to start a NASCAR Nextel Cup race since 1986. He finished 38th, six laps down.

For the first time during the season there were no extra laps at the end of the race. Last year's Atlanta winner, Carl Edwards eliminated himself from contention early. He damaged the front end of the 99 car after hitting Dave Blaney on pit road on lap 45 during a caution to address the stopped car of Kyle Busch. Bobby Labonte ran in the top 10 for the first 50 laps before his engine failed on lap 55. Another scary incident took place on pit road during the sixth caution of the day (laps 189-197), when Reed Sorenson hit John Slusher, catch can man for Robby Gordon's crew, as he pulled out of his pit stall. Slusher was attached to a backboard but treated at the infield care center.

Atlanta 500

The Atlanta 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car race that was run each March at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia from 1960 to 2010. The race was the first of two races held at the Atlanta track every season, with the AdvoCare 500, originally the Dixie 500, being the second and run at various times (originally November, later October and currently Labor Day Weekend).

The race was 500.5 miles (805.5 km) in length. In August 2010, Atlanta Motor Speedway announced that they would no longer run the spring race, instead choosing to focus on the Labor Day weekend race at the track beginning in 2011. The end of the Atlanta 500 permitted the addition of a race at Kentucky Speedway starting in 2011.

Notable races