It’s been almost eight months since Lori Collier Waran made history, becoming the first female president in the 76-year history of Richmond Raceway. Barely a month later, NASCAR came to town and Kevin Harvick won the summer NASCAR Cup Series race on the track’s three-quarter-mile oval.

Collier, who grew up in the Richmond area, is set for her second NASCAR race weekend as track president. The Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250 is set for 1 p.m. Saturday, before the green flag drops on the Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

As she prepared for an influx of tens of thousands of fans to the facility earlier this week, Waran chatted with The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press about the race and the early days of her tenure.

What have you found to be the biggest challenges as Richmond Raceway president?

“I don’t know that there have been too many challenges, but there have been a lot of exciting things happening here. What we’ve tried to do is really focus on a lot of community engagement in the past eight months.

“One of the wonderful things about Richmond is our artist community, and we’ve engaged the artists to get the track beautiful again. One of the things is that we’ve gotten is a mural featuring the word “Richmond” in large print that has been a nice focal point here at the track. It’s in an area right as you come in Gate 4 that needed a little TLC. We have engaged another local artist to create a beautiful poster that is living all around the city.”

What has surprised you about running a racetrack these first eight months?

“What’s been nice to realize is, when [the track has] been around the community for 77 years and as I’ve met people, is that everyone has a memory of this track and they’ve shared those memories. That’s nice to hear. What’s probably surprised me is, when people have memories, they also have opinions about how to bring new things to the track. I love that people are sharing those opinions with me because that means they have a passion and I want people to have a passion for Richmond Raceway.”

Who are some drivers we should be looking at in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race?

“Corey LaJoie and his team have had some exciting things happening on the track. Alex Bowman has kind of been running under the radar. Of course, Kyle Busch always does well at Richmond Raceway. He’s probably one of the most, if not the winningest, active driver {with six Cup victories} at Richmond Raceway.

“Martin Truex always does well at Richmond Raceway, so I think we’ve got a lot of drivers to watch here. This has already been an exciting year — last year was incredible with the Next Gen car — and I think it’s going to be interesting this weekend.”

Denny Hamlin won your race last year. I guess you want to see him do well, don’t you?

“There’s always a hometown favorite. He won the spring race and Kevin Harvick won the summer race, so those two [with four Cup victories each at Richmond] will always be ones to watch as well. Kevin, with it being his last year, it would always be nice to see him get a win.”

How do you feel about Richmond Raceway’s future with NASCAR, and is there anything on your to-do list with the facility you’d like to see to improve the track?

“We’re excited about the future. NASCAR has certainly been excited about the last eight months here and where we’re heading. We’re on a great trajectory. They’re excited about what we’ve been doing.

“We’re focusing on the race in front of us right now, and we’ve got a lot going on this week. I’ve got some big-ticket [wish-list] items, but I’ll probably keep that to myself right now. Right now, we’re making sure [Richmond Raceway] is a welcoming space ... and that it starts from the moment people get on our property.

“So we’ve been hanging up new flags, getting new signage, tidying up new places you wouldn’t have thought of. The fencing had acres upon acres of barbed wire. When I got here, I said, “I’m not sure why we would try to keep people out or keep people in with barbed wire on the fences.” The past few months, the wonderful operations and facilities team has been [taking it down]. It starts with little things like that.”

Marty O’Brien, 757-247-4963, mjobrien@dailypress.com. Twitter @MartyOBrienDP