Interview with Marty Smith
NASCAR.com
by: Cara Lagana

Given the chance to travel around following your favorite sport or sports team every week, not many people would be able to turn down such an amazing opportunity.  But for Marty Smith, a senior writer and columnist for NASCAR.com, it’s not always fun and games.  Smith will be the first to tell you what a great gig he has, but he also knows that a lot of difficulty comes with the territory of writing for one of America’s most popular sports.  In the six years that he has been writing for NASCAR.com, Smith has had to report on the death of a legend, as well as the deaths of his own friends.  But through it all, he’s still just a “good ol’ boy from Southwest Virginia” who’s out there living the dream of every NASCAR fan in America.

Q:  We both grew up around the roots of NASCAR.  I’ve lived about five minutes from Lowe’s Motor Speedway my whole life, but never got into the sport until I got older.  Were you always a fan, or did it kind of come with the job?

            My passion for NASCAR was fate, really.  When I was a junior at Radford University, I got a stringer position with The Roanoke Times, in their New River Valley Bureau, covering area high school sporting events.  Once the school year ended, there was really nothing for me to cover, so my boss, Ray Cox (who incidentally is still at the RT), sent me to cover Late Model Stock Car races at New River Valley Speedway (now Motor Mile Speedway.)  I was appalled, almost.  I had the stereotypical view of NASCAR – redneck.  But he wasn’t budging, so off I went.  Two minutes into my first Late Model feature I was in love.  I’d died and gone to heaven.  From there, it was all passion.

Q:  You had to do a lot of smaller jobs to work your way up to where you are now.  Was there ever a time you thought about going in a different direction with your career?

            Yes.  My career in auto racing was nearly over before it started.  As a senior at RU, I had job offers from colleges’ sports information offices as well as newspaper offers.  My bosses – RU SID Mike Ashley and Cox – both urged me to go the newspaper route.  It’s always easier to go from writing to PR than vice versa, they said.  For some reason I listened, and took a job at the Lynchburg News & Advance covering Liberty University Athletics and, yes, NASCAR.  While in Lynchburg, I received a call from a nice lady one day, asking if I’d do a story on her son.  I’m thinking it’s a local street stock driver down the street.  When I asked for his name, she said “Paul Brooks.”  I said, “Okay, what does Paul Brooks do?”  She replied, “He was just promoted to vice president of NASCAR.”  I nearly fell off my chair.  I called Paul and we hit it off.  Several months after that I got a call from Daytona with a job interview request.  Shortly thereafter I was in Charlotte working for NASCAR.  (Turner Sports has since purchased NASCAR.com.)  Paul Brooks is still quite integral in the evolution of my career. He is a wonderful man.

Q:  Is there another sport or an area other than sports that you’d like to report on?

            I very much enjoy writing features on every day people.  Matter of fact, I just did a cross-country drive for SPEED Channel’s NASCAR Nation, where I drove across the country and hung out with fans all over this land.  It was one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever done.  It’s amazing how intrigued readers are when reading about people just like them.

Q:  You’ve been writing for NASCAR for six years now and there have been a lot of major events happen in the sport in that time.  Is there one event that stands out the most that you can remember covering or a story that you can just remember writing?

            Several.  Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001 was surreal.  And last October I lost several close friends in the Hendrick Motorsports plane crash near Martinsville, Va.  Ricky Hendrick and Randy Dorton, specifically, were very close to me.

Q:  You did a lot covering Earnhardt’s death, in writing and as a correspondent for a lot of news stations, how difficult was it to report on that and to have to constantly rehash the wreck?

            Quite so.  He was Elvis.  He was the indestructible constant.  He was NASCAR personified.  That was a difficult time for everyone involved.

Q:  I know you’ve done some TV work, on NASCAR Nation and doing interviews and things like that.  Do you have any desire to move to TV entirely or is that just a side job?

            I love TV, and hope my career continues to move in that direction.  But writing has always been my passion.  I will never stop writing completely.

Q:  I’ve noticed that most of the time a reporter can just walk up to a driver and say “Hey, like the new paint scheme” and they’ll give you all the sound you need without ever having to ask a question.  How hard is it to really get information out of them?

            A lot harder than you’d think.  It’s taken me a long time to gain the trust and respect of those guys.  You have to know when to push the envelope, and that instinct can only be developed through time and face-to-face interaction with the subjects involved.

Q:  Are there times that you really have to work to get them to talk to you?

            Sure.  Sometimes guys don’t feel like talking. 


Q:  How do you get them to give you information?

            Give them space, go back and revisit it later.  One of the more unique and amazing things about covering NASCAR, as opposed to other sports, is the instant access given the media.  How hard must it be for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to wreck his car, with so much on the line, and instantly have a camera in his face?  It is truly a test of patience and emotional containment.  We saw Robby Gordon lose his composure last weekend in Loudon, NH.  (After contact with Michael Waltrip, Gordon got out of his racecar and threw his helmet at Waltrip’s car as the field went by under caution.  Gordon then proceeded to use a profane word to describe Waltrip in a live television interview.  NASCAR placed Gordon on probation for the remainder of the year and fined him $35,000 and 25 driver and owner points.)

Q:  How do you handle something like Silly Season?  Especially this Silly Season has been so out of hand, and then with Jayski (the website that posts unofficial NASCAR news) and everything…it seems like owners and drivers are reluctant to talk about certain things but it’s your job to report on it.  How do you handle that?

            Once again, time.  When you’re respected in the sport, sources will give you tidbits of information that help clue you in on what’s really going on.  Once that information is known, it’s up to the reporter to go about the right way with the subjects involved.  I always take a rumor to its subject, rather than simply write it with no base for accuracy.

Q:  You usually get the best and most honest answers right after an incident, but you run the risk of an angry driver.  How do you decide when it’s ok to ask the tough questions that may get you chewed out?

            You don’t.  You just go after it.  It’s part of the job.  There are times, though, with certain guys, that you know it’s best to let them go cool off.  It’s a judgment thing.  I know when I can approach a pissed off Kevin Harvick, and when it’s best to let him be.

Q:  Do you ever find it difficult being friends with some of the drivers and then having to report on them as well?  How do you handle that?

            Nope.  They know the deal.  Some of my best friends, period, drive cars in the Nextel Cup Series.  But they know if they screw up, it’s my job to call them on it.  It’s not personal.  It’s my job.  That doesn’t mean it’s all peaches and cream afterwards, but eventually they come around.  To maintain credibility and be respected, it is vital to call it as it is.

Q:  You write stories as a reporter for NASCAR.com, but you are also a columnist.  How does your writing style change for the different stories you write?  Do you prefer writing one style over the other?

            I enjoy saying something meaningful, whether it’s in feature form or column form.

Q:  Every week, you put your opinions out there for millions of people to read and respond to.  What do you do when readers write to you saying that they completely disagree with you or that your opinions are wrong?

            For the most part, they are unprintable.

Q:  Your job requires you to spend a lot of time away from home.  How do manage a family and a career that requires you to travel so much?

            That’s the worst part of the job, the travel.  But fortunately, Lainie, my wife, gets to go with me more than most racing wives do.  That said, I’m ready to end the road game.  I leave Thursday and don’t get home until Monday most weeks.

Q:  What advice would you give to someone wanting to go into sports reporting?

            Write.  Write.  Write.  Write.  Write.  School newspaper or local newspaper or radio station or television station.  To truly understand media one must live media.  Textbooks don’t even come close.