Turning the Tables:
                   NASCAR Personalities Assess the NASCAR Media

April 16, 2010

By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

Based on his behavior, there are times that NASCAR driver Tony Stewart simply detests the media.

Stewart frequently snaps at reporters with surly, sometimes evasive answers. He ranks their questions on his own personal scale of good and bad. Earlier this year, when a respected journalist asked him something that he took exception to, Stewart told her she was "leading the category" for worst question of the day.

Last month at Bristol, during a scheduled press conference, Stewart told the media he didn't have time to contribute to "the saga and the drama and the soap opera that's called the NASCAR Media Center." When a reporter challenged him, Stewart retorted, "The great thing about every time I come in here, and you guys make me feel better about myself, because I feel so much smarter than what I thought I was when I came in here."

On the spectrum of driver-media relations, Stewart certainly represents the extreme end of the continuum. Others in the sport seem to have a better appreciation for the job of the media and the challenges of getting the story while dealing with a wide range personalities and circumstances.

•    51-year-old Mark Martin has been a NASCAR driver for nearly 30 years and has had innumerable interactions with the media over the course of his career. Meeting with Martin in the garage prior to the Phoenix race last weekend, I asked whether he felt that, on balance, he had been treated fairly by the media over the years.

With characteristic thoughtfulness, Martin said, "That's a hard question - fair or not. When someone doesn't know you and doesn't particularly 'get' you, then their impressions of you and what you say are different - their interpretation of what you say and how you express yourself - is different than it might really be. You're going to have some people that you communicate with better than others and some people that you 'get,' and they 'get' you, better than others. Sometimes someone might miss the mark a little bit. But then, that's only your opinion of it, so that's subject to some element of error itself."

Martin acknowledged that a driver's mood often contributes to the way he responds to an interviewer's queries. "It's more of a challenge at times than others. How you're feeling has a bit of an effect on how you react to any situation or any question - what's going on, how much stress you're under, and how much you're distracted."

Photo Rebecca Gladden Jeff Hammond * Brad Keselowski

•    A subject of recent headlines, 26-year-old NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski criticized the media last month for what he perceived to be unfair criticism of his driving style - under close scrutiny after several high-profile run-ins on the track. "The thing is, the media doesn't cover when I 'give,' they cover when I 'take,'" said Keselowski at the time. "I wish I could sit down one day and just show somebody an in-car camera tape of how I drive a race, and you would see that I give as much, if not more, than any other racecar driver out there."

Speaking with Brad in Arizona last week, I asked him to clarify his comments and assess whether he's been treated fairly by the NASCAR media overall. "Yes and no," he said. "I don't really have any complaints, but I think that, naturally, the media sees what they want to see and what makes the best story. Sometimes I feel like the truth is not always 100% prevalent in that."

Keselowski added, "When you get asked the same question a lot, that usually means you don't have a good answer for it and somebody's trying to get a good answer out of you. But, you have to understand what the fans are looking for. The fans are looking for some excitement, some rivalries, etc. So, naturally, you're going to get asked a lot of questions about that. I'm just thankful to even be asked."

•    Appearing with Brad Keselowski in Scottsdale for Nationwide sponsor Discount Tire, former NASCAR champion crew chief turned TV broadcaster Jeff Hammond has been on both sides of the microphone. Hammond told me that the NASCAR media sometimes fans the flames of controversy. "I won't sit here and try to sugarcoat it. I think we are guilty of it," he said. "We're looking for controversy because I think our sport has lacked controversy. I try to be fair about it, but I'm agreeing with you that, as a whole, we're looking for an opportunity any time to take gas and throw a spark to it."

Referring to Keselowski's recent rivalries in both the Cup and Nationwide Series, Hammond explained, "If Carl Edwards is the gas and Brad Keselowski is the spark, then we've got flames and we've got something going on. If Keselowski is the fuel and Denny Hamlin is the spark, then we've got flames."

Hammond added, "We don't need any more Jimmie Johnsons or Jeff Gordons. They're great ambassadors and they're great champions in their own right. But what we need is a spark every now and then, not just people who always do it by the letter."

At the same time, Hammond said that in his days as a competitor, he sometimes felt the media focused too much on the negative. "You feel like, from time to time, people are too quick to point out the bad and forget the good, or they take the good and try to make it bad. It's something I've learned through many years of being around, that that's just the nature of the beast. It's just a part of our personalities as human beings - we have tendencies to take someone who's being successful and try to paint them bad."

As a NASCAR writer, I view the relationship between the competitors and the media as a classic example of symbiosis: each group relies on, and benefits from, its association with the other.

Sometimes I guess both sides just need a little reminder of that.

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