Winston Kelley still laughs when he meets
someone and they ask, "You aren't any kin
to that guy on the radio are you?"
"I have to tell them, 'Yes, I know that guy,'" Kelley said.
The truth is: Kelley is that guy.
Kelley has been a radio reporter covering NASCAR
races for the Motor Racing Network since the late 1980s.
While always maintaining a separate career, he spends
17 weekends a year as a pit road reporter covering more
than 40 races across the NASCAR Camping World Truck,
Nationwide and Sprint Cup series. The job comes with some
compensation, but that's not why Kelley does it.
"This was my hobby," he said. "It was my golf game. It
was my family. I liked the sport and the more I was around
it, the more I liked the people."
After graduating from North Carolina State in 1979, Kelley
took a job at the Charlotte-based energy company Duke
Power as a budget analyst. At the same time, he also approached
the Universal Racing Network to see if he could
do anything for it. The company hired him to work about
10 races a year as a statistician, for which it covered his
hotel room and paid him $50 a weekend.
"I was losing money, but I did it because I was interested
in the sport," said Kelley, whose father ran an auto parts
store that sold parts to race teams, and was Charlotte Motor
Speedway's first PR director from 1959 to 1964.
In 1987, Kelley contacted Motor Racing Network, which
was broadcasting every race at the time, to see if it had
any opportunities. The company hired him as a production
assistant and offered to give him an on-air tryout. He took
a broadcasting course and hired a speech pathologist to
prepare for the audition.
He studied his peers closely to learn how to call a race,
and in 1988 he got his chance when bad weather kept the
scheduled pit reporter from getting to a race. Kelley held
his own and earned himself more and more time on the
radio with each broadcast.
Throughout his years as a weekend reporter, Kelley
continued to work for Duke Power. He would take Fridays off
to travel to races and a week of vacation every February to
work Daytona Speedweeks. But moonlighting on the radio
never slowed his rise at Duke, where he eventually became
vice president of business and government relations.
In 2006, he was named executive director of the NASCAR
Hall of Fame. And though he now works in the business
full time, Kelley has kept up his weekend "golf game" with
Motor Racing Network.
The job has given him a front-row seat for some memorable
moments. He was in the middle of interviewing Dale
Earnhardt after the NASCAR legend won the 1995 Goody's
500 at Bristol Motor Speedway when Rusty Wallace got
out of his car and launched a water bottle at Earnhardt. He
also was the first to interview Earnhardt after a cut tire on
the final lap cost him the 1990 Daytona 500.
Being at the center of moments like those is a big reason
why Kelley still travels around the country to be on the
radio, and he has no plans to put down his microphone
any time soon.
"As long as my legs hold up on pit road, and as long as
I'm enjoying it, I'll keep doing it," he said.