09/28/2026
The voice of racing.
🕊️ Remembering Chris Economaki — The Dean of American Motorsports Journalism 🏁 🎙️
🗓️ October 15, 1920 - September 28, 2012
🏅 Hall of Honor Member — Fans Hall of Stock Car Legends
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Chris Economaki could arrive at a racetrack and find a story almost anywhere. A driver preparing for the biggest race of his career might catch his attention, but so could a mechanic solving a problem in the pits or a promoter trying to keep a small speedway alive. Chris knew the names behind the cars and understood how much work it took to get them to the starting line. Through his newspaper columns and television reports, he brought those people into the story of American racing.
His connection to the sport began as a boy selling copies of National Auto Racing News at racetracks during the Great Depression. He earned a nickel for each paper he sold and spent his time around drivers, crews and the people who came to watch them. Racing gave him a world to explore, and the newspaper gave him a way to tell others what he found there. He began writing while still young, starting a career that would last more than seven decades.
By 1950, Chris had become editor of the publication that would be known as National Speed Sport News. He eventually owned and published it as well. Week after week, its pages followed racing across the country: stock cars, sprint cars, midgets, Indy cars and the countless local events that filled the calendar between the major races. For a fan who could only visit one track on a Saturday night, the paper opened a window onto speedways hundreds of miles away.
Chris’s “Editor’s Notebook” gave that coverage a voice readers came to know. He wrote from years spent at the track, talking with the people whose decisions shaped the sport. He could recognize a rising driver, take a hard look at a promoter’s plans or explain why an event far from the national spotlight deserved attention. People in racing read him because he knew what was happening. They also knew he was willing to say what he thought.
The newspaper mattered especially to competitors working their way through short track racing. A strong run in front of a local crowd could reach readers across the country when National Speed Sport News carried the result. Chris treated those races as part of the sport’s living history. He understood that champions had to come from somewhere and that the men and women building racing in small towns deserved to have their work recorded, too.
His experience soon made him valuable behind a microphone. Chris had worked as a track announcer, learning to follow a race as it unfolded and speak to fans who wanted to know what they were seeing. When ABC prepared to televise the Firecracker 250 at Daytona International Speedway in 1961, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. insisted that Chris be included in the broadcast. The assignment brought his knowledge of racing to a much wider audience.
On television, Chris was unmistakable. He moved through pit road with a microphone, looking for the person who could explain what had just happened or what might happen next. He asked direct questions, whether he was speaking to a celebrated winner or a crew member still busy with the car. Viewers could hear the urgency around him and learn what the teams were doing while the race continued. His reports gave the broadcast something the cameras alone could not provide: the thoughts and decisions of the people in the middle of it.
Chris appeared on ABC and CBS broadcasts as racing reached more homes across America. He could step from a stock car event to an Indianapolis 500 assignment and bring the same curiosity to both. Each form of racing had its own people, machines and traditions, and he had spent enough time around them to understand the differences. Wherever he worked, he wanted the audience to come away knowing more about the race and the people who had made it possible.
That breadth is part of what made the name Chris Economaki carry such weight. Drivers and team owners knew him. So did track operators, officials, mechanics and fellow reporters. He had seen the sport change over decades, from the years when a newspaper was a fan’s main connection to distant races to an era when television could carry those events into living rooms. He remained a working journalist through that transformation, still asking questions and still looking for the next story.
The respect Chris earned across racing makes his absence from the NASCAR Hall of Fame all the more striking. He documented the people and events that shaped stock car racing, bringing their stories to readers and viewers across the country. His work helped fans know the drivers, crews and tracks behind the results. A Hall devoted to preserving NASCAR’s history should recognize the man who did so much to record it as it happened.
The Fans Hall of Stock Car Legends recognizes Chris as a member of its Hall of Honor. He understood that racing’s history was made by far more people than those who took the checkered flag, and he gave them a chance to be heard. A driver at a local speedway could find a place in his newspaper alongside the sport’s biggest names. From pit road, he brought viewers close enough to hear what a race had meant to the people who had just lived it.
Chris passed away on September 28, 2012, at the age of 91. Fourteen years later, fans can still turn to his reporting to learn how racing grew and meet the people who carried it forward. Chris showed up, learned their names and listened to their stories. Because he put those stories on the page and brought their voices to the air, generations of fans can still hear what they had to say. 🕊️ 🏁 🎙️
📸 ABC Photo Archives / Getty Images
