On any given Sunday, as NASCAR Cup Series cars cover miles upon miles around the track, Matt Yocum does the same up and down pit road.
Take the Busch Clash, where Yocum donned his NASCAR on Fox headset and microphone to kick off his 20th consecutive season as a pit reporter. Dressed in all black, Yocum had a claim to the nine drivers at the pit out section of pit road near Turn 1. And like the 18 drivers entered in the exhibition race, Yocum and his colleagues used the broadcast, which followed Daytona 500 qualifying to have them on-air for nearly six hours, as a warmup for the remainder of Speedweeks, and indeed the Daytona 500.
“If we’ve got new graphic packages or new members on the team, it helps everyone gel,” Yocum tells RACER. “There were three announcers on the show that have been there from the very first show NASCAR on Fox has ever done, which was a Cup practice in Daytona. The producer’s been there from day one, the director’s been there from day one, the pit producer has been there from day one, but there’s a lot of new faces. It’s great for everybody to shake off the rust and get in the groove.”
The 1 hour, 37-minute demolition derby had five cars running at the end. Yet because of the smaller field and the limited number of pit stops, Yocum described it as an easy day.
After doing his pre-race spots from the grid, Yocum started by monitoring the action in Kyle Busch’s pit. Before the competition caution on lap 25, he headed down to the No. 2 stall, checking in with the team’s public relations representative. Yocum’s voice is familiar for those who have watched any number of races over the years during the NASCAR on Fox portion of the schedule. But while viewers hear his voice in isolation, Yocum could be hearing as many as four in his ear.
“I think if you’re in television, you’re used to someone talking in your ear, but when you do live events like racing, and you’re doing a broadcast, and you’ve got the producer, you’ve got the pit producer, you’ve got the broadcast, and then you’ve got the scanner … it’s still a lot to digest,” says Yocum. “You hear drivers say that when they’re out on the track and they’re going 205 miles per hour that everything slows down in their mind until they go to hit pit road and they have to hit 55, and then it’s like the ‘Oh holy smokes’ moment. For me, I always feel it’s like that with all the different voices because your mind can slow it down and digest it.”
A member of the original Fox team that debuted in 2001, Yocum isn’t alone in having tenure. He’s worked with pit producer Pam Miller for 20 plus years, and when Yocum starts a sentence, Miller can finish it.
“Because she knows how I think, the type of stories I do, and how I leave my stories,” says Yocum. “She’s my avenue in the truck to get stories on (air), because I sell her my update on Joey Logano, and then she sells it to the producer.”
He and cameraman Dave Stolen (aka Stoli), have been together in some capacity since 1999.
“When I’m looking at something,” says Yocum, “I can look at Stoli, and I can just make a hand gesture, and he knows exactly what I’m talking about and what shot to try and get.”
Spotter Willie Holmes has been with Yocum for 10 years, and Ed Schaber for 12. Eric Dickens holds the pit monitor that Yocum views the race on. Josie Stainback has the battery bag, and Mike Siberini, Yocum’s pit spotter, has been along for the pit road thrill ride since 2002. Siberini, who is also the Goodyear Racing public relations rep, continually delivers information to Yocum by way of handwritten notes.
Siberini scans the cars Yocum is not, listening for pertinent information or getting it from the teams. He and Yocum then find each other on pit road, and the message is relayed, usually read by Yocum, ripped from the notebook, and then filed away in Yocum’s stack of material. One such message from the Clash was the potential pit road strategy of Logano, who may have been waiting to see what the Chevrolets were doing before making his own move.
Yocum will just as often scribble notes of his own. His system is a hybrid of his own organization system and what he picked up from his mentor Dr. Jerry Punch, a former reporter for ESPN.
“We were at Darlington (for the) spring race of ’97, and I had started doing races for TNN, and I’m trying to work on the system that works for me of how my mind works, what I need to have down and everything,” recalls Yocum. “And I said, ‘Jerry, what do you do, because I’ve got all my notes, but they’re written out on paper.’ He told me to try poster board, because you can put all your stuff down, and I like mine to be nice and neat because I’m a little OCD in that way. So, I worked up my system using poster board, and I can print stuff out on full sheet white labels and stick them to the back of the poster board. Then on the other side, I make notes on every car during the race, so that way I can refer to lap 37.
“Like (Sunday), Joey Logano made three different stops to fix damage – who did it, and what they did to the car. But I also keep track of every stop, what they’re saying about the car during every run. I save everything. I have from 1997 and ’98, my poster board that I used then. I have crew guys, their position and names, because I like to cover everything from the guys who go over the wall, where they’re from, if I can weave in a great story about them. Or just throwing in that, hey, so and so’s home track is this little short track in New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, wherever. Just to make a little more connection for the fan at home watching on television, which for me, I think one of the most exciting parts of the job, is seeing those guys go over the wall and service the car.”
When the Clash turns to pit road, Yocum quite literally climbs into action – on the pit wall. With cars whizzing by, in and out of their pit stalls, Yocum either stands on the wall to call the stops of Keselowski and Denny Hamlin, at the wall watching closely at Ryan Newman, or sometimes in an opening to visually see for himself what it going on rather than relying on his monitor. That brave act of standing on the wall? It’s something Yocum has done from his first day.
“What I typically like to do is balance from looking at it with my own eyes to looking back at my pit monitor,” he says. “Especially when I’m calling a stop, and let’s say we’re in a three-box where you have three different cars on the screen. I can call off the monitor because I know what they’re going to do and I can see what they’re going to do, and so I’ll kind of poke my head out then I’ll look back at my pit monitor and I can do two or three stops in one pit call, and then throw it on to the next person or back to the booth.
“I guess my job is one big example of multitasking, because you’re doing so many different things at one time versus those 15 seconds when you’re on the air or everything that leads up to or after that moment.”
After the opening round of pit stops, Yocum is moving practically non-stop, making his way to various team boxes and talking to team reps. As the race winds down, he’s in the No. 22 stall of Logano, and when not calling the race, he and Miller are in communication, planning ahead for post-race. For the Clash, Yocum is doing the winner interview on the frontstretch, so they need to know where to get in the truck that will take him out there. A back and forth ensues before its location is confirmed, and Yocum heads there as the race gets ready to go to its first overtime. By the second overtime attempt, the conversation shifts. Does Yocum stay put, or do they abandon the truck? Yocum keeps with the plan, and is there to get the thoughts of Erik Jones.
Then it’s a trek across the ballfield to the stopped cars on pit road, and a Newman interview that wound up taped for later use. But there is a need for more content, and the question Miller starts asking is, where is Clint Bowyer?
“Go get him,” she instructs, but Yocum is already hustling toward the garage. Bowyer faces two questions before Yocum finally signs off, exhales, and the equipment comes off.
The man behind the microphone
Roger Penske has a motto: effort equals results. Yocum likes and lives by that, which is why long before he’s on any broadcast, he’s preparing. Monday is a review day for the previous week and year’s race. He’s looking for trends and reminding himself what happened that could crop up again. Plus, is he developing any bad habits he wants to change?
Tuesday is conference call day, and perhaps a Race Hub hit. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Yocum is also working on his stats and updating his people stories. Like a race team, Yocum believes if everything isn’t buttoned up by the time you hit the garage, you don’t catch up.
On race weekend, when NASCAR officials arrive at, say, 6 a.m., Yocum is there with them and headed to the office trailer, and will be ready to pound the pavement when the garage officially opens.
“This is the job that I’ve always ever wanted,” said Yocum, who has nearly 30 years of motorsports experience for various networks. “I love racing and I love storytelling, and I love digging for those cool little tidbits that no one knows about people. So, for me, it’s all I ever wanted to do, so that’s where my head is like a library, and I just keep filing away different tidbits that may or may not be used.”
Yocum grew up at the racetrack. His mother Mary worked at Michigan International Speedway, and Yocum would follow around PA announcer Wayne Blackmon either on the grid or in victory lane. It was then that he caught the storytelling bug.
For this weekend’s Daytona 500, Yocum’s poster board, which is 14×17 and made specifically for Yocum in VA, will be a lot more detailed, and hopefully, some of what’s on there will make the broadcast. Unfortunately, only five percent of Yocum’s tidbits may end up on air, or it may take years – yes, years – for the time to be right to fit them in the broadcast.
Storytelling also guides Yocum’s approach to the questions he asks during an interview.
“I think as long as I’ve done it, you have a good sense of what the story is and what you need to do to ask the right question that you can get an answer for the fan that has been sitting at home for four hours,” said Yocum. “They’ve watched the race, they’re going, ‘Man, I wonder what he was thinking when this happened?’ or ‘I wonder what he was doing when this happened?’, and so it’s my job to fill in the gap, to put a period on that story.
“I always put it like I’m the fan at home on the couch, and this is what I would want to know, and fortunately, I think I get it right more than wrong. You have a sense, especially a sense of storytelling, and you know what you need to fill in those holes. But nobody tells me what question to ask. And the funny part is, it’s usually just shooting from the hip as far as Clint Bowyer – his day, looking ahead to the week, his history at Daytona – and that’s where I’ll have different things in my Bowyer section on my poster board. But so much of it is just in your mind.”
Sunday afternoon, when Yocum once again puts on the headset, and the microphone goes hot, it’ll mark his 20th consecutive Daytona 500 covering pit road for the live TV coverage, which will be a NASCAR broadcasting record.
“It’s hard to put into words what it means to not only be able to do it for the first time, let alone have 20 opportunities,” said Yocum. “You think back to that little kid who was 10 years old standing in victory lane next to the guy who was doing the PA, and now I’m going to walk out on the grid for my 20th Daytona 500. I feel so extremely blessed, and even more so, lucky because I feel like every year I’ve hit the Powerball lottery because I’m getting a chance to do what I love to do, which is tell stories about people, of the sport that I’ve loved since I was a little kid.
“I was telling somebody the other day about how Richard Petty would come by our house to pick me up to take me to the Richard Petty fan club meeting that was near MIS. And to think of that little kid and where I am today, I just feel so extremely blessed and grateful to have the opportunity and to be a part of such a great team. There are so many passionate people on our crew, and to just be a small part of it, I’m very honored.”