Trouble in Turn2

This week it’s time to catch up with Charlie Turner who comprises one half of the Bench Racing duo, Steve and Charlie. They too were recently featured in the Sports Media Challenge as one of the top 10 NASCAR blogs, and deservedly so. They are very involved in the blogging community sponsoring contests, featuring bloggers on their radio show and

When did you begin blogging?I actually started blogging in February 2007. I really didn’t even know what a blog was much before that.

We had started the onpitrow.com website, which had pretty static content, in late 2006. The platform that we used for the website was a pain to
update and I wanted something more dynamic to help promote the radio show ON PIT ROW. I did a little research online, opened a Typepad account, and created a monster. I’ve really been fascinated by blogging ever since. I’ve learned a lot and met some great, helpful people along the way.

How did On Pit Row get started?ON PIT ROW started as a fifteen minute NASCAR segment on a morning radio talk show originating in Toledo, Ohio in 2000. It has grown from there to the two hour live weekly show that we broadcast every Tuesday. We have a
network of radio stations, are a featured show on RaceTalkRadio.com and stream the show live from OnPitRow.com.

Where do you blog from? I’m lucky to have some time at my day job to blog a bit, but mostly I work from home. We have some plans to try live blogging from a race or two this
year. We’ll have to see how that works out.

How long have you been a NASCAR fan? I have been a racing fan for, I almost hate to say, fifty years. I can’t say that I recall NASCAR specifically back that far, but we used to go to Toledo Speedway, to watch my cousin’s grandfather race, when I was 5 or 6 years old. I can still remember his car was a modified: the double “X”.

Do you have a favorite driver? If I have a favorite driver, it would be Bobby Labonte. I really like them all.

What is your favorite NASCAR memory? My favorite NASCAR moment was in 1995 at MIS, I was walking in the garage area, not looking where I was going, and ran straight into Bobby Labonte. BAM! Embarrassed the hell out of me. But Bobby was the one who apologized. What a gentleman.

What do you enjoy most about your blog? I most enjoy writing for the blog. I have always liked writing and had not had much chance to write since college. Trying new - to me -
technologies on the blog is fun too. I’ve made some good friends online and due to our online efforts. We never would have gotten our site to where it is without the advice that I’ve gotten from Luke at thunderlounge.com,Jerry at restrictorplatethis.com, Marc of Full Throttle and Darren at Onebadwheel.com. Clance from Church of the Great Oval helped me with the site and the show. It’s a great community and Steve and I have been trying to give a little back with our NASCAR blogger segments ON PIT ROW.

How much time do you spend on the site? It’s hard for me to separate the preparation for the radio show and the blogging efforts, but I probably spend 3 to 4 hours a day on the sites. I wish I had more time.

Has there been one key to the blog’s success?
I think the key to the success that we’ve had so far with the blog is the passion that Steve and I both have for ON PIT ROW and NASCAR. We always talk about making the show and the sites better. What can we do to improve? We work at it. We don’t look at the blog - the sites - as separate from ON PIT ROW. It’s all ON PIT ROW. We have plans for new aspects of ON PIT ROW in the works. It keeps me interested.

What’s the coolest thing that’s come as a result of your show and blog? Steve should be answering this, but the coolest thing is Steve’s cell phone contact list. Over seven plus years, he has built a pretty impressive list of the personal phone numbers of some big names in NASCAR and the racing media. He loves telling the story about getting a call from
Dave Despain while he was standing in line Christmas shopping. The people that now, after alot of work, seem to know who we are and enjoy coming ON PIT ROW make it fun. The recognition we received from Sports Media Challenge as one of the top ten “most influential blogs” in NASCAR was a stunner to me. Most of those other blogs on the list were ones that I had
looked to as examples to emulate. I was floored to be listed with them after only a year of blogging.

Do you ever get strange or amusing comments or emails?
Every comment that Steve makes on the blog is outrageous. We get funny stuff all the time. Just the other day I got a comment from an incensed Sea-Kayaker. He had taken exception to me slamming the folks up in the Pacific Northwest who had killed NASCAR’s efforts to build a track up there outside Seattle. He didn’t like how I was ..”talking about how kayak hippies are Stereotypes against NASCAR fans as rednecks.” I forget that irony and sarcasm sometimes get lost in the digital translation. I thought it was funny.

Is NASCAR better know or back in the day?
As someone who tried to find NASCAR, back in the day, when there was no TV, little radio outside the South and magazine coverage was four months old, I say it is much better today. You can see it and read it, all in real time. There are way more competitive cars too.

If you could change on thing in NASCAR what would it be?
I would like to see NASCAR increase the number of cars allowed to start each race to 46 or 47. Too many good car-driver combos are going home each week. It will hurt the sport eventually.

What is something surprising that your readers wouldn’t know about you?I met Steve through an ad he had run in the local paper, advertising a slot-car racing club that met at his house. I answered the ad, went to his house and he had this HUGE HO scale race track in his basement. When I got home I told my wife about this guy who had his whole
basement filled with a toy track that had a 28 foot long straight-a-way!

Now, I have one too.

As someone from the Pacific Northwest that paddles the occasional kayak, I appreciate you breaking down the walls to answer my questions. Thanks Charlie for the great responses.

Don’t forget to enter the contest to win a $20 gift certificate to Whatever Sports.