One of the earliest radio gigs for Doug Rice was calling races at a go-kart track outside Winston-Salem, N.C., where the children of R.J. Reynolds executives would race every Saturday night. His payment was $20 plus a six pack of beer.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, because 25 go-karts on an eighth-mile track — there was dust everywhere and the numbers weren’t that big,” Rice said. “Once I figured out I could call that, I just kept inching more toward it.”
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The “it” was what became a remarkable career in NASCAR play-by-play broadcasting, which will end in October following a 36-year run. The youngest of eight children born to dairy farmer parents in Asheville, N.C., Rice has seemingly done it all in American motorsports radio.
He has called nearly 500 NASCAR races between the Cup Series and Xfinity Series for the Performance Racing Network (PRN), did his own version of the Memorial Day Weekend “Double” by calling the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day and even got to call a few laps of the Daytona 500 earlier this year on the airwaves of one-time rival Motor Racing Network (MRN).
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Rice was behind the microphone for Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first NASCAR victories and called Tony Stewart’s famed 2005 Brickyard 400 win, but one of his favorite moments was something much smaller: A 1998 ARCA race at Charlotte, won by the late Adam Petty.
“That was a truly special race to call, and it was probably only on 35 stations,” Rice said of the fourth-generation driver’s lone victory. “All of the Pettys were there, and there have never been that many people in an ARCA victory lane.”
Now 69, Rice is ready to cede the play-by-play role to someone else after his “Doug’s Last Lap” tour goes off the air after the Las Vegas Motor Speedway race on Oct. 20.
“No. 1, he’s a great human and he’s a terrific friend,” MRN announcer Mike Bagley said. “But he also has such a great passion for what he does. I love having Doug around the racetrack and love hearing him on the air, and we’re gonna miss him.”
Rice recently sat down with The Athletic to reflect on his life in stock car racing, including changes in both NASCAR and the media landscape.
(Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
You’re 69. Why now? Why was this year the specific moment when you decided to step away?
My wife retired a couple of years ago. When she was working, it was a little bit easier for me to say, “Hey, I’m gone for four days. I’ll see you Monday.” Well, now when I’m gone for four days, she doesn’t have work. She’s there at home. I thought, “Well, that’s not really fair.” And we want to travel together extensively within the United States.
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I also wanted to retire before somebody came and put their hand on my shoulder and said, “Hey, where did your fastball go?” That happens in every business in America, and it happens with announcers as it does anybody else. I feel like my broadcast game right now is as good as it’s ever been, so what better time to go out when you still can command the respect and have fun doing (it)?
Why are you stepping away altogether instead of winding down with some sort of partial schedule?
To Marcus Smith’s credit, when I went in and talked to him, he wanted me to come back and do select races. He said, “You can pick what you want.” That would be really cool, but then I thought, “That means somebody else doesn’t get to work that week.” Whoever slides in, they’ve got to take a day off because the old guy showed back up. I didn’t want to take somebody out of that.
Doug Rice appreciation post. ❤️#DougsLastLap | @Riceman61 pic.twitter.com/BQxsySKIGP
— Charlotte Motor Speedway (@CLTMotorSpdwy) May 28, 2024
How did you maintain the level of enjoyment long enough to keep doing this? The sport has changed a lot. Why were you able to go so long without getting bitter or jaded?
We did a NASCAR cruise maybe six years ago, and there were like 1,500 people who were all NASCAR fans. You had to be a diehard to buy the ticket. I was on there with a bunch of drivers, and I cannot tell you the number of people who came up and said, “I’ve listened to you all my life.” Or, “Me and my dad used to listen to you. You were a part of my childhood.” I mean, over and over again. And I thought, “Wow, this has made a difference. People have enjoyed it, and they listened and they paid attention.”
Because on radio, you don’t get that instant star recognition you do on television or even as a print writer when people have stuff right in front of them. And that made me think, “OK, people have paid attention and they’ve enjoyed the ride,” and that encouraged me to stay on with it.
You’ve witnessed NASCAR’s entire growth trajectory — the spike, the plateau, the decline. Now it seems to have stabilized, but it wasn’t as popular as it once was. From your perspective, what do you think happened?
I have my own theory on this. I think we became really trendy in the late ’90s and early 2000s when people said: “Let’s go to a stock car race. Never done that before.” They enjoyed it for two or three years and then they went, “OK. Been there, done that.” I don’t know our falloff was from our hardcore fans who would drive to eight races a year; I think it was from those new fans.
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I also don’t think we were ever as big as what we thought we were. That was a bit of a mirage for like three years, when every place was packed and TV ratings were going through the roof and the sport overreacted. I don’t know a racetrack that at some point in the last decade hasn’t taken out stands, because they overbuilt to get all that money.
That was a little tough at first, but now we’re at a level I think is sustainable. The TV ratings are up a little bit, but they’re not doing these huge waves of going up and down. We’re not at the bottom anymore. Five or six years ago, I was really worried, and I’m not now.
Some people feel the downturn coincided with Jimmie Johnson’s dominance. How do you see that?
I’m not anti-Jimmie Johnson. But usually he won just by wiping the field, by wearing them down. You knew halfway through the race, if he doesn’t break or have a flat tire, he’s gonna win the race. So his dominance drained some of the energy out of it for a little bit. But part of it is he never really had a rival. Gordon had Earnhardt and to a lesser extent, some other people like Ernie Irvan and Dale Jarrett. Jimmie Johnson never had that guy who could stand up and go, “I’m gonna beat you. And I’ll show you.” I mean, five seasons in a row (when Johnson won the championship, from 2006-2010).
What have been some of the most positive changes you’ve seen during your time in NASCAR?
The sport is lot more accepting. I don’t know that the sport 20 years ago would have had a Daniel Suárez or a Bubba Wallace. And I’m proud of that. I’d like for the sport to reflect what America looks like a little bit better. I’d love to see a couple of females come along who can make a difference and can be really good. Danica (Patrick) had that moment, because she had the stardom and the charisma, but the results were just never there, and so that effort was doomed not long after it got started. I like the fact sometimes we’ll have seven or eight countries represented. That gives other people a reason to pay attention, because before, half the starting lineup was literally from Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
The sport has also done a good job of adapting engineering-wise. You couldn’t keep racing the dinosaurs we had out here before with carburetors and things like that. They’ve done a good job of making these cars now look more like a car you might see on the interstate. For awhile, they got way out of whack with the wing on the Car of Tomorrow and things like that. That might be the low point for me of NASCAR, was seeing those winged cars. It just looked wrong and everything about it felt wrong. I think NASCAR got that message, too.
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The media landscape has evolved quite a bit during your career. Has that been positive? Negative? Neutral? Where do you see that?
When I first started, the media center was pretty much the property of print. There were probably 35 people in North Carolina alone who just covered racing. Every newspaper had a racing writer. … And the media center was their property.
That changed over time, but there was a time they didn’t want (radio broadcasters) in there because that was all print. Now, I’m not taking any delight in the demise of print. But it was inevitable; not just for this sport, but every sport. …
I don’t think the change has been as much for television and radio; we still show up and do our jobs. The technology is better, but how we actually put a broadcast together is not all that much different than what we were doing 25 years ago. And I don’t think it is that all that much different for television, except sometimes now they’re broadcasting with people not at the racetrack.
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Do you think radio will always remain relevant, or will it at some point go the way of newspapers?
As long as we’re riding around in cars and they don’t allow you to watch TV while you’re driving — which would be bad — there’s a place for it. And people use sports in the background; I’m working on my deck, I’m out fishing on my bass boat and the race is on to keep me company. I don’t think we’ll ever get away from that. But I think radio to NASCAR is more important than radio is to any other sport. I’m prejudiced, but some of that is the accessibility. You can get us for free.
What are you hoping to see as a fan now, sitting at home watching these races? What do you want NASCAR to keep doing in terms of entertainment?
It’s unrealistic, but if the races can look more like what we saw in Atlanta and less like what we saw at Richmond and Martinsville — something that can hold my attention for two or three hours and with 50 laps to go, I don’t know for certain who’s going to win. Keep me entertained. Keep me glued to the screen. And give me some people I care about. Give me some drivers who, as a fan, I want to go buy their stuff.
When I got into this, Richard Petty was the coolest thing on the planet. He was already beyond winning regularly when I first became a fan, but there was still a magnetism to him. There was a magnetism to Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip and even to a lesser extent, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. They exuded bigger than life. And it may be because I’m in the business now, but I don’t get that as much these days.
There are some people who have a lot of potential to be that. Kyle Larson is growing into accepting stardom. He’s cool. He doesn’t get rattled by anything. I like that. Ross Chastain is really good for the sport, because he’s the anti-Larson. He really exudes that difference. Kyle Busch as well, although he has put away his black hat here at the end of his career. But give me people I care about and give me races that hold my interest, and I’ll be happy.
(Top photo of Doug Rice in 2015: Daniel Shirey / Getty Images)
