‘You’re the driver’s eyes’: The life of a NASCAR spotter
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Alanis King, Racing columnist
It’s a clear Saturday afternoon in March, minutes before the start of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. I’m standing at the top of the grandstands in Turn 12, the track’s infamously harsh braking zone. My mouth is dry. I’m swaying at the hips. I feel sick. But I can’t back out now, because for the first time in my life, I’m competing on a NASCAR team — and it’s my job to help keep our driver from wrecking.
It’s a hell of a first assignment.
My job this weekend is called “spotting.” NASCAR spotters track what’s going on behind, beside and in front of a race car, sometimes coaching their driver through a pass while describing the location of rivals or the severity of wrecks around them.
Spotters do this in as few words as possible; if they use too many, they risk distracting the driver. That’s why, when you listen to a team’s radio, you’ll hear truncated sentences.
“Left side.” (There’s a car on your left.)
“Bumper.” “Quarter.” “Door.” (The car next to you is at your bumper, quarter panel or door.)
“Clear.” (No cars overlap with yours, meaning you can move side to side.)
“Five back to the 48.” (The No. 48 car is approximately five car lengths behind.)
“Looking right.” (The car behind you is peeking to your right, potentially to make a pass.)
Typically, each NASCAR driver has one spotter. On a snaky, 3.41-mile road course like Circuit of the Americas, though, they need at least three to “see” the full track, meaning teams recruit part-timers to help.
Knowing that, my husband asked if I could get us spotting gigs at COTA. Neither of us had ever been spotters, but I offered our (admittedly low-demand) services to the first driver who came to mind: my friend Brad Perez, who signed to drive the No. 45 car with Xfinity Series team Alpha Prime Racing.
“Personally, I ain’t scared,” he said. “Just make sure my team owner is good with it.”
Former Xfinity driver Tommy Joe Martins co-owns the team, and he’s also a friend. I asked him next.
“Great idea,” he responded. “It will save us a lot of hassle. I love it.”
Alpha Prime is a lower-budget team in the Xfinity Series, going up against top-level NASCAR Cup Series powerhouses such as Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Richard Childress Racing and more. The walls of Alpha Prime’s race shop read “Us Against Them” in bright red.
“We’re a midtier team,” Martins told ESPN. “We’re not an A team; those are the legit Cup teams, $200,000-plus per-race budget. We’re not really a B team; those are the Nos. 48, 26, 27, 31, 15, 39 and 5. They have $100,000-plus per-race budgets.
“We like to think we’re like a B-minus team. We’ve got around a $70,000 per-race budget, including prize money. Realistically, we should be 26th to 28th, but we try to be top-20 every week, with small goals like finishing on the lead lap.
“We want to compete with that B group, and early in the season, I feel like we have.”
Alpha Prime has two regular Xfinity cars, and the No. 45 runs part time. That meant Martins had to bring not only about 14 extra people to COTA to staff the car but also three spotters. When I texted Martins, he was the only spotter confirmed on the No. 45 — pulling double duty as team owner and crew member. My husband and I filled the two extra spots.
Just like his car, Perez doesn’t race full time. At 27 years old, he has made 13 starts in the Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series, NASCAR’s second- and third-tier national tours.
When he’s not racing, Perez is a tire specialist and driving instructor. Just five years ago, he was a valet in south Florida.
“I’m not always the most optimistic person,” Perez told ESPN. “Living the life I’ve lived, I’ve been a realist. Being where I am right now is a huge accomplishment, and I thank everyone who has given me the chances to get near my goals. As [my friend] Mamba Smith likes to remind me: ‘I shouldn’t be here.'”
But Perez is here, heading down COTA’s backstretch toward me during the slow, double-file pace laps. We’re minutes away from the green flag, which will signal a 38-car free-for-all. Perez starts 31st, and our goal is to finish top-20.
My headset’s microphone is tight against my lips, where the team told me to put it so the wind wouldn’t garble my transmissions. I press it tighter, just in case.
I’m nervous, but I’m prepared. My husband and I spent hours studying, acquiring the team radio from Cup driver Tyler Reddick‘s 2023 COTA victory and syncing it up with a replay of the race to learn what his spotters did and didn’t call. My friend Nick Payne, Reddick’s full-time spotter at 23XI Racing, told me to relax.
“It’s easy,” he said. “Just say ‘left’ and ‘right.'”
Payne studied engineering in college, and he originally wanted to be a crew chief, but he shifted to spotting. The role required similar skills: preparation, data analysis, relationship-building and leadership.
“You’re the driver’s metaphorical eyes,” Payne told ESPN. “You’re constantly feeding them information: how to drive, what to do if they wreck and where people are driving. Sometimes you’re a cheerleader. Sometimes you’re the voice of reason.
“There are kind of three levels [to spotting]. On a road course, you’re helping the driver understand scenarios and how to manage the race. On ovals, you’re both managing and helping them drive. Superspeedways are the ultra-extreme. You’re basically helping them steer the car.”
For Payne, COTA is easy mode. The track has 20 turns, with a mix of fast straightaways, rhythmic arcs and harsh braking zones. Xfinity cars hit about 170 mph down the backstretch before slowing to 40 mph for Turn 12, giving drivers a big opportunity to pass. If you can out-brake your competitors, you can potentially get around them.
My spotting zone begins partway down the backstretch, about half a mile from where I’m standing. I lean forward to “see” Perez better — as if that’ll help — and catch the speckled blue nose of his car. He’s just a dot in the distance, and soon, I’ll have to help that dot navigate the cars around him.
When Perez snakes through my section, he’ll alternate between facing me and away from me. He wants me to describe cars as on his “left” or “right,” but for me, the lefts and rights change. I trace the track with my eyes, imagining Perez with a car next to him.
Left side, I think. Door. Quarter. Clear.
Perez’s imaginary car rolls around another turn.
Looking right.
And one more.
Right side. Still there.
While I practice, the Xfinity field takes the green flag. I have about a minute before they reach me, when I’ll locate Perez, warn of anything around him, then coach him through the next five turns. I nervously sway a little faster.
Martins calmly calls the first section of the track, even as cars fan out three and four wide. My husband takes over the second section, guiding him like a pro. Then comes my turn.
This is the first time I’ve seen Perez around so many cars. I realize just how poor my depth perception is, how quickly the lefts and rights flip, and how hard it is to tell whether cars are overlapping with him or simply peeking around. I stay calm, calling what I can but avoiding things I’m unsure about. Perez eventually disappears, and my shoulders fall in relief.
I made it through Lap 1. Just 49 to go.
As the race goes on, I get into a rhythm. I call on-track battles (“Left side … still there … car spinning to your right”) and changes to the track surface (“They’re putting speedy-dry on the racing line”). I tell Perez when faster drivers are charging, and I congratulate him on good passes. We even joke a bit under caution.
By the end of the race, Perez is running in the teens. We’re where we want to be, but two late-race cautions bunch the cars up to battle for final positions. People thrash and wreck, while Martins reminds Perez of the goal: Stay clean and bring it home top-20. That’s exactly what he does.
“Where’d we end up?” Perez radios after crossing the finish line.
“P1-9,” Martins responds. “Nineteen.”
“Would you look at that!” Perez says.
A penalty ahead of Perez eventually moves him into 18th, his best career Xfinity finish. We spend the night eating, drinking, high-fiving and hollering in triumph.
Each of Perez’s NASCAR races is a culmination of his on-the-ground work to gather sponsors for the big day, and his performance has a material impact on whether he gets to make another. Today, it feels like we won.
“I think there’s no reason I can’t be full time,” Perez said after the race. “I go about things the right way; my partners are happy; and I’m growing more partnerships. I love what I do for work, but I know if I had the opportunity to race for a living, I could do well. Hopefully one day, that will happen.
“If it doesn’t, I have no regrets.”
Sports
‘I wasn’t trying to build anything in a lab’: How Jacob deGrom is learning to throw smarter, not harder
SURPRISE, Ariz. — When Jacob deGrom stepped on the mound for his first live batting practice this spring, a voice in his head told him: “All right, I want to strike everybody out.” That instinct had guided deGrom to unimaginable heights, with awards and money and acclaim. It is also who he can no longer be. So deGrom took a breath and reminded himself: “Let’s not do that.”
Nobody in the world has ever thrown a baseball like deGrom at his apex. His combination of fastball velocity, swing-and-miss stuff and pinpoint command led to one of the greatest 90-start stretches in baseball. From the beginning of 2018 to the middle of 2021, he was peak Pedro Martinez with a couple of extra mph — Nolan Ryan’s fastball, Steve Carlton’s slider, Greg Maddux’s precision.
Then his arm could not hold up anymore, and for more than three years, deGrom healed and got hurt, healed and needed Tommy John surgery in June 2023 to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, then healed once more. That delivers him to this moment, in camp with the Texas Rangers, ready to conquer a 162-game season for the first time since 2019 — and reminding himself when to hold back.
The instinct to be all he can be never will go away. But instead, as his efforts at learning to throttle down manifest themselves daily and were particularly evident in those early live ABs, deGrom induced ground balls on early contact and ended his day with a flyout on the second pitch of the at-bat.
DeGrom had blown out his elbow once before, as a minor leaguer in October 2010, and this time he understands his mandate. He is now 36, and nobody has returned to have any sort of substantive career after a third Tommy John, so keeping his arm healthy as he comes back from his second is imperative. This is the last phase of deGrom’s career, and to maximize it, he must change. It does not need to be a wholesale reinvention. For deGrom, it is more an evolution, one to which he accustomed himself by watching video of his past self.
DeGrom at his best simply overwhelmed hitters. At-bats turned into lost causes. He was the best pitcher in the world in 2018, when he threw 217 innings of 1.70 ERA ball and struck out 269 with just 46 walks and 10 home runs allowed. The following year, he dedicated himself to being even more, winning his second Cy Young and proving he was no one-season fluke. DeGrom routinely blew away one hitter, then made the next look like he’d never seen a slider. He painted the plate with the meticulousness of a ceramic artist.
“I look at the best — ’18,” deGrom said of his first Cy Young season. “There were times where I hit 100 or close to it, but I think I sat around 96.”
He did. Ninety-six mph on the dot for his high-spin four-seam fastball. It jumped to 96.9 in 2019, 98.6 in 2020 and 99.2 in 2021. In the 11 games deGrom pitched toward the end of 2022, it was still 98.9 — and then 98.7 before he blew out again.
“I have to look at it like, hey, I can pitch at that velocity [from 2018],” deGrom said. “It is less stress on your body. You get out there and you’re throwing pitches at 100 miles an hour for however many pitches it is — it’s a lot of stress. It’s something that I’m going to look into — using it when I need it, backing off and just trusting that I can locate the ball.”
He had not yet adopted that attitude in 2022, when those 11 starts convinced deGrom to opt out of his contract with the New York Mets, who had drafted him in the ninth round in 2010. Immediately, the Texas Rangers began their pursuit. General manager Chris Young pitched for 13 years in the major leagues and knows how hard it is to be truly great. He grunted to hit 90 with his fastball. Someone who could sit 99 with 248 strikeouts against 19 walks in 156⅓ innings (as deGrom did in the combined pieces of his 2021 and 2022 seasons) and make it look easy is one of a kind. Injury risk be damned, Texas gave deGrom $185 million over five years.
He played the part in his first five starts for Texas. Then he left the sixth with elbow pain. Done for the year. Surgery on June 12 — 11 days after the birth of his third child, Nolan. He carried Nolan around with his left arm while his right was in a brace that would click a degree or two more every day to eventually reteach deGrom to straighten his arm.
He taught himself how to throw again, too, under the watchful eyes of Texas’ training staff and Keith Meister, the noted Tommy John surgeon who is also the Rangers’ team doctor. They wanted to build back the deGrom who scythed lineups — but this time, with decision-making processes guided by proper arm care.
Part of that showed in deGrom’s September cameo last year. His fastball averaged 97.3 mph, and he still managed to look like himself: 1.69 ERA, 14 strikeouts against one walk with one home run allowed in 10⅔ innings. Rather than rush back, deGrom put himself in a position to tackle the offseason. Those innings were enough to psychologically move past the rehabilitative stage and reenter achievement mode. He trained with the same intensity he did in past seasons. The stuff would still be there. While peers were spending the winter immersed in pitch design, deGrom was seeking the version of himself that could marry his inherent deGromness with the sturdiness he embodied the first six years of his career.
“I wasn’t trying to build anything in a lab,” deGrom said. “My arm got a little long a few years ago, so trying to shorten up the arm path a little bit and sync up my mechanics really well is what I’ve been trying to do.”
Rather than jump out in the first start of the spring to prove that heartiness, deGrom took his time. It is a long season. He wants to be there in the end. His goal for this year is straightforward: “Make as many starts as I can.” If that means throwing live at-bats a little longer than his teammates, that’s what he’ll do. Ultimately, deGrom is the one who defines his comfort, and he went so long without it that its priority is notable.
So if that means shorter starts early in the season, it won’t surprise anyone. There is no official innings limit on deGrom. The Rangers, though, are going to monitor his usage, and he doesn’t plan to use those limited outings to amp up his velocity. This is about being smart and considering more than raw pitch counts or innings totals.
“I think it’s going to be a monitor of stressful innings versus not,” deGrom said. “You have those games where you go five innings, you have 75 pitches, but you’ve got runners all over the place, so those are stressful. Whereas you cruise and you end up throwing 100 pitches and you had one or two runners. It’s like, OK, those don’t seem to be as stressful. So I think it’s monitoring all of that and just playing it by ear how the season goes.”
That approach carried into deGrom’s spring debut Saturday against the Kansas City Royals. He averaged 97 mph on his fastball, topping out at 98. His slider remained near its previous levels at 90. He flipped in a pair of curveballs for strikes, too, just as a reminder that he’s liable to buckle your knees at any given moment. On 31 pitches, deGrom threw 21 strikes, didn’t allow a baserunner and punched out three, including reigning MVP runner-up Bobby Witt Jr. on a vicious 91.5-mph slider.
On his last batter of the day, deGrom started with a slider well off the plate inducing a swing-and-miss from Tyler Gentry, then followed with a low-and-not-quite-as-outside slider Gentry spit on. When a curveball that was well off the plate was called a strike, deGrom saw an opportunity. This is the art of pitching — of weighing the count, what a hitter has seen, how to take advantage of an umpire’s zone. He dotted a 97.3-mph fastball on the exact horizontal plane as the curveball and elevated it to the top of the strike zone, a nasty bit of sorcery that only a handful of pitchers on the planet can execute at deGrom’s level. Gentry stared at it, plate umpire Pete Talkington punched him out and deGrom strode off the mound, beta test complete.
“It’s always a thing of trusting your stuff,” deGrom said. “It’s one of the hardest things to do in this game, and part of it’s the fear of failure. You throw a pitch at 93 when you could have thrown it at 98 and it’s a homer, you’re like, ‘Why did I do that?’ So that’s the part that gets tough. You still have to go out there and trust your stuff, know that you can locate and change speeds, and still get outs not full tilt the whole time.”
Day by day, deGrom inches closer to that. He’ll get a little extra time, with the likelihood the Rangers will hold him back until the season’s fifth game, just to build in rest before the grind of a new season. He’s ready. It has been too long since he has been on the field regularly, contributing, searching for the best version of himself. It might look a little different. And if it does, that’s a good thing.
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