''Speed Sport'', formerly the ''National Speed Sport News ''(NSSN) is an American magazine and Web site covering national, local, and regional auto racing topics.

Yahoo! News Yahoo! News is a news website that originated as an internet-based news aggregator by Yahoo!. The site was created by a Yahoo! software engineer named Brad Clawsie in August 1996. Articles originally came from news services such as the Associate ...

called it "one of the most famous motorsports publications in the country" when it stopped publishing the traditional weekly print version in 2011. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' said it has "carried news and, when available, photos, from virtually any dirt track open on a Saturday night." ''National Speed Sport News'' began during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

as a weekly print newspaper.

Chris Economaki Christopher Constantine Economaki (October 15, 1920 – September 28, 2012) was an American motorsports commentator, pit road reporter, and journalist. Economaki was given the title "The Dean of American Motorsports Journalism."

published the newspaper for forty years. It was published exclusively on the magazine's website for a year before being purchased by its current owners in 2012, with an accompanying monthly magazine, which became known as Speed Sport.

History

The newspaper was first published by East Paterson Herald Publishing Co. on August 16, 1934 as the ''National Auto Racing News''. Future editor

sold some of the first copies at Ho-Ho-Kus Speedway. He started writing a column in 1936. It held the first national auto racing convention in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 1940. It became known as the ''National Speed Sport News'' in 1943 when the publisher William Kay formed The Kay Publishing Group. Auto racing was banned in the United States during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the newspaper had moved to monthly publication in 1944. When the ban was lifted on August 16, 1945 and it switched to biweekly publications then back to weekly papers in 1947. Kay died from a heart attack in 1950 and assistant editor Economaki took over as the lead publisher.

A. J. Foyt Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr. (born January 16, 1935) is an American retired auto racing driver who has raced in numerous genres of motorsports. His open wheel racing includes United States Automobile Club Champ cars, sprint cars, and midget cars. H ...

was featured on a cover story on September 12, 1956, two years before he rose to prominence in

Indy Car INDYCAR, LLC, is an American-based auto racing sanctioning body for Indy car racing and other disciplines of open wheel car racing. The organization sanctions five racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with its centerpiece the Indianapolis ...

Microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

versions of the magazine were added to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

in 1983. Corrine Economaki took over as publisher in 1990 from her father. The magazine began publishing columns online in November 2001. The weekly magazine ceased print production on March 23, 2011.

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

cited the reason for its demise to the "economy and this slow death knell of newspapers in general." ''NASCAR Scene'' had stopped publishing in 2010.

AutoWeek ''Autoweek'' is a car culture publication based in Detroit, Michigan. It was first published in 1958 and in 1977 the publication was purchased by Crain Communications Inc, its current parent company. The magazine was published weekly and focused ...

associate publisher Dutch Mandel, a competitor, reacted "there wasn't a time that I didn't pore over NSSN when I could get my hands on it." Turn 3 Media, a consortium of Curt Moon, Joseph B. Tripp,

Ralph Sheheen Ralph Sheheen (born August 23, 1964) is an American sports announcer. He is one of the lead broadcasters of NASCAR Xfinity Series on NBCSN, and was the lead commentator of Feld Entertainment's AMA Supercross Championship from 2006 until 2020. He ...

, and Vernon Massey, purchased ''National Speed Sport'' News in 2012, launching the ''Speed Sport'' monthly magazine that March. The launch of the new magazine also allowed the new owners to rebrand the entire franchise. In May 2014, NSSN and MAVTV launched the television newsmagazine version of the show, also named ''Speed Sport Magazine'' with a show carrying highlights of grass roots motorsports, ''Speed Sport''. By November 2016, the show's Web domain name and masthead on the Web site dropped the traditional National Speed Sport News title in favour of the now familiar Speed Sport title, with coverage including both domestic and international motorsport categories. The ''Speed Sport'' franchise expanded in 2017 when Turn 3 Media acquired Sprint Car & Midget Magazine. In 2019, SpeedSport.TV, which will be renamed Speed Sport 1 in 2022, was unveiled. It allows grassroots circuits to stream broadcasts of local events on a subscription service similar to rivals Speed51 (now RacingAmerica, owned by the NASCAR Cup Series' Race Team Alliance), Flosports (NASCAR's partner for selected grass roots series), and DIRTVision (World Racing Group). https://www.speedsport.com/more/turn-3-media-riivet-announce-speed-sport-1-network/

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
National newspapers published in the United States Sports newspapers Sports mass media in the United States Motorsport mass media in the United States Publications established in 1934 1934 establishments in the United States Auto racing magazines