CUP: Krista Voda SPEED Pit Reporter Q&A

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CUP: Krista Voda SPEED Pit Reporter Q&A

Krista Voda talks about her work on the the pit road at NASCAR races...

Megan Englehart | Posted March 16, 2012 Charlotte, NC

Krista Voda hosts NCWTS Setup and Trackside for SPEED, in addition to pit reporting for FOX the first 12 races of the Sprint Cup Series season. (Photo: SPEED)

VODA OFFERS BEHIND-THE-SCENES GLIMPSE INTO HER WORLD ON PIT ROAD

NASCAR on FOX and SPEED viewers only see Krista Voda each weekend when the cameras are on. In the Q&A below, Voda, who serves as a pit reporter for NASCAR on FOX’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races and hosts Trackside and NCWTS Setup on SPEED, explains just what she does when the cameras aren’t rolling:

Q: What would people find most surprising about your job as a pit reporter?
“Probably is how little time we really have to prepare for the race. If we have 20 minutes, we’ll hustle and try to chat with two crew chiefs about what changes they’ve made to their cars prior to the race or what challenges they’ve faced during the weekend. If we’ve got four hours, we’ll still wish for an extra hour. I think that’s due in part to the fact NASCAR is so varied and it’s not just two teams on a football field. There are 43 different teams – each with its own driver, crew chief, crew members, owners and sponsors – and we’re trying to prepare with every piece of information we possibly can.”

Q: How are pit road assignments selected?
“On a normal weekend, Cup teams qualify Friday, run Happy Hour on Saturday and race Sunday. Crew chiefs choose their pit boxes late Friday after qualifying is complete. So, when we have our production meeting on Saturday, our pit producer, Pam Miller, tells us which section of pit road we’re assigned. Our spots vary from week to week.”

Q: How many teams do you cover each race?
“Pit road is split up geographically for us. Depending on the track and where the pit road openings are, the number of pits assigned to each of the pit reporters might not be equal, but the storylines are split evenly. We usually have anywhere between 10 and 13 cars to cover, but those cars can change a bit as the race progresses. For instance, if some of my cars fall out of the race, I may slide over to cover a couple of others nearby. Then, of course, I am not as prepared for those as I’d like to be because they weren’t part of my original assignment.”

Q: If one of your drivers is taken to the infield care center, do you follow him/her there or is another reporter assigned that task?
“The care center duties are usually doled out on a geographical basis to whoever can get there the quickest. But while we’re running to the care center and waiting on the driver to emerge, our other cars still are making laps and pit stops, and we’re missing that vital information. So, it’s all a big choreography game in which we need our pit producer and spotter because they help keep us abreast of what we’re missing.”

Q: How much communication do you have with the race producer during the day?
“Pam Miller is our pit producer and Barry Landis is our race producer. He’s our big boss for the race. Pam is the pit reporters’ boss and she’s in constant communication with us. We may not hear from Barry for a portion of the race because Pam is talking to us directly. Our pit spotter is someone physically with us on pit road.”

Q: Explain what your pit spotter does.
“My pit spotter literally is my extra set of ears, eyes and hands. People always say, ‘Hands?’ Yep, hands because he’s taking notes right along with me. If I’m covering Tony Stewart and I’m therefore missing what’s going on with Carl Edwards, my pit spotter, John Gelzer, is jotting down notes or collecting them from PR reps and shuttling them to me. Just like a crew chief and driver develop chemistry, we develop that bond with our pit spotters. If I’m reporting on-air from Stewart’s pit and turn to go to the right, John already knows where I’m going based on where our guys are running. He may just hand me a note that says ‘2’ but I know what his notations mean and he knows what mine mean.”

Q: How much equipment do you wear during a race?
“We wear a big radio frequency pack called a RF pack -- a giant belt pack with transmitters and receivers -- and on that are my scanner and loops for the mic to hang. It gets pretty heavy and pulls on your back as the day goes on. By the end of the Coke 600, you really notice it, as well as during long rain delays. I do stretches and bends to try to shift the weight around.”

Q: I’ve heard you’re always the last of the four pit reporters to be ready each Sunday. Why is that?
“Getting dressed with all this equipment is interesting enough in itself, but I have a different perspective than the three guys. I never could figure out why I always am the last one to get my RF pack on and show up. Then it dawned on me it’s because I take my last bathroom break for the day at that time. Once I’ve got my RF pack and all my equipment on, there’s no way I’m going into a port-a-john on pit road during the race. I’d drop a mic or radio into the blue abyss in there. But the guys don’t necessarily have to make that last bathroom trip because they can hit the port-a-johns during the race if absolutely necessary. That’s one of the benefits of being a man, I guess.”

Q: Tennis shoes are a necessity on pit road, aren’t they?
“There is no requirement you have to wear tennis shoes, but there is no way you could effectively do this job in dress shoes or heels. You need to move quickly. I don’t necessarily have to sprint between pit boxes for the entire race, but you sometimes do have to move pretty fast, and you’re often running to the care center. Your feet, legs and back hurt when the day is over, and your ears and head hurt from the headset, especially at places like Richmond or Bristol or Martinsville where the noise is deafening.”

Q: What is your worst on-air moment on pit road?
“There are so many. I feel like I have one every race. Sometimes I get so mad at what I said on-air that I kick tires or punch my fist into the air while walking down pit road. But you have to get over it. The race demands you get over it.”

Q: What is the most challenging part of your job?
“You want to take care of your cars and feel a sense of responsibility for giving them as much coverage as possible. I try to find ways to talk about my particular drivers, but I always feel guilty if I can’t make that happen on a particular day. I also struggle with time constraints. I never seem to have all the conversations I want to have before the race starts. I stress myself out about this, but I think a little bit of that is good because you’re not doing your job if you’re not pushing yourself.”

Q: No one enjoys asking the tough question of a driver who just lost the race or wrecked out. How do you approach formulating your question in these situations?
“I understand and respect that the drivers are upset in these situations. After all these years, we’ve all probably had a ‘run-in’ of some sort with most drivers – not because they don’t like or respect us but because we caught them at the worst moment possible and now they’re on the spot and have to explain it to the world on TV. But that’s what makes NASCAR great. No other sport gets right up to the athlete at the lowest of their low moments. I try to formulate a question the best I can considering how their day went and what adversity they faced, but I also try not to just gloss over something that happened. The fans at home want to know what that driver’s day was like and it’s our job as pit reporters to deliver that news and that emotion.”