Steve Waid, longtime NASCAR journalist, dies at 77

Steve Waid, a longtime NASCAR and stock-car racing journalist, died Monday, June 15, at age 77 after a long battle with cancer and its aftereffects. Waid was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1948 and spent much of his youth moving with his Army family before settling in Virginia Beach. He graduated from Old Dominion University in 1970 with a degree in political science and government, married his college sweetheart Margaret after college and served in the U.S. Marine Corps reserves.

Waid began his journalism career at the Martinsville Bulletin, where he was hired on the spot, and later spent 10 years at The Roanoke Times and World News. He covered his first NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway in 1971, a race won by Bobby Isaac. Waid then joined Grand National Scene, later NASCAR Scene, where he became executive editor in 1981 and helped build the publication into a major motorsports outlet. Over nearly three decades there, he produced about 2,700 bylines and remained involved in racing media after retiring in 2010 through Frontstretch.com and The Scene Vault Podcast, which he co-hosted with Rick Houston.

His work earned wide recognition in the NASCAR community. Waid was elected to the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame in 2014 and served 12 years as the group’s president. He also won the George Cunningham Writer of the Year Award in 1989, received the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence in 2019 and coauthored a 1999 biography of racing legend Junior Johnson with Tom Higgins. Tributes described him as a respected journalist whose career carried significant weight in NASCAR reporting.