Ken Squier, legendary broadcaster who led NASCAR to national TV, dies at 88

June 25, 2024

Legendary NASCAR broadcaster Ken Squier died Wednesday night at the age of 88, NASCAR confirmed Thursday.

One of NASCAR’s original broadcast voices, Squier called races beginning in 1970 on MRN and later on CBS — including for the 1979 Daytona 500, NASCAR’s first 500-mile race to be shown in its entirety on network television — and TBS until 1997.

Though Squier may be gone, his legacy will remain as long as the sport of stock car racing does.

For one thing, Squier’s call at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500 is one of the most famous phrases ever uttered in NASCAR — even though it was only four words.

“And there’s a fight …”

Squier was describing the fracas between Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison after Yarborough crashed with Allison’s brother, Donnie, on the final lap of the race.

Along with the national TV audience, the race happened to come on a day when millions of people on the East Coast were stuck inside due to a large snowstorm. With only three channels available at the time, many viewers watching CBS that day got their first taste of NASCAR. And Squier’s announcing helped put both NASCAR and “The Great American Race” — a term which he coined — on the map.

“Ken Squier was there when (NASCAR) was introduced to the rest of the world in 1979 for the Daytona 500,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on X, formerly Twitter. “I’m convinced that race would have not had its lasting impact had Ken not been our lead narrator. We still ride the wave of that momentum created on that day. (Ken’s) words and energy were perfection on a day when (NASCAR) needed it.”

Beyond calling the race, Squier was also instrumental in getting the deal done with CBS to show it live flag to flag, talking with network executives and even enlisting the help of Darrell Waltrip, who was then a young driver on the way to becoming a three-time Cup Series champion, to help sell it.

“(Squier) needed somebody to go with him, promote the sport, tell people how great the sport was, what the potential of it could be,” Waltrip recalled to NASCARHall.com earlier this year. “We just tied ourselves together, went to a meeting with all the affiliates, told them what the plan was, what we thought would work, what it would look like and how exciting it was going to be.”

That 1979 race was just one part of Squier’s Hall of Fame career. He called every Daytona 500 from then until 1997 and also was credited with co-founding MRN, which still broadcasts NASCAR races on the radio today.

Born in Waterbury, Vermont, he got his start at his father’s radio station, WDEV, which he later took ownership of after his father died. He started doing on-air work at age 12 and called his first race at age 14 over a public address system from the back of a logging truck.

“I hitchhiked to the track because I didn’t want my parents to know,” Squier told Speedway Media in 2013 of that first announcing job. “I think I got $5 for it.”

Some 65 years later, Squier had become so important to NASCAR history that, along with MRN’s Barney Hall, the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s annual media award of excellence — the Squier-Hall Award — was named in his honor in 2013.

He was also the rare NASCAR figure who did not compete in some form (as a driver, crew member or owner) to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Squier was part of the 2018 class which also featured championship-winning crew chief Ray Evernham, Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday Jr., engine builder Robert Yates and NASCAR’s first champion, Red Byron.

“Though he never sat behind the wheel of a stock car, Ken Squier contributed to the growth of NASCAR as much as any competitor,” NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France said in a statement. “Ken was a superb storyteller and his unmistakable voice is the soundtrack to many of NASCAR’s greatest moments. His calls on TV and radio brought fans closer to the sport, and for that he was a fan favorite.”

“Ken Squier was a true legend in the sport,” Dale Jarrett, the 1999 Cup Series champion and current NBC broadcaster, said on X. “He will be greatly missed.”

Ken Squier, at his NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2018. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

(Top photo: ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images)

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