Separate journeys, yet a shared destination

MARTINSVILLE — Shannon Spake and Jamie Little bounce around from pit stall to pit stall, the constant, thunderous roar of engines only partially blocked by their chunky yellow headsets.

Little stands flanked by a fellow ESPN employee and an armed security guard. With a notepad in one hand and a microphone at the ready in the other, she eventually delivers one of her countless updates during ABC’s broadcast of the Sprint Cup TUMS QuikPak 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday afternoon.

“Jamie McMurray’s been running loose all day. … McMurray said, ‘I think it’s maybe an axle. I’ll meet you in the garage.’ Very disappointing.”

As the former fashion model speaks, a wide, bright smile breaks out across her face. She is not on camera. Another ESPN employee walks up, hands her a note, and she swiftly walks with her accompaniment to another pit.

Spake, a few stalls away, is feverishly ruffling through her notes and engaged in a similar enterprise. She puffs out her cheeks and lets out a big breath as she experiences technical difficulties with a portable device that allows her to view the broadcast. At her request, an assistant holds a cord connected to the device’s antenna in place.

Neither of these busy young women would rather be anywhere else. And surrounded by burly male pit crew members in the infield at Martinsville, neither is hard to miss. They’re the pretty girls with the blond pony tails — ESPN sisters in flame-resistant jumpsuits.

“The transformation is complete. We are now the same person,” Spake giggled earlier in the week, sitting in the back room of a noisy infield garage. Her brown eyes light up under the brim of her ESPN cap. The television network is the first to regularly use two female pit reporters in its coverage of the Sprint Cup Series. “We’ve spent so much time together,” Spake said, “and we’ve often found that we’ve started dressing similar and wearing the same color shirts to the track without planning.”

Little said the pair has even learned to answer to each other’s names, since some apparently more than occasionally confuse the two.

The 32-year-old Spake and 30-year-old Little, however, are very different people. And while they share the same passion and each weekend cover drivers who share the same track, both have taken very different paths to wind up at the same place.

Spake grew up on the East Coast and began her broadcast career in New York City, working for Nickelodeon and TBS before landing a six-month gig on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

Afterward, she moved to Charlotte to live with her family — who relocated from Florida while she was in New York — while getting on her feet, and was eventually offered a job with the local Fox affiliate.

“(I was) producing their morning show, producing their night show, sitting on the assignment desk, holding the camera, I mean, anything that I could do to work,” Spake said. “A position on air opened up, and it was a fun (job) — go out to McDonald’s while they’re giving away free burgers or go and ride the roller coaster because they’re doing a special at the amusement park — and that position opened up and it was perfect, because with my personality, I can talk to a doorknob.

“I got to do fun things and meet a lot of cool people, but I knew that I wanted to do more than just go to Krispy Kreme once a week.”

She jumped at the opportunity to cover the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, an expansion team at the time, and began working for the team’s regional television network. From there she moved to the SPEED channel and less than a year later was picked up by ESPN, which had reacquired the broadcasting rights to NASCAR. Growing up, she never imagined standing in the Martinsville Speedway infield, covering auto racing for a living.

Spake repeatedly strikes the side of her malfunctioning portable TV device, stands on her toes and speaks into her mic, delivering a full-throated update over the incessant sound of rumbling Cup cars.

“Dale Jr.’s about to pit… I think they’re going to four tires, so unless they call an audible, it’ll be four new tires for this No. 88 team.”

While the petite Spake has always been a fan of football, the tall and trim Little has a longstanding love for motorsports.

“I went to my first Supercross race when I was 15 and got all these autographs, came home … and put up the dirt bike posters and my mom was like, ‘What in the world just happened? I gave birth to a girl,’” the self-described tomboy laughed.

Little was raised on the West Coast and when her parents divorced, she followed her mother from Tahoe, Calif., to Las Vegas. She eventually launched a brief modeling career in L.A., and at the age of 20 began covering motorsports events pro bono — for more than two years — alongside an ESPN freelancer whom she first approached at a race.

She was hired by NBC Sports to cover the Gravity Games and when she heard that she’d never catch on with ESPN after that, since the event directly competed with the X Games, she called Rich Feinberg, ESPN’s senior coordinating producer since 1999.

“I tracked down his number … and basically sold myself to him for 20 minutes, saying, ‘Give me a shot at something,‘ and he’s my boss today,” Little said. “If I want (something) I go after it and it happens. (My career arc) was awesome because I didn’t have to go to the small markets and start in news. I had a passion for something and there weren’t many women, and so that was the key right there, is doing something where they needed somebody to fill that spot, and I was there.”

For both women, their gender has posed its share of challenges, as well — most notably the issue of earning respect in a male-dominated environment.
Both agreed that as long as they’re professional, work hard and display an understanding of the sport, the respect of the drivers and their garages becomes evident. Both, at this point, are clearly accepted in the pits.

Spake pops out of another pit stall and makes her way around a wall of tires. Another of her updates comes across on the ABC telecast.

“Kenseth spun on his own … he went a lap down.“

The respect that they’ve earned, however, has likely taken longer to obtain than it would for a man in the same situation.

And their relationship with NASCAR fans is a similar but separate issue.

Google either of their names, and in addition to ESPN, Web sites like “sidelinebabes.com” and “chickipedia — the wiki of hot women” appear in the browser. Of course, actions like Little posing nude (well, wearing a body paint bikini) for the cover of FHM Magazine five years ago feed into that, but the “they’re just a pretty face” mentality that some share is clearly an issue their male colleagues don’t have to deal with. Both used the term “flattering” to describe it all.

“I think to be a woman in a male-dominated sport, you have to embrace it all,” Little said. “If those Web sites want to say, you know, ‘Who’s hotter? Jamie or Shannon?’ — that’s just fun. They’re talking about us. That’s a good thing. That means they’re watching the sport and they’re watching our coverage on ESPN. So I accept it. If we were doing something we shouldn’t be, than those Web sites would probably be a lot more treacherous. If we were lingerie models on the side, it would be a lot different.”

Spake, recently married, relocated to be near family. Little, who is single, recently moved to cut her travel time to work. But both now own houses near Charlotte — and the similarities between them continue to grow.

The two both say they love working and growing together, pushing one another, being able to relate to and rely on each other — all while sharing their relatively unique situation.

Spake and Little, two very different women with very different backgrounds, have wound up at the same place, if not in their personal lives, than professionally speaking — working together as ESPN pit reporters. On Sunday they shared the infield at Martinsville Speedway.

“I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing, and it’s so much fun. It is a blast,” Spake said. “I’m so fortunate to be doing what I do.”

Jimmie Johnson does a burnout in Victory Lane to celebrate his victory under a green-white checkered finish. Four more Chase for the Championship races to go.

ESPN’s Mike Massaro interviews the winner as Spake and Little take care of post-race responsibilities. Spake gets ahold of the second-place driver, and her interview is broadcast live.

“You can see the smile on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s face. How good was this run today?”

Of course, It would be fair to ask Spake and Little the same question — and their answers would surely mirror Junior’s.

It was a good run, but there’s always room for improvement.