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Lenny Batycki: Champion of the People

Industry veteran shines a national spotlight on grassroots racers

By Dan Hodgdon

Once upon a time, Lenny Batycki was part of Dale Earnhardt’s long-awaited Daytona 500 win. Every so often, he puts on the champion ring and relives that day from his time as a VP at Richard Childress Racing. But now, more than a quarter-century later, he’s perhaps known just as much for spotlighting grassroots racers around the country. He does so on his radio program, “PRN at the Track,” and through various other motorsports vocations.

The Intimidator’s triumph in the Great American Race may seem worlds apart from a shadetree mechanic who just won his first Mini Stock feature at the local dirt track. But Batycki speaks about each with the same passion. Both drivers’ accomplishments represent the fulfillment of lifelong dreams and ambitions.

Lenny Batycki is one of the most knowledgeable voices on all forms of motorsports throughout the United States.

The gregarious Batycki takes special pride in telling every racer’s story at every level with a human touch.

“We're not a racing show, it's really a people show,” he says of his radio program. “If I can get somebody's personality to bloom enough in seven minutes that a listener somewhere will go online and find out more, that’s the opening towards a new fan and a growth for our industry.”

The half-hour program features multiple interviews each week and airs on Performance Racing Network (PRN) affiliates. It’s also available in podcast form. The show began in April 2013 and boasts nearly 1,000 episodes featuring interviews with 1,500 individuals, including approximately 150 women involved in the sport.

In the 1980s, Batycki was among the nation's preeminent BMX announcers.

Batycki has touched nearly every facet of motorsports in his diverse career, but he didn’t grow up a diehard stock car fan. He liked drag racing and had the “Snake and Mongoose” Hot Wheels as a kid in South Florida, but he cut his teeth calling BMX bicycle events in the 1980s. He was renowned as one of the country’s best announcers and often appeared on the still-fledgling ESPN. There is even a “really cheesy” (his words) how-to video called “Totally Awesome BMX” still floating around YouTube.

During his BMX days, several individuals recommended Batycki try announcing automobile races. At first, he wasn’t that interested, but the pay increase convinced him to give it a try. He first called stock car and drag races at the now-defunct Miami-Hollywood Speedway in Pembroke Pines, Florida. With his reputation growing, he began to look for new opportunities, and PRN’s Mark Garrow gave him a chance to work a Busch Series race at Orange County Speedway in North Carolina.

In the fall of 1989, he worked with PRN on pit road during the Cup Series race won by Ken Schrader at Charlotte Motor Speedway. There he met another legendary motorsports broadcaster in Pat Patterson, for whom Batycki worked at the following February’s Daytona 500.

That relationship led to an opportunity at North Carolina Motor Speedway – now Rockingham Speedway – bringing Batycki to North Carolina and helping him get fully immersed in the racing world in the Tar Heel State.

Batycki with Dale Earnhardt after a win at Rockingham. Later, Batycki worked alonsgside The Intimidator at Richard Childress Racing.

“I was there from ’90 until the last day of ’95, those years were a transition from the past to what was becoming racing’s greatest days when the grandstands were packed and new tracks were being built and everything else,” Batycki says of his time at Rockingham.

His final title at the track was vice president of marketing.

Through some of his concurrent announcing work at Rockingham Dragway, he got to know Jim Turner, the owner of Ace Speedway in Altamahaw, North Carolina. In 1990, the track’s longtime announcers, Leon Setzer and Terry Wiles, lost their lives in an automobile accident. Turner turned to Batycki, who began a stint of nearly half a decade calling races at the 4/10-mile oval, many of which featured the era's grassroots stars.

Batycki announced at Ace Speedway for more than five seasons in the early 1990s.

In the latter half of the 1990s, Batycki joined Richard Childress Racing, where he was responsible for closing many sponsorship deals and was part of Earnhardt’s historic Daytona 500 win. However, much of his grassroots work stopped during the period. And although Batycki found much success with the Childress organization, he was also part of the team when Earnhardt passed away at Daytona on February 18, 2001.

As it did many, Earnhardt’s death affected Batycki on a deeply personal level and he left the team one year and a week later.

Batckyi hosted a grassroots radio show in the St. Louis area during his time at Gateway. That experience served as a precursor to his work with "PRN at the Track."

He next worked with Ogilvy PR negotiating global motorsports deals, did consulting work for teams, and was part of Biagi-Denbeste Racing in what was then the NASCAR Busch Series before the team closed its doors. In that time, he also began calling Legend and Bandolero races during the Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a program he is still part of today.

In 2007, he moved to the St. Louis area and worked as general manager at Gateway International Raceway, today World Wide Technology Raceway.

“Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace were godfathers to me of sorts out there,” Batycki says. “I could turn to them for anything, and they said you’ve got to go with us and go out to all these grassroots tracks. My promoter mentality had always been based upon the old-time promoters anyway – I read a lot about the ’20s and ’30s and how they promoted in the Depression – and I just read more and more and more and then went to tracks. That was really where my passion for grassroots came from.”

When he and his family returned from St. Louis in 2010, his wife was battling stage IV head and neck cancer. However, she survived the life-threatening ordeal. Understandably, Batycki's priorities were with his family, and he could only call races on rare occasions, but he again became part of the racing circle in the Carolinas. He was hosting events shown on the big screen at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and received word that Speedway Motorsports president and CEO Marcus Smith wanted a grassroots radio program. Batycki was tapped to host, having helmed a similar program focused on the St. Louis area.

In the spring of 2013, “PRN at The Track” was off and running.

Batycki has his finger on the pulse of grassroots motorsports across the country.

Batycki’s depth of knowledge of the grassroots scene today may be unmatched anywhere in America.

“The secret sauce is social media,” Batycki says. “I was an early adopter of it. I just liked watching social media, especially X (Twitter), because of the flow. I really just watch certain people and see who has big stories and try to connect them.”

Additionally, Batycki tries to find stories close to PRN affiliates. For instance, multiple stations in the Pittsburgh area broadcast his show, so Batycki focuses on the region every couple of months.

The Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been part of Batycki's resume for two decades. Over the years, he has interviewed countless young drivers.

Over the years, he’s spoken with guests about topics ranging from a driver’s father passing the week of a win, to a female Sprint Car racer who competed shortly after giving birth. The show enjoys a long relationship with sponsors and has provided a springboard for many of its guests to pursue new opportunities.

Batycki hosts the show at Charlotte Motor Speedway each week, believing it gets him in the right mindset. Perhaps the biggest challenge for both guests and host is trying to cover as much as possible in each seven-minute interview window.

“It is speed dating, it's like hot-lap qualifying and I get to be the rudest host there is because everybody has their vision of how to answer the question,” Batycki says. “I try to prep them ahead of time that it’s two to three sentences, because we need to get through four or five questions to give an idea of who you are to the listeners. If they go over that two-and-a-half or three-sentence response I've got to cut in and do my best to edge them back so that we can get more depth in a short amount of time.”

Batycki outside the media center at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In addition to his radio duties, Batycki did a stint as the communications director at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the 2010s. Today he can be found announcing at Charlotte and Atlanta Motor Speedway, pit reporting on multiple streaming services, and generally popping up across the motorsports landscape – from the NASCAR Cup Series to the most remote dirt tracks.

In April 2025, the Charlotte AutoFair “Most Original” trophy was named for Batycki, 30 years after he called a BMX event at Charlotte Motor Speedway and two decades after he began announcing events during AutoFair at the track.

“It’s just been an amazing career; people have trusted me enough to put me in situations that I wasn't prepared for and probably wasn't very good at until maybe the last bit and then I left to go somewhere else,” he says.

He speaks highly of those who let him be part of their successful endeavors. Now, he is helping individuals across the motorsports industry tell their own unique stories of success.

And his own accomplishments speak for themselves.

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