VETERAN SPORTS JOURNALIST TERRY BLOUNT NAMED VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS AT NHRA

GLENDORA, Calif. (-RIS-) – NHRA announced today that Terry Blount, an award-winning sports journalist, author and broadcast commentator, who has covered every major motorsports event as well as Super Bowls, World Series and NCAA Final Fours, among others, has been named vice president of public relations and communications. 

In his new role with NHRA, Blount will lead and create the strategic direction for corporate communications, media relations and public relations for the world’s largest motorsports sanctioning body. He will begin his position on July 30 and will report to Gary Darcy, NHRA senior vice president of sales and marketing. 

“Terry has a great passion for NHRA Drag Racing and his background as a world class sports journalist is second to none,” said Peter Clifford, NHRA president. “Terry is the consummate professional and has tremendous relationships with the national media as well as many high-level executives throughout the motorsports community. He is positioned well to lead our efforts to enhance and expand our current communications and public relations initiatives and drive increased awareness and attention to the sport.”

During the last decade as a popular sports columnist at ESPN.com, Blount covered national motorsports for seven years and spent the last three years covering the Seattle Seahawks. As the main beat writer for the Seahawks he also served as a television commentator for ESPN’s family of networks. Showing his ultimate versatility, he recently covered the 2015 U.S. Open golf championship at Chambers Bay in Washington.

Blount has vast knowledge of NHRA Drag Racing and covered the sport extensively during the last three decades as a senior columnist for ESPN.com and as a motorsports writer for several major daily newspapers in Texas.

“I have a true love of the NHRA and I can’t wait to get started on this new chapter of my career,” Blount said.  “This sport provides an intensity that can’t be matched and I am eager to begin the process of communicating my enthusiasm and excitement for NHRA’s unique brand of 300 mile per hour entertainment to media outlets around the globe.”

Prior to working at ESPN, Blount held sports writing jobs at several major newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and Houston Post. In 2009 he published his first book, The Blount Report: NASCAR’s Overrated and Underrated.

Blount is one of only three members of the media wing of the Texas Motorsports Hall Fame. He was inducted in 2011 when Richard Petty and John Force entered the Hall. He is a past recipient of the Hearst Newspapers Citation of Writing Excellence as well as a recipient of the Excellence in Journalism Award from the Houston Press Club.

Blount holds a bachelor’s degree in Radio/TV Communications from the University of Houston. He will reside in Southern California.