Ed Hinton, longtime ESPN and Sports Illustrated NASCAR writer, dies at 76

Posted by author February 9, 2025 Sports

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Longtime NASCAR and motorsports writer Ed Hinton died Thursday in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. He was 76.

Hinton, a native of Laurel, Mississippi, who attended Ole Miss and graduated from Southern Mississippi, retired on Dec. 31, 2014, after a 47-year career. He was a senior writer for ESPN at the time.

Hinton covered many sports, including NASCAR, starting out at the Orlando Sentinel in 1974. He moved to The National Sports Daily in 1989 and after it folded went to Sports Illustrated, where he covered the NFL, MLB and college football along with motor racing.

Hinton did not become a full-time auto racing writer until 1996 when Sports Illustrated decided to devote more coverage to NASCAR because of its growing popularity.

In 2000, Hinton went to work for the Tribune Company newspaper chain, and his stories were published in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel and other papers.

After eight years with the Tribune Company, Hinton was hired by ESPN.

“Ed wasn’t just a fine writer, he was a trusted friend. His wife, Snow, was the beacon that drove him to be the best he could be, and his son Tyler was the light of his life,” former ESPN.com motorsports editor K. Lee Davis told ESPN.com. “He was great under pressure, and in racing, there is always immense pressure. Most sports writers don’t encounter death all that often in their professional lives, but Ed did, and often. He handled it with grace, tenderness, but always a determination to answer the question of ‘why.'”

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on X @MikeOrganWriter.