Joey Dennewitz Named NASCAR Managing Director Of Weekly And Touring Series

(Press Release from NASCAR Integrated Marketing Communications)

Facetiously, Joey Dennewitz likes to refer to himself as “the other kid from Akron.”

While NASCAR’s new Managing Director of the Weekly and Touring Series is not exactly the LeBron James of grassroots racing, the Ohio native hopes his motorsports savvy helps elevate his team in a way that resembles the basketball star’s impact on his squad.

Dennewitz enters his new role (overseeing Weekly and Touring Series competition) sporting a background cluttered with racing credentials. A former driver, he remembers at an early age being intrigued by the business and logistics sides of the sport as much as the art of competition.

“We were racing ASA Late Models, and I was finishing up at the University of Akron,” Dennewitz said. “I was getting approached by this agent, and I kept asking more business questions than racing questions. He was like, ‘Man, you gotta pick one.’

“I made the decision. I was not [racing] great; just OK. I just didn’t have the patience for it at age 21. The business of it was the next thing, and I’ve been fortunate enough not to need to get a real job ever since.”

Dennewitz of course has acquired plenty of “real” jobs since, and he’s served the motorsports industry in just about every manner possible.

The aforementioned agent in 2006 asked Dennewitz to spot for a young ARCA Menards Series driver named Michael McDowell, and at the end of that season, McDowell recruited Dennewitz to team owner Eddie Sharp’s shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dennewitz considers that move the break that led to his career in racing.

After helping McDowell with public relations and marketing work, Dennewitz accepted a role at Sparco, an Italian auto part and accessory company. It wasn’t long before he met and was hired by Jeff Dickerson, who at the time was working for Motorsports Management International. Dennewitz later worked for TJ Puchyr at Braun Motorsports.

Dickerson and Puchyr in 2010 founded Spire Sports and Entertainment. Dennewitz recalled becoming employee No. 3 at Spire, which in 2018 purchased a NASCAR Cup Series charter for Spire Motorsports.

The common thread in Dennewitz’s journey through motorsports is the strength of the relationships he’s developed. They began when Dennewitz was still in college; his first public-relations client was Landon Cassill.

Dennewitz knew Cassill’s father through a mutual racing friend in the Akron area, and it was Cassill’s father who hired Dennewitz to handle Landon’s interviews and pre-event pitches. Dennewitz and Landon Cassill remain best friends to this day.

“It’s a Mike Helton line, but this is a business of relationships,” Dennewitz said. “I always took that to heart and tried to emulate that.”

Growing up in Akron, where Goodyear’s presence cultivates a rabid culture of racing, Dennewitz acquired the motorsports bug from his grandfather, a driver himself. Dennewitz ran go karts, competing at tracks like the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Road America, before he climbed into an Allison Legacy car.

Success in those rides led Dennewitz to late models. He recalls winning in his third start at Ohio’s Mansfield Motor Speedway.

Now Dennewitz enjoys joking about his days behind the wheel.

“I thought Rick Hendrick was going to call me at any moment to come drive the No. 48,” he said. “I don’t know if he just didn’t get my phone number or what. But for some reason that didn’t happen.”

The experience Dennewitz gained from that part of his life, though, is a legitimate boon.

“At the time, I was building the car, setting it up, driving the car to the race track, building the marketing proposals, running the public relations and paying the bills,” he said. “I ran the family business and kind of understood a little bit of what it takes to do it all. As my career progressed, it was easy for me to relate to the drivers and what they were up against and the challenges they faced and the emotions they felt.”

Dennewitz’s experience both inside and outside race cars will be crucial in his new role at NASCAR. So will his passion for the grassroots level of sports.

For example, Dennewitz was instrumental in the process that led the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to compete at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway, in part because he recognized the entertainment value a half-mile dirt track can provide.

Another part of Dennewitz’s job at Spire Holdings was managing the digital assets of the organization’s minor league hockey teams. He loved that role, because he recognizes this level of sports as “a perfect breeding ground for new ideas.”

That’s what Dennewitz expects to bring to NASCAR’s Weekly and Touring Series operation.

“If you can dream it, you can do it,” he said. “You’re not afraid to take big chances. And you never know who’s going to come up with the next idea.”