Motor power

His first newspaper story on auto racing was written at Eldora Speedway, a tiny dirt track carved out of western Ohio cornfields. He propped up his laptop computer on a box in a storage area and tied up one of the track’s few telephone lines to send his story to the Dayton Daily News.

Up until that day in 2005, Greg Billing had never covered a single race. He had been assigned to the Eldora World of Outlaws competition by his editors because he lived closest to the track.

“It was intimidating because I really had no idea what I was doing,” recalled Billing. “I just felt totally lost.”

But he loved it and went on to become the Daily News’ auto-racing writer.

And now — nearly 10 years after covering countless races at local tracks, NASCAR drivers and the Indianapolis 500 — the Wright State University graduate will be inducted into the Dayton Auto Racing Hall of Fame.

Wright State graduate and Dayton Daily News sports reporter Greg Billing will be inducted into Dayton Auto Racing Hall of Fame. (Photo by Will Jones)

When he got the call, the modest, soft-spoken Billing was more than a little surprised.

“Stunned,” he said. “I’ve always heard people say they were speechless, but I was actually speechless. I was trying to process it. It is a huge honor.”

Billing will be inducted Nov. 24 during a ceremony at the Celebrations Banquet Center in Vandalia.

The hall of fame honors drivers, car owners, media and other contributors to the sport. Members of the media already enshrine include the likes of longtime Daily News auto writer Leal Beattie, photographer Skip Peterson and broadcasters Omar Williams and Carl Day.

“I couldn’t do this without the support of my family — my wife Julie and my daughters Megan and Laura,” Billing said of his sportswriting career. “In this business you work many Friday and Saturday nights. I appreciate their understanding when it comes to my schedule, which allows me to do what I love.”

Billing was born in Troy and in fourth grade moved to nearby Casstown. He attended Miami East High School, where his love of sports and writing pointed him to a career in sportswriting.

When he was in high school, he landed a job with the Troy Daily News as a sports stringer. His first story was covering a Piqua girls basketball game, where he worried he would misspell Grunkemeyer, one of the players. (He didn’t.)

His first pro event was a Cincinnati Bengals football game, where he did a story on quarterback Jeff George.

“I was a senior in high school and was standing next to Jeff George,” said the star-struck Billing. He said he was too nervous to ask George any questions, so he just wrote down George’s answers to questions from the other reporters.

After high school, Billing enrolled at Wright State to study journalism.

“As soon as I got on campus, I found out where The Guardian was and put in my application,” he said.

At the student newspaper, Billing first worked as assistant sports editor and covered soccer. He later worked as sports editor, news editor and editor-in-chief. He managed the staff and was responsible for seeing that the paper was published and distributed on time.

“There were a lot of late nights here,” Billing said during an interview in the offices of The Guardian. “It’s midnight, 1 o’clock in the morning, and you’re trying to get the paper out and get it delivered to where it needed to be. It was fun but a lot of work.”

Billing met his wife, Julie, at The Guardian. He also oversaw the printing of the newspaper’s first color photograph, when the men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament in 1993.

After graduating in 1994, Billing worked for the Troy Daily News and then the Springfield News-Sun before arriving at the Dayton Daily News in 2001, where he covered high school sports and then auto racing.

Over the years, Billing has interviewed dozens of NASCAR stars.

“Tony Stewart is always good because he’s more of a local guy,” he said. “He grew up in Indiana and raced sprint cars around this area, so a lot of people know him and follow his career and really appreciate him.”

Billing’s first Indianapolis 500 was the one in 2006 when Sam Hornish Jr. passed rookie Marco Andretti on the final lap, about 450 feet from the finish line. It was the first time a driver made a pass for the lead on the final lap for victory in the history of the event.

“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’m here watching this,’” Billing said.

Billing says he loves covering auto racing because it gets him out of the office, offers something different every day and is filled with action and colorful, highly quotable personalities.

“It’s always kind of funny that I became an auto-racing writer because I could never do roller coasters — not a big fan of speed,” said Billing.

He recalled one white-knuckled experience when driver Jack Hewitt took him out for a spin in his sprint car at the dirt track in Waynesfield.

“You’re watching out the side, and you see the guardrail coming up, and all of a sudden it’s gone,” Billing said. “It just gives you an appreciation of what they do.”

Billing has become a master at dealing with deadline pressure and good at shifting gears to handle the always unpredictable outcomes of auto races.

His advice to aspiring sportswriters is to seek out internships and offer your services to news outlets in any way you can.

“The great thing now is that there are so many more opportunities,” Billing said. “Even if you don’t get paid for it, you can still write blogs, type up articles, put them out there and get attention.”