See spot see: tight racing has made the spotter—part coach, part emergency alert system, part seeing-eye dog—an invaluable part of a driver's team

Sporting News, The, July 22, 2002 by Mark McCarter

Pemberton: "Forty-nine hundred (rpms) from there, 4,900. Don't speed.... I'll bring you home. Get after it. Get after it! ... You got 'em lined up coming outside. I'll find you a hole.... You're all clear. Moving up the track. All clear."

* Sometimes, chatter between a driver and spotter is not so frantic.

"Every now and then, it can be funny," Bobby Labonte says. "It's not The Comedy Channel, but sometimes it can be more funny than other times. It depends on how the day is going."

Ty Norris shared this exchange with Dale Earnhardt Jr. during the pace laps of the Coca-Cola 600 in May:

Junior: "Whoa! Somebody just threw a beer bottle at the car."

Norris: "Yeah, NASCAR is talking about it too."

Junior. "It must've been Sterling Marlin that threw it because it was a damn Coors Light."

* The amusement on the radio isn't always intentional--or private, as race fans can tune into any car's radio frequency and listen to the entire race.

David Green was spotting his third race for Dale Jarrett when he saw Jeremy Mayfield go into a spin a quarter of a lap ahead at Charlotte.

"I told D.J. like I always do, `OK, spin in front of you, Turn 4.' I knew he saw it, so I didn't say anything else. Then Jeremy starts sliding up the hill. D.J. had already committed to going high. I was going, `Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!'

"When I got home that night, my wife was saying, `What does Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!' mean?'"--M.M.

Mark McCarter is a sports columnist for The Huntsville (Ala.) Times.