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Mike Joy
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Mike Joy (born November 25, 1949) is an American TV sports announcer, who currently serves as the lap-by-lap voice of FOX Sports' NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage. His color analysts are Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds. Joy has broadcast more than 30 Daytona 500's, NASCAR's biggest event. He also serves as Speed TV's expert analyst for their coverage of collector car auctions and vintage auto racing events.
In September 2008, FOX sent Joy to call a Minnesota Twins/Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball game.
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Mike Joy (born November 25, 1949) is an American TV sports announcer, who currently serves as the lap-by-lap voice of FOX Sports' NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage. His color analysts are Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds. Joy has broadcast more than 30 Daytona 500's, NASCAR's biggest event. He also serves as Speed TV's expert analyst for their coverage of collector car auctions and vintage auto racing events.
In September 2008, FOX sent Joy to call a Minnesota Twins/Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball game. In that game, the Rays clinched their first-ever playoff appearance.
Joy was raised in Windsor, Connecticut and graduated from West Hartford, Connecticut's Conard High School. His love of baseball was fostered by his father, who took Mike to games at Yankee Stadium, and his grandfather, who loved attending Cubs games at Wrigley Field anytime his grandsons came to visit.
Biography
Joy was born in Chicago, Illinois. While attending University of Hartford and later Emerson College, Joy began his public address work at Riverside Park Speedway in Massachusetts in 1970. He added Thompson Speedway in 1972 and in 1975 began working at Stafford Motor Speedway in Connecticut, joining Jack Arute, Jr., the son of the track owner, establishing the track as a hotbed for announcers. He began freelancing for NASCAR's radio network Motor Racing Network in 1976, joined MRN full-time in 1978, and rose to co-anchor, general manager and executive producer in January 1980. In 1981, he was the lead broadcaster for ESPN's first live NASCAR telecast in Rockingham, North Carolina.
In 1984, Joy became a pit reporter for CBS' TV coverage of the Daytona 500 1984, working with Ken Squier and Ned Jarrett.
Joy also launched The Nashville Network's NASCAR coverage in 1991, as lap-by-lap announcer, continuing through 1995, and also participated in NASCAR coverage on TBS.
In 1994, Joy was named as chief announcer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network inaugural broadcast of the Brickyard 400, holding the position through 1999.
In 1998, CBS made Joy their lap-by-lap announcer with Ken Squier moving to studio host, where the pair worked until the end of 2000, when CBS lost the rights to televise NASCAR racing.
He joined FOX Sports for three years of Formula 1 coverage in 1998 with Derek Bell, and moved full-time to FOX with the NASCAR TV package starting the 2001 season.
Joy's CBS career also included Formula 1 and CART, as well as coverage of the Winter Olympics, the Sun Bowl, harness racing's Hambletonian, pro beach volleyball and World Cup Skiing, plus NCAA championship events in soccer, swimming and diving, track and field, and wrestling.
An avid SCCA amateur race driver, he has won events at Lime Rock, Watkins Glen, Pocono and New Hampshire, and raced professionally in IMSA, including the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1993. He has tested in NASCAR stock cars and race trucks, and raced vintage TransAm cars and sports cars.
He previously had developed special events advertising for a Detroit auto manufacturer, managed and promoted a major auto racing facility, Lime Rock Park, and served four elected terms to the Windsor, Connecticut town council.
Joy was one of the first announcers to embrace the Internet. In 1997, he encouraged Usenet and Jayski readers to e-mail TV coverage suggestions that he could present in a CBS seminar. A member of many Usenet newsgroups, he reads them for preparation for broadcasts.
Joy resides on Lake Norman, in North Carolina with his wife Gaye and their two children, Scott and Kaitlyn. He restores vintage MG's, and retains his New England roots as CEO and equity partner in New England Racing Fuel, Inc., distributor of Sunoco Race Fuels.
Joyisms
- "Wild Thing" --Joy's nickname for NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, recalling Charlie Sheen's "Rick Vaughn" character in the movie "Major League".
- "He peed in his Wheaties"--refering to Darell Waltrip preparing his favorite breakfast cereal.
- "Engine, engine #9 is headed towards the finish line" --Referring to Kasey Kahne when he takes the checkered flag. This term is NOT an original, as it refers back to an old song.
- "Claim Jumper" --describes a well-funded and supported Sprint Cup driver racing in the Nationwide series and taking the top finishing positions and prize money from the Nationwide series regulars.
- "Buschwhacker" --same as above, when NASCAR's second series was the National Series. The name came from a usenet newsgroup discussion.
- "Silly Season" --the flurry of mid to late-season rumors about who would race for what team in the following year. Joy brought the term to NASCAR, attributing it to Henry N Manney, who covered Formula 1 racing for Road & Track magazine.
- "Overdrive" --Mike's term for the green-white-checker sequence that NASCAR uses to try to achieve a green flag finish when a race is under caution at the end of the scheduled distance. It has been pointed out MANY times to Mike that the term "overdrive" is a selection in a transmission, and has absolutely NOTHING to do with going past the designated amount of laps in a race.
- "Now it's time for "Let's you see what you've got" time--referring to the end of a race.
- "That car's just about gone"--referring to a wrecked car
- "Here's Kasey Kahne coming like yesterday's train"--referring to NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne.
- "The yellow line is your best friend"--referring to the yellow line on the bottom of the race track at Daytona and Talladega.
- "A melee ensues"--referring to "The Big One" a wreck at Daytona or Talladega.
- "The front cars are the fast cars. They are in clean air... behind them are the furious."-referring to the 2001 hit The Fast and the Furious.
- "If that wall has one more coat of paint on it, he hits it."
- "This... changes everything" --when a caution comes out altering many teams' tire and fuel strategy.
- "Money lap next"--the white flag
- "The throne of the king"--referring to Richard Petty's Pontiac (now Dodge).
- "(Driver) has made no friends making his way to the front"
- "What will they do?"--Mike wondering whether the drivers will pit or stay out during a caution period.
- "It's right about that time"--toward the end of a race.
- "The eye of the storm..."---Mike describing a pack of cars racing fiercely with high accident potential... while the "eye of the storm" is the calmest part of a hurricane, cars in "the eye" that trigger the wreck can often continue racing, while the cars behind them are swept up in the crash.
- "20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration, Dale Earnhardt will come to the caution flag, and win the Daytona 500 -- Finally! The most anticipated moment in racing - if John Elway can win the Super Bowl, Dale Earnhardt said he could win the Daytona 500." -- February 15, 1998, when Joy called Earnhardt's Daytona 500 win.
- "Have you ever?" to which Darrell Waltrip responds "No, I've Never!" --This series of lines was used after the finish of the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, when Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch had a last-lap shootout and Craven, running second, finally passed Busch after many attempts, and won the race by .002 seconds. The line was also used at the 2007 Daytona 500 when Kevin Harvick passed Mark Martin off the final corner to win. This time Waltrip responded by saying, "Well, a couple of times."
- "Put four wheels on a brick (or cockroach), and he could win races with it." --Mike describing Tony Stewart's driving skills.
" "Delmon Young could just watch that one leave." -- at the Minnesota Twins at Tampa Bay Rays game September 20, 2008, on calling Fernando Perez' home run. Joy (paired with Joe Magrane observed the Twins outfielder on his first home run call for Fox.
- "Rips one to right field . . . (goal horn sounds) long and gone for Cliff Floyd." -- same game, home run call on Floyd's home run in the 7th inning.
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