Photo – Courtesy of the NASCAR Hall of Fame

Buz McKim hails from Hackensack, N.J. and was born into the sport of auto racing with a father who owned cars which competed in the NASCAR Sportsman and NASCAR Modified Divisions on northeastern race tracks in the early 1950’s. While still in high school McKim attempted a driving career, but, as a natural-born artist, found it was more profitable to paint the numbers on the cars instead.

He pursued a career in commercial art, creating many pieces of work used in Indianapolis 500 yearbooks of the mid-1970s and also designed many paint schemes for cars in NASCAR’s premier series during the 1970’s including the 1975 and 1976 Daytona 500-winning cars of Benny Parsons and David Pearson, respectively. McKim was commissioned by Anheuser-Busch to paint the official portrait of 1997 NASCAR Busch Series champion Randy Lajoie and 1998 champ Dale Earnhardt Jr. McKim later developed a line of limited-edition racing prints dealing with historical NASCAR moments from the careers of Richard Petty, Mark Martin and NASCAR legend Fireball Roberts. 

Always a historian, McKim became Director of Archives for the International Speedway Corporation in January 1999 after leaving the commercial art field and in 2003 accepted the position of Coordinator of Statistical Services with the NASCAR Public Relations Department.

Buz McKim has appeared in several television productions including Dave Despain: On Assignment, for which he won two Silver Tellies which is the equivalent to cable TV’s Emmys, the ESPN series Ultimate NASCAR, the Speed Channel biographies of NASCAR Hall of Fame members Bill France, Sr. and Bud Moore and most recently an episode of the popular show American Pickers. McKim was also co-host of the weekly radio show, “NASCAR Collector”, on Sirius Satellite Radio for several seasons.

Over the past decade he has become one of the foremost authorities on auto racing history. He wrote for the monthly publication, Racing Milestones, for nine years and has added his expertise to nearly 100 books on auto racing including The History of the 24 Hours of Daytona. Books written by McKim include the best-selling NASCAR Vault and its companion publication, NASCAR Families. 

In March 2007, McKim was named Historian for the new NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. The facility opened in May 2010 and McKim’s on-going quest has been to fill the Hall with new artifacts honoring the history of NASCAR racing. During this past summer, Buz McKim recorded the audio version of the best-selling book on early auto racing, “Driving with the Devil”, which will be released in the fall of 2012

Buz McKim resides in Rock Hill, S.C. with his wife Gwen. They are parents of two daughters and have five granddaughters.

Buz McKim in our next guest on Fan4Racing Fan2Fan NASCAR-NHRA Talk on Monday, December 2, 2013 at 8:35pm ET. NASCAR’s Hall of Fame’s new Glory Road exhibit will be a topic of conversation. Call 347-996-5176 during the LIVE broadcast to interact with Buz McKim and our Fan4Racing panel.