CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Dick Berggren has always been a man of many words.
However, for more than three decades on television and even longer in print, those words revolved around telling the stories of others.
Friday night at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Charlotte Convention Center, it was Berggren’s story that was finally told en masse, as he was honored with the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence.
It was a turning of the tables – and an honor – that Berggren noted he was nearly at a loss to describe.
“I’m just kind of coming to grips with what’s happened today, to be honest with you,” Berggren told SPEED SPORT. “Despite the fact that I held a microphone and looked into a camera for so many years, I’m kind of a shy guy. To have what’s happened in the last couple of days happen to me, it’s been a little overwhelming, to say the least. … I think it’s going to take me a little while to grab ahold of this.
“It’s pretty special, though,” Berggren continued. “I mean, at my age … after all the years that I spent going to the races and trying to tell America what was going on and what I saw, to have it result in something like this where you get applause and something appropriate to put on the wall at home, it’s really special and I feel very, very lucky.”
Berggren, a 31-year veteran NASCAR pit reporter who also served as the editor of both Stock Car Racing and Open Wheel magazines and later founded Speedway Illustrated, started as a college professor by trade but first showed his talents in racing as the PA voice at Maine’s Arundel Speedway.
Before he jumped behind a microphone, Berggren first drove stock cars and modifieds in his own right in the Northeast. And yes, that driving tenure came with its own unique story, too.
“There was a time when I was trying to run a modified and a sprint car, actually, and somehow I wound up one Monday morning with the only thing I could use to get myself to (college) classes being my ramp truck with the sprint car on the back,” recalled Berggren, who was teaching at Emmanuel College in Boston, Mass., at the time.
“I parked it in the faculty parking lot, and about 20 minutes later there was a PA announcement that said, ‘Dr. Berggren, please report to the President’s office.’ She wanted to know what that thing was in the parking lot and how fast I could get it out of there!” Berggren continued, to a peal of laughter from the crowd. “I explained to her that car was all I had in life, and how I had every dime I could (put) into that thing and that I wasn’t about to put it out on the streets of Boston.
“Needless to say, that was the end (of that job).”
The end of Berggren’s driving days led to his start in announcing, and later, in television.
It was a profession that longtime NASCAR on FOX lead voice Mike Joy joked he and Ken Squier dragged Berggren into “kicking and screaming,” but it was a match that led to countless memorable moments for NASCAR fans.
Of course, there were just as many memories that Berggren himself holds dear to this day.
“I wanted to interview people who would interest the audience to the point that they cared about what was going on and wanted to stick with the broadcast,” Berggren explained. “If I needed to fill five minutes, Kenny Wallace was always a good go-to, because you could ask him almost anything and he would be interesting and fun. Then there were people like Bobby Alison, who you could ask almost anything and he would give you entertaining content … and those were the things I looked for.
“I’ve made a lot of great memories in this sport. I’m privileged to have played such a part in it.”
That part included far more than just NASCAR coverage. It also featured years of short-track racing journalism through the two magazines he edited, as well as the one he founded.
Berggren’s love affair with grassroots motorsports is one that he summed up in a way that only he could on Friday night.
“Have you ever looked at a woman and fallen in love right then and there?” Berggren asked. “That’s how it was for me the first time I went to a short track event. I fell in love with it.”
And as he held the Squier-Hall Award commemorative medal and overlooked a throng of assembled media members Friday night, Berggren also imparted some advice given to him at the very start of his career some four decades earlier.
“I’ll always remember what I asked (SPEED SPORT founder) Chris Economaki when I first got started doing radio and television. I said, ‘What advice have you got for me? What should I do to make something of myself in this and to do a good job?’ And he just looked at me and sternly said, ‘Dick, ask a good question,’” Berggren said. “Too many of today’s journalists make a statement. So ask a good question.
“There’s a lot of interesting people that participate in automobile racing. Tell their stories, ask good questions of them. That’s what I want people to remember and to keep doing.”
Past recipients of the Squier-Hall Award include its two namesakes, Ken Squier and Barney Hall, as well as Economaki, Tom Higgins, Steve Byrnes, Benny Phillips, Norma “Dusty” Brandel and Steve Waid.