Al Pearce, a legendary NASCAR reporter and a member of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, died on Wednesday (April 9), according to Autoweek. He was 82 years old.

Raised in Rocky Mount, N.C., Pearce served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, then pursued a brief stint as a teacher before switching to sports journalism.

He was a correspondent for the Newport News Daily Press from 1969 to his retirement in 2004. He also wrote for Autoweek from 1973 until his retirement, and continued to file occasional stories for that publication until nearly the end of his life.

Over the course of his career, Pearce reported from various stops on the NASCAR circuit, including Daytona Beach and Indianapolis.

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He also authored 13 books on motorsports. His final title, an illustrated history called NASCAR 75 Years, came out in 2023.

Pearce covered the Daytona 500 for the first time in 1970, and he would go on to cover the event for a whopping 56 consecutive years. In 2024, he recounted some of his memorable moments from the Daytona 500 to the Daily Press. One of those was his account of Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001.

“Nobody thought it was that bad. We had seen way, way worse with a lot of people,” Pearce remembered of his initial reaction to the crash that killed Earnhardt. But when he started seeing the reactions of people close to the wrecked car, he realized it might be more serious.

“Things got quiet all of the sudden,” he related, adding that “It’s not an even tradeoff, but many of the safety measures NASCAR has instituted were a direct result of Earnhardt’s death.”

Over the course of his life, Pearce won an array of auto-racing journalism awards, including the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.

According to The Racing Experts, Pearce is survived by his wife Francie and daughter Annie.