From the dairy farm to the asphalt ovals of NASCAR

When he first joined the Performance Racing Network in 1988, Doug Rice's position was a lonely one.

He was PRN's only employee. Then again, there wasn't all that much to do -- so a bigger staff wasn't really necessary.

"I was the sole proprietor of PRN -- because in 1988, we only had two races. We were on the air six days a year," Rice said. "We did a 30-minute Pole Night wrap-up show. We didn't even do qualifying live. We did the Busch race on Saturday and the Cup race on Sunday for the two Charlotte races and that was it. Six days a year."

My, how times have changed. Now PRN is responsible for all radio broadcasts of races at tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc., which includes this weekend's Coca-Cola 600 plus the Busch race over Memorial Day weekend, and nine other Nextel Cup events.

Plus PRN produces several other shows that are distributed to a wide array of radio stations throughout the United States, as Rice, now PRN's president and general manager, presides over a staff of nine full-time and 15 part-time employees.

"We do 10 Cup races a year and eight Busch races. And of course we do qualifying with all of those," Rice said. "We produce four weekly shows -- Fast Talk, which used to be Fast Talk with Benny Parsons, and now we have the four drivers co-hosting that in Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, Elliott Sadler and Kyle Petty," Rice said.

"Then we have Pit Reporters, which is in its seventh year and has really been a nice hit for us. We do Sunday Drive on Sunday nights, which is sort of a weekend race wrap-up. And we do a very successful country music-racing hybrid show called Racing Country that's on 315 stations and has been around a long time. So we produce all of those shows, plus a daily show that Mark Garrow does for four minutes, five days a week [called Garage Pass].

"So we have gone literally from six days a year on the air to every day of the year for the last 19 years. And we produce the mid-day show for Sirius, The Driver's Seat. That's a PRN production for Sirius satellite."

Rice also has branched out to do work for DirecTV. When he's not working a race for PRN, he follows a specific driver in an event and finds that by working in that capacity for DirecTV, it helps him when he teams with Garrow to co-anchor race broadcasts for PRN. (Continued)