It’s an incident Mason Massey will never forget. In many ways it changed him fundamentally – and looking back, it ironically enhanced his confidence both personally and as an up-and-coming race car driver.
After dominating a Legends Series race at his home track of Atlanta Motor Speedway more than a decade ago, an 11-year-old Massey consciously decided to give up his sizable race lead in the closing laps to avoid having to do a post-race victory interview over the track’s public address system.
“I just let the guy behind me go at the end of the race,” Massey recalled. “And then immediately after that, I was like, ‘I will never do that again.’ The minute I did it, I regretted it.
“I was really young and not in a good place with my stuttering. When you’re that age, it’s hard and you just want to fit in and be like everybody else. But after that, I knew I would never do that again. And the next week, I won the race, hopped out and did the interview just fine. I had just been over-thinking it. It was all good.
“From that moment on,” the now 26-year-old Massey continued, “I was a race car driver and if you’re a race car driver, you need to win races. If I’m letting people go by and all that stuff, I’m not a race car driver. So, I wouldn’t really say that was a ‘breaking point’ for me, but it was a point I knew I’d never do that again. Win the race. Hop out of the car. Do the interview. Everything will be great and go home with the trophy.”
Massey has taken home hundreds of trophies over the years since and disseminated an equally as important dose of inspiration, too. After years of competition on-track, the NASCAR Xfinity Series driver is ready now to also make a real difference away from the track, to show what a strong belief in yourself and the fundamental good in others can do.
Massey was born with a stutter and he’s hoping that sharing his experience will be that difference for somebody.
RELATED: Xfinity Series schedule | At-track photos: Homestead
He’s certainly not alone in that challenge. Several other famous athletes and entertainers also have had stutters, from golfing legend Tiger Woods to dual-sport star Bo Jackson to NBA great Wilt Chamberlain and former Major League Baseball All-Star Game MVP George Springer. Golden Globe Award winning actors Hugh Grant and Emily Blunt also had stutters as did Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and the legendary James Earl Jones, who ironically is renowned for his commanding voice.
It’s a condition affecting more than 80 million people worldwide – including the current President of the United States, Joe Biden.
In 2017, Massey’s story of courage and perseverance was made into a short film “Dust & Dirt” – featured and applauded at the famed Sundance Film Festival.
Yet even in the years since the well-received and deeply personal film, Massey had not necessarily felt the comfort level to speak openly about his stutter. Until now.
“When I was little, I wouldn’t hardly say anything,” Massey recalled. “If I didn’t know you, I was just not going to talk to you. And I almost feel like, that’s worse for your mental health than if you just actually put yourself out there and said, ‘This is who I am. I have a stutter.’
“So just a few years ago, I was like, ‘I’ve been hiding this my whole life from people.’ Everyone has their own issues that they’re working on with themselves. And I was finally like, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve just got to be myself and show my personality to people. If I want to make it in this sport, I have to put myself out there. I have to talk to people. And it’s been really good, honestly.”
Just this week Massey participated in his first conference call with the national motorsports media – a nod to Sunday’s International Stuttering Awareness Day. And this weekend competed in the Baptist Health Cancer Care 200 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, driving the No. 08 SS GreenLight Racing Ford.
It also marked another chance for Massey to compete against one of his lifelong friends and an Xfinity Series championship contender. Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill, a golfing buddy and fellow Georgia native, came up the racing ranks with Massey.
“I’ve known him forever, so I’ve just known from a very young age about his stutter, but never thought anything about it,” Hill said. “People have brought it up to me, but I don’t even notice it because I’m around him so much and we’ve known each other so long. It’s just something natural I hear, not something that sticks out when we’re talking.”
Hill says he’s proud of his friend’s decision to speak publicly about his stuttering, but insists it’s never truly been a big topic of conversation between the two in their families’ nearly two decades of friendship.
“But I think it’s a great thing for him to do,” Hill said of Massey speaking publicly. “I thought for the longest time he wouldn’t really talk about it. I’ve never talked to him about the stutter; it was just something I was used to and never thought twice about.
“For him to start to show he does stutter and talk about it and help others is great and shows even though you may stutter you still have the confidence to go out there and do what you love, and he loves driving a race car. And, he’s really a good driver.”
NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott would agree. He and his NASCAR Hall of Fame father Bill Elliott fielded a late model car for the fellow Georgian as Massey was coming up through the ranks as teenager.
As with Hill, Elliott says Massey’s stutter was never an issue with the team and not something, honestly, that he ever really noticed. Certainly, it was nothing that solely defined his friend and protégé.
“I’ve known Mason for a long time and always thought highly of him and I recognize the stutter but in general, it’s very easy to get caught up in that or let that become your focus but for me personally I looked past that, that’s not who that person is,” Elliott said. “You’ve got to listen to what that person is saying, listen to who they are, the words they’re speaking, and I’ve already tried to live by that.
“I certainly admire him working through it and not letting that hold him back from doing what he wants to do. For me, I’ve just admired his drive and his passion to want to continue to do this and work so hard at it.”
MORE: Homestead weekend schedule
From as early an age as Massey can remember, he started therapy to help the stutter and build his confidence. He remembers being teased as a young kid, but says as he got older and made his way up the racing ranks, it wasn’t an issue and insists it never has been competing in NASCAR.
The Douglasville, Georgia, native still recalls making two-hour round-trip visits as a child to see Tim Mackesey, a leading speech and stuttering therapy specialist in Atlanta. Born with a stutter himself, Mackesey has a personal understanding of the struggles and the successes. He has worked with Massey for years and seen the progress.
“I would guesstimate he was only six or seven years old when I met him the first time and did some speech therapy, and then there was a break and he came back in high school,” Mackesey said. “He was already racing so here’s someone that’s come up with the courage and steely nerves, and I remember looking at this kid who had so much courage.”
The rigors of racing called for Massey to work through his condition, Mackesey says.
“Everything from talking into the microphone when racing and splitting your attention because you’re going into corner at 130 mph and talking to your pit crew, it’s trial under fire for someone who stutters,” Mackesey explained, his admiration for Massey unmistakable.
“It’s exactly what we who stutter need. Children who stutter – almost all of them – have a social anxiety because they’ve been teased and bullied and are afraid to speak up. Mason gives them a voice. He’s like, ‘I’ve been through it, be courageous and step up. You are more than stutter.’ “
Massey is the first to concede that dealing with his condition has made him more empathetic. One of his early racing sponsors was the Special Olympics of Georgia, and Massey grins thinking of the athletes he’s met over the years through that partnership. So many of them have kept in touch, encouraging Massey and wanting to know about his racing career. He’s become so fond of the group of athletes and been so inspired by their courage, he continues to volunteer with the group and carry the Special Olympics on his cars even outside of the sponsorship arrangement.
It speaks to the kind of person Massey is – to the way overcoming incredible personal challenges can actually make you stronger than having an easy lane in life.
“It was a heartfelt change for me and I feel like in my heart, I have a soft spot for people with all these different challenges they’re facing, no matter what it is,” Massey says with a smile. “I want to put myself out there so they can see me stutter and see me have this challenge I’m facing because they’re facing the same thing I am, and I want them to know they can follow their dreams like I’m doing.”
“It made it harder in the moment, but looking back I think it’s the whole reason I am where I am now. It was motivating to me. At the time, I didn’t really realize it was motivating but as I look back, it definitely made me want it more.”