Terry Blount, the NHRA’s vice-president of public relations and communications, and track operator Jason Fiorito announced that the Pacific Raceways press room has been renamed the Joe Sherk Media Center.

“We’re really happy to be able to do this Joe,” Blount said. “You’re a really important person in the history of the sport and especially this particular track at Pacific Raceways.”

After saying, “You got me,” a surprised Sherk, 72, former Seattle Post-Intelligencer sportswriter and retired public-relations representative, said, “I’ve never had to really work a day, because it was not work. I did it because it was something I thoroughly enjoyed and the people I worked with were absolutely incredible. When you find something that you can do and you enjoy the people around you, it’s not work. Those 32 years went by very quickly.”

Funny Car driver Ron Capps, on hand for the presentation, said, “Our sport has grown so much. When I came in, we had to go out in these small areas and get on our soapbox and preach about our sport and how much we want people to come out. We had a lot of fun doing it. I had Joe as a mentor. I got to hear some of the best stories. Anybody new in the PR ranks, the stuff that you could have learned from them. It was about taking care of the media. It was personal thing. We built relationships. Thank you, because there’s no way I’d be where I am today without everything you taught me.”

Blount, himself a longtime sports journalist, said his first drag race was in the late 1980s at Houston. “Joe took me out to the starting line, and I was wearing a white shirt. And I think he did it on purpose. That shirt, I threw it away after the night, but I fell in love with drag racing on that day.”

Brandon Mudd, of Performance Racing Network and High Side Media, came to NHRA drag racing from the NASCAR side of motorsports. He said, “I had never been to a drag race, and Joe never talked down to me because I didn’t know. You’re the reason why I fell in love with the sport, and now it’s what I do.”

Fiorito said, “Joe’s been around my grandfather’s track since its inception and not just with NHRA drag racing. When the Can Am cars and Indy Cars and Mark Donohue and Mario Andretti and Phil Hill were racing here, Joe was covering that. He’s been intertwined with Pacific Northwest Racing for the 56 years Pacific Raceways has been in existence, and it’s fitting that for the next 50 or 60 or 70 years your name’s going to be on the door, not only for the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series but all the road racing we plan in the future. This room is dedicated to you from now on. I am humbled to be in the presence of a Northwest racing icon.”

Sherk was sports editor at the Bremerton (now Kitsap) Sun in the 1960s (assuming that role 51 years ago at age 21) before he left to cover prep sports, motorsports, and the Seattle Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Tacoma News Tribune. He also worked for the NHRA in the media relations department.

He became director of public relations for R.J. Reynolds/Winston's drag-racing involvement in 1981, then was a member of the NHRA Media Relations Department from 1983-88. He established Joe Sherk Public Relations. During the years he has represented such drag racers as Capps, Larry Dixon, Tommy Johnson Jr., Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Warren and Kurt Johnson, Clay Millican, Doug Herbert, Cruz Pedregon, Gary Beck, Ed "The Ace" McCulloch, JR Todd, Steve Torrence, Kenny Koretsky, and Tony Pedregon.  

Sherk’s adult daughter Lynn shared Saturday that her mother and dad chose Wednesday, August 1 for her birthdate so it wouldn’t conflict with that other blessed event, 64 Funny Cars at this racetrack. “So Lynn literally has had to give up things for drag racing since the day she was born,” Blount said. Sherk’s public-relations colleagues and media members were on hand, along with his son, Neil, sister Sally Henning, and family friends Kathy Powell and Dale Osgood.

The project was the brainchild of Chris Horn, a former NHRA Top Fuel crew member, longtime fan of Sherk’s writing, and occasional Competition Plus contributor.