Covering a race weekend in NASCAR takes a massive team. There are the crew members, the analysts in the booth or studio, and the pit reporters among others. One person integral to these efforts is Jamie Little, a Fox Sports reporter and one of the busiest people in motorsports.
Little, who has covered a wide variety of motorsports during her broadcast career, is a familiar face to NASCAR fans. She works as a pit reporter during the first half of the Xfinity and Cup Series schedules, as well as the entire year of Truck Series races. Little also made history in 2021 by becoming the first woman to handle play-by-play for a national series (ARCA Menards).
Taking on the extra responsibilities with ARCA only added to the amount of time that Little spent preparing each week, especially with Fox Sports making some personnel changes. Now she and coworker Regan Smith are the primary pit reporters each week for all three national series.
“I’ve had busy years — basically my whole life — but this year has been exceptional,” Little recently told Heavy during an exclusive interview. “And I think through COVID, our company just realized we needed to cut the corner somewhere and we lost a couple of pit reporters. So you have two of us doing the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. And then my grand idea of ‘I want to do play-by-play.’ So now I have ARCA on my plate.
“I am researching, studying all the time. And if I’m not doing that I’m on my phone looking at Twitter, going by storylines,” Little added. “I don’t just look at Twitter for fun and enjoyment. I have to follow ‘what are the breaking news stories’ because every single day we have news. I get to the racetrack, I want to know what the heck’s been going on. So it’s constant. I always tell people, it’s not a job. It’s really a lifestyle.”
Little Uses Strategy and Crucial Support to Balance Her Schedule
Fox SportsJamie Little works out with her Brute Force sandbag.
As a full-time pit reporter, Little is on the road for much of the year. She is constantly on the move covering races at Charlotte, Darlington, and other fan-favorite tracks on the NASCAR schedule. When at home, Little has many other responsibilities. She and her husband, Cody Selman, run two Jimmie John’s franchises in Las Vegas and the Nothing Bundt Cakes location in Indianapolis. They also have children at home keeping them busy.
Having such a packed schedule could become overwhelming for Little, but she has specific ways to balance her life. Little puts an emphasis on her personal health, even when on the road, finding time to get in quick workouts. Her husband also provides crucial support with the franchises and the home life.
“Right now, I’m tired. It’s been an insane month but I love what I do,” Little told Heavy. “So that keeps me going. That’s good. That gets me up early every morning. … My husband, I mean, I wouldn’t be able to do all this without him. He runs our franchises, he takes care of the kids, and all four dogs when I’m out of town. And you know, we’re just a team, and I think that’s the only way that you could have it all.”
Working as a team with her husband is a crucial part of finding success with this busy schedule, but Little also takes time to get her mind right with quick workouts. She has exercised in a variety of ways since the age of 16 and has a particular appreciation for group workouts at Orangetheory Fitness. However, she has changed her approach to fitness in recent years.
As Little explained, her husband discovered sandbags about five years ago and embraced the high-intensity workouts with the unique implement. She, on the other hand, stuck with her classes where the trainer provided instructions until a major life change.
“When I had my second baby, I looked at my husband, I was like, ‘I kind of like the sandbag thing, all I have to do is walk out in the garage, get a great workout in.’ And then I started really getting into it and realized you get an overall total body workout in 20 to 30 minutes. And there’s the workout of the days online that you just look up. I put them on the whiteboard and you knock it out. And I just love it.”
Little now takes her sandbag on the road and keeps her workout routine going. She doesn’t have to find a busy gym to get in a workout. She can spend $5 at Home Depot for a bag of sand, fill up the workout tool, and then bust out some movements behind the track while preparing for races.
Little Also Uses Her Busy Schedule to Support Important Organizations
Came down to Texas a couple days early…visited @austinpetsalive, a no-kill shelter serving the Austin community. Hundreds of dogs & cats need home. NHRA #TeamToyota driver @AlexisDejoria joined us. #ShelterSurprise
Along with running businesses and covering NASCAR races, Little has an important mission. She uses her travels around the country as an opportunity to highlight shelters and the animals in need of a loving home. Little grew up with a variety of creatures — whether they were dogs, hermit crabs, or horses — which shaped her love of animals. As she grew up, she saw specific ways in which she could lend support.
“It wasn’t until I got older that I started realizing there are shelters and that they’re really good animals there that people just give up for one reason or another, whether it’s financial or they get married or they have children,” Little explained to Heavy. “They give them up, and they’re great animals. Now, they’re just stuck in a crate or a kennel and they need a home.
“And I think that a lot of people for many years thought that they were just bad places. The dog pound, you know, pick those dogs up and they put them in these pounds. And they’re bad and they’re mean and they have behavior issues. That’s not the case, especially now. I mean, there’s so many amazing shelters.”
As she continued to learn more about the different shelters around the country, Little began using her platform to provide crucial education. Any time she heads to a city to cover NASCAR, she will find a shelter to highlight on her social media platform while also making a donation. Residents then see her feed and realize that there are some animals in need that they could potentially help.
A recent example was a trip to Austin for the first-ever NASCAR weekend at Circuit of the Americas. Little went to Austin Pets Alive! a local shelter that focuses on providing “innovative lifesaving programs designed to save the animals most at risk of euthanasia.” She learned more about the work that the organization does and then did what she could to educate others in the Austin area.
The Fox Sports portion of the Xfinity Series and Cup Series schedules may come to an end in Texas, but Little will continue to travel around the country. FS1 will broadcast both ARCA and Truck Series races as the drivers pursue the championship trophies, providing her with the opportunity to keep visiting local shelters and showing her support.
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Meet Jamie Little, the Busiest Reporter in NASCAR [EXCLUSIVE]