Industry News: Former motorsports writer Ed T. Hinton dies at 76

Edward T. Hinton, an ESPN senior writer who specialized in motorsports before retiring in 2014, died Thursday at Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. He was 76.

He was born July 21, 1948, in Laurel, Mississippi.  Mr. Hinton was preceded in death by his parents Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Hinton (Alice); and his wife Pamela Snow Hinton. He was a member of the Episcopal Church in Greensboro, N.C.

Hinton, who graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in journalism, also wrote for Sports Illustrated during a celebrated 47-year career.

He retired from ESPN as senior motorsports writer. Throughout his 40-year career as a sports writer, he started out as sportswriter with the Laurel Leader-Call in 1970. He went on to write for the Orlando Sentinel, The Atlanta Journal, The National and The Chicago Tribune. Also, he was a senior writer for Sports Illustrated magazine. He covered mainly motorsports, but also college and professional football and baseball.

Hinton covered multiple sports and teams throughout his career, but found his sweet spot at the nation’s racetracks, where he relived the glory days of his youth. In his farewell entry at ESPN on Dec. 31, 2014, he noted that “most sports writers have grown up on baseball, football, basketball, maybe hockey, and so they cover what they know — what they played and watched in youth. I had one more in my background: auto racing. I’d started going to dirt tracks at age 10.”

“Ed wasn’t just a fine writer, he was a trusted friend. His wife, Snow, was the beacon that drove him to be the best he could be, and his son Tyler was the light of his life,” former ESPN.com motorsports editor K. Lee Davis said Saturday. “He was great under pressure, and in racing, there is always immense pressure. Most sports writers don’t encounter death all that often in their professional lives, but Ed did, and often. He handled it with grace, tenderness, but always a determination to answer the question of ‘why.’

“He wasn’t always liked, but he was always respected. He was the best of his generation, and a credit to ESPN.”

Hinton also wrote the book “Daytona: From the Birth of Speed to the Death of the Man in Black,” which was released in November 2002.