A lot of people trudge into their office every morning and work, work, work until they can’t work anymore. Kendra Jacobs doesn’t consider herself one of those people.
Even on her off days, though, she has to be ready to work. It comes with the territory of being the media relations representative for one of NASCAR’s most-respected drivers, Mark Martin.
“Mondays are my days off which are awesome. I usually sleep in because we get home pretty late from the race Sunday night,” she said. “It’s a day off, but my computer is always on, my e-mail is always on and you just have to be prepared for anything and work if you have to.”
For Kendra Jacobs, work is life, and life is, and has been, racing. “My first race I was six months old in my mom’s arms in the grandstands,” she said. Her father was a sprint car World of Outlaws driver, and she grew up around the track.
In fact, she never knew anyone lived any differently than she did at a young age. “We used to leave the day after school ended with my dad and travel the country in a motorcoach,” she said. “We’d go to every race during the summer and we’d come back the day before school began and that’s how I lived my life. I thought every kid lived their life like that, I didn’t know there was any other way.”
“I spent every Friday and Saturday night of my childhood at the local dirt track, racing with my dad and that was really normal. Just growing up in the sport there’s nothing else I know like I know racing, so it’s a perfect fit that I have a job in racing—something I’m passionate about and knew that much about.”
She graduated from Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio, about halfway between Columbus and Cleveland. Originally, Jacobs had planned to get into sports broadcasting, but found out she had one major problem with that line of work.
“I have a major phobia of microphones. Not the lavalier ones,” she said pointing to her collar, where a lavalier mic would clip on. “But to hold a mic, I’d get really nervous. I don’t know if it was a mental thing or what, but, my counselor suggested, ‘Maybe you should get into something that’s a little less stressful.’”
So she ended up in communications, and an internship landed her as the head of PR for the World of Outlaws Gumout Series. That series is basically akin to what the Nationwide Series is in NASCAR. “I was their head PR person, traveled the country for a year, did 85 races or something that year. It was the most incredible internship ever. I was driving a little Saturn all over the country by myself. It was just crazy, not only work wise, but as a life experience,” she said.
“You learn so much about yourself as a person too and you say ‘I’m really growing up here.’ It’s kind of scary but at the same time it’s one of the best experiences of your life.”
After graduating, Jacobs sent out numerous resumes to both NASCAR teams in Charlotte and Indianapolis in hopes of staying in the motorsports business. After two years of trying she finally landed a job with a group called Performance PR in 2002. They needed an assistant to do PR work for Havoline, who sponsored the No. 28 car driven by Ricky Rudd that season.
After that one season with Rudd, Jacobs moved to do PR for Pennzoil and the No. 1 car of Dale Earnhardt Inc. That year the No. 1 car was a little bit of a revolving door, with drivers Steve Park, Jeff Green, John Andretti, Ron Fellows and Jason Keller all seeing some seat time. Starting in 2004, Jacobs worked with Ryan Newman in Penske’s No. 12 car. That job lasted two-and-a-half years before she landed where she’s at today.
Jacobs got a job with Hendrick Motorsports in 2006, and originally started with Kyle Busch’s Nationwide team. “I’d done Cup my whole career and thought maybe I want to cut back a little bit,” she said. “It’s extremely different to do PR for the Nationwide Series. People probably don’t see that but there’s an incredible difference there and I missed the Cup side of things.”
So in 2007, Jacobs found her home with the No. 5 car, piloted by Casey Mears. In 2009, Jacobs began working with the current driver of the No. 5 car, Mark Martin.
“The cool part about Kendra is she has roots in racing that go all the way back. She has grown up in racing and so she really understands the details and the nitty gritty of how things go. Good times, not so good times, good days, bad days, she really gets it,” the 51-year-old Martin said. “It’s huge to have someone that has that kind of rich history like she does.”
And even with all the changing of drivers, Jacobs is committed to Hendrick Motorsports. “We stay with the team, not the driver. And some people’s situations are different. There are other people who are extremely tied to their driver,” she said, before adding, “I work for Hendrick Motorsports and Rick Hendrick.”
Mark Martin fans everywhere love Jacobs for her tweets about the team and how their favorite driver is doing. But Martin has no inkling to join the social networking site anytime soon, so Jacobs will continue to tweet about Martin and the GoDaddy.com team. “I would look on Twitter, but they ask too many questions to form an account and I’m a very private person. All the questions they ask, all the e-mail addresses and all that stuff—they don’t need all that,” Martin said. “I don’t have access to Twitter because I don’t like when you have to put all that information in.”
This weekend is a particularly fun weekend for Jacobs, who notes that Indianapolis may have one of the best media centers of all the tracks NASCAR visits. “I actually really like the media center here at Indy, and it’s kind of for a funny reason. First of all there is a ton of room, which is really nice, but also because they serve red cream soda on the third floor,” she said with a smile. “The only bad thing about it is it’s so far away.”
But Indianapolis isn’t her favorite track to watch races at. “I love Richmond, love it. I just think the racing is really good there,” she said. And one of Mark Martin’s five wins in 2009 came at Darlington, another favorite for Jacobs.
“I like Darlington but I never go,” she said. “I think the racing there is fun to watch. Being there is great, there’s so much history but actually seeing the race, it’s incredible. I truly believe Darlington is the best race of the year.”
A typical week for Jacobs ends with a successful race, but her work week is rather full. Even though her Mondays are days off, she’s always ready to work. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are full of getting ready for the next race.
“In the back of your head you’re always thinking a month ahead,” she said.” What are the appearances I need to start pitching? Are sponsors starting this promotion? How can I get a leg up on that and start working now to get ahead?”
“You’re always kind of looking ahead, but knowing that things could change immediately. So you’ve got to be ready for that.”
One thing that rarely changes is traveling. In fact, Jacobs loves traveling, and who could blame her? She gets to travel across the country and hang out at NASCAR races, something every fan could only dream about. What’s her favorite trip to make?
“Sonoma is awesome. I hate the flight, that’s our longest flight of the year. But being out there…it’s just a fun trip,” she said. Every Saturday the day ends early and Jacobs said she enjoys hanging out in wine country and soaking up the California sun by the pool.
Even though Jacobs has been on the circuit for eight years, she admits that she, like many others, is a creature of habit. “The more you go on the road there are traditions. Like we know restaurants and where to go,” she said. “You know how your weekend is going to play out because you’ve done it the past 8 or 9 years.” In fact, she already knew her dinner plans for the evening. “St. Elmo’s, already have my reservations,” she said.
Many Mark Martin fans are aware of his passion for flying planes. Jacobs finally got to fly with Mark as her pilot earlier this year during the weekend of the Sonoma race. “It was the first time I flew with him and he actually flew,” she noted. “I was in the back by myself and he was flying and that was really cool to see that side of his life and know that he’s trusting you with this too, that’s really cool.”
Jacobs gets to know a lot about each NASCAR star, having access to so many drivers, and having worked with so many drivers over her career. Does she have a favorite beyond the man she works with on a day-to-day basis? “I really like Jeff Burton. And part of that is because I’ve gotten to see him and know him a lot more since he and Mark are so close,” she said. “Jeff is very well spoken. I’d use the word opinionated, but in a good way. I think Jeff is incredibly intelligent business man and he’s really good for the sport. I like Jeff Burton a lot.”
Burton and Martin were teammates at Roush Racing from 1996 to 2004, and Martin and Burton are still very close to one another, as Jacobs mentioned. In fact, Burton made some news on Friday afternoon by saying Martin should go try his hand at Formula 1 racing. Martin recently traveled to Europe and visited some F-1 race shops
“And Jeff jokes that if Mark does it he wants to be the manager and he’s serious about it. It’s joking but he’s serious,” she said.
Jacobs is 31 years old and absolutely loves her job, but she does face a constant question of how much longer she wants to do her job. “I just turned 31 and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do’ and it’s a really tough choice because I love my job, I love what I do and I think I’m good at it. I’ve done it for nine years” she said. “I think I know what I’m doing and I’m afraid to start over at something else because I’m afraid I’m not going to know what to do or I won’t be good at.”
“Being away from home as much as we are is hard and being a female is hard because I’m ready for my life to progress but in this job it’s hard to do that. You don’t have time off and if I wanted to get married and have children something is going to have to change. So it’s hard to keep this and get something else out of it. So there’s a constant pull of, do I want a normal life or do I want to keep doing the job I love?”
No matter what her final decision is, she knows that she loves her job with Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 5 team because of the people involved. “The best part about this job is the people. The guys on this race team—they are my family. I feel like I have 15 big brothers and it’s awesome because I left my family when I moved to Charlotte. I have no one, so these guys became my family.”
“It’s great to have that support system. When you’re having a bad day, these guys get it. They get that this isn’t easy. They understand that we’ve left behind a lot to do these jobs and we all have a compassionate shoulder for each other because we all know how hard it is and a lot of people that don’t see this just don’t get that.”
Martin was hounded on Friday about his future, and he became visibly upset about it during a visit with the media. Jacobs admits that it’s not easy hearing a lot of speculation about her driver and staying professional while media members fling theories around.
“It’s wearing because you have to present yourself in the right way, and that’s my job,” she said. “But in the same sense, I’m getting frustrated by it all too, and there are times when I lose myself in it and I have to remind myself, ‘Get yourself in check and be professional about this.’ You get frustrated because you’re in the middle of it but you have to step out and do your job.”
One other really fun part of Jacobs’s job is working with title sponsor GoDaddy.com. Mark Martin is relatively conservative and hasn’t done an advertisement similar to that of the more famous GoDaddy.com driver, Danica Patrick. However, Martin is becoming more comfortable with it according to Jacobs. “You might see Mark Martin take his shirt off on TV,” she said. “It might happen.”
No matter what happens with Martin in 2011, 2012 or beyond, Martin understands that Jacobs is one awesome PR rep. “She also has the perfect personality for the job. She’s so friendly and outgoing and she’s very dedicated. She loves what she does and she’s been a part of motorsports her entire life. That makes it great,” he said. “You always do a great job when you have a passion for your job.”
And that’s high respect coming from one of the most respected drivers on the circuit. For now, Mark Martin fans know where to turn to get information on their driver. And as long as Martin is at Hendrick Motorsports, he’ll have Jacobs to connect him with his fans via her Twitter account. Even though she may not be making headlines like her driver is, she’s definitely well followed.
I’ve never been more frustrated in my life. As I stood feet away from my childhood idol—who was growing more and more agitated with those surrounding him as the questions wore on—the professional media members, who gathered each week with Mark kept asking the same questions over and over again.
I walked up and introduced myself. (For the full story from 2009, check out this link: 
This year was full of fantastic stories on the blog, and I hope you tuned in to read the 160-plus (and counting) posts I have put up. Throughout the year I have had the chance to weigh in on NASCAR, college football, high school sports and much, much more. Yesterday I went through my posts a month at a time and checked them to find my favorite stories of the year.
Then came the low point of the year, when my grandfather passed away. Again, all I could do was write about it. Except, I had a difficult time putting words down on paper; it was that tough to write about. But, the end product was a blog that was once again shared by my family before my grandfather’s funeral, and a number of my mom’s relatives said they were crying as they read the story. Here’s the story “In Memory”: 
As the football season wound down and the first term of my final year as a student at UC wound down I had the ability to write a story about Dave Allen, the “West Side Musical Maestro,” as I called him. Dave Allen impacts hundreds and hundreds of lives each year with his work as Elder Glee Club director, St. William childrens and adult choirs director and director and conductor of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Orchestra. My story about DA can be found here: 
Listening to Mark share his wisdom that day with me, even if it was only for two minutes, reaffirmed why I love the now 51-year-old driver.
