Clinton native and sportswriter Monte Dutton remembered; memorial service set for Wednesday

Monte Dutton, the Clinton native whose voice carried from NASCAR media centers to Friday night sidelines across the Carolinas, died Oct. 7. He was 68.

Colleagues from across the motorsports world have shared remembrances of a writer known as much for his storytelling and his guitar as for his deadline copy. Dutton had recently relocated to Saluda, North Carolina.

Hometown roots

Born April 8, 1958, in Clinton, Dutton was the son of the late Jimmy and Betty Davis Dutton. He played on Clinton High School’s 1975 state championship football team and graduated from Clinton High in 1976. He went on to Furman University, where he graduated cum laude in 1980 with a degree in political science and history. He was accepted to law school twice but chose to write instead. One of his earliest books, “Pride of Clinton,” published in 1986, chronicled the history of high school football in his hometown.

A career on the NASCAR beat

After college, Dutton worked in Furman’s sports information department before turning to journalism. He worked as a sports editor in South Carolina and later wrote for The Greenville News, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and the Gaston Gazette, which he joined in 1996 to cover NASCAR full time. For 17 years his weekly “NASCAR This Week” page was distributed nationally through syndication, and he also wrote for AOL Sports. Between 1993 and 2012, he covered roughly 40 straight points races and 20 straight All-Star Races at Charlotte Motor Speedway alone.

His peers recognized his work with the sport’s top writing honors. The Eastern Motorsports Press Association named him Writer of the Year in 2003, and the National Motorsports Press Association gave him the same title in 2008.

Fellow journalists remembered Dutton as a pivotal member of the NASCAR press corps for decades, a writer who could both inform and entertain, and one whose conversational style made readers feel he was talking directly to them. Several recalled his habit of pulling out his guitar late at night in the media parking lot to play for colleagues once the last stories had been filed.

Author and musician

Music was a lifelong passion. A devoted fan of alternative country and Americana, Dutton wrote songs, sang and played guitar, and he wrote “True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed” in 2006. That love of music ran through much of his fiction.

His nonfiction included biographies of NASCAR Hall of Famers Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, along with “At Speed” and “Postcards from Pit Road.” Fiction was always his goal, though, and beginning with “The Audacity of Dope” in 2011, he published a string of novels including “The Intangibles,” “Crazy of Natural Causes,” “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” and “Cowboys Come Home,” as well as a collection of short stories. He spent his final months completing his 10th novel and his first screenplay, “The Graduate Transfer.”

Return to local sports

After leaving the NASCAR beat, Dutton returned to the games closest to home. In his later years he wrote about Laurens County high school sports along with Furman University and Presbyterian College athletics, and he continued filing stories through mid-September of this year.

Early supporter of the Laurens County Buzz

That commitment to local sports extended to the Laurens County Buzz. When publisher Brenda Stewart launched the Buzz in September 2020, Dutton was among the first to lend his support to the idea of a free, community-focused news source for Laurens County. He served as a contributing sports writer during the publication’s first year, bringing the same insight and easy style to local coverage that national readers had known for decades.

“Monte was a multifaceted and enormously talented person, a gifted writer, author and musician who was highly regarded for both his reporting and his musings on life,” Stewart said. “When someone with his reputation believed in what we were trying to build and was willing to put his name and his talent behind it, that was high praise. His support during that first year meant more than he probably ever knew, and we are grateful for every story he contributed.”

Survivors and service

Dutton is survived by his sister, Ginger Sacarrere of Laurens; his brother, Brack Dutton of Virginia Beach, Virginia; nieces and nephews Ray Phillips (Jessica), Jake Phillips, Vince Phillips (Kendall), Ella Carr (Tony) and Sam McCollum; an aunt, Linda Davis; a cousin, Willard Davis; and many great-nieces and great-nephews. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his sister, Dee Dee McCollum.

A memorial service will be held Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. at the Gray Funeral Home Chapel of Clinton, 504 E. Carolina Ave., with Buddy Bridges officiating.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials be made to the Clinton High School Booster Club, P.O. Box 1131, Clinton, SC 29325, or the Furman Paladin Club, 3300 Poinsett Highway, Greenville, SC 29613-5684.