Categories: OLD Media Moves

ACBJ kills NASCAR Illustrated

American City Business Journals, the Charlotte-based parent of more than 40 print and online newspapers, has decided to stop publishing its NASCAR Illustrated publication.

In an email to the staff, CEO Whitney Shaw writes:

I wanted to let you know that we are closing NASCAR Illustrated.

Obviously, we don’t make decisions like this lightly nor do we ever forget that peoples’ lives are affected.  Unfortunately, I simply did not see a pathway to profitability in an environment that is becoming increasingly digital and where the economics of newsstand sales have changed so dramatically.

The final issue of Illustrated is currently at the printer.

It’s the second NASCAR publication that ACBJ has ended. In early 2010, NASCAR Scene, a publication that started in 1977, was closed and merged into the monthly NASCAR Illustrated.

NASCAR Illustrated has a circulation of 85,000, according to ACBJ’s website.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

View Comments

  • My Daughter and Son in-law bought me this subscription for Christmas, I couldn't wait for it to get here. It's truly a shame a great magazine dedicated to our sport is not going to be with us any longer.

  • I just started receiving this magazine and I have to say it is the first time that I read the whole magazine cover to cover.
    Yeah things are going digital but I myself as many others rather have the actual magazine. I don't get how this could just end, I am very disappointed with with this news. Also how is it going to work for people that have a subscription for a year and have paid for it? I think this should be reconsidered of not pulling the plug. This magazine means a lot to me and I get so much out of it. So now getting back to the people that already have subscribed to this magazine like me I have it till the end of the year, which I spent $40.00 on and if there are not going to be anymore issues is there going to be refunds for us?

  • How can you not see the profits?? Lots of people buy this magazine, and also subscribe to it.

  • I hope you put Tony Stewart's Sonoma win on the cover. And please refund the balance of my subscription!

  • I did see a change in the magazine from last season to this season. However it is the best Nascar magazine there is on the market. I love the quality pictures and the well written articles. Just one more way to to let the fans down.

  • Its obvious from the replies to the below comments that no one cares about the customers that made them money over the years enough to reply to any of the comments.

  • My husband currently a subscriber to NASCAR Illistrated would have been a long time reader, and just when he finds it, enjoys it, oof the shelves it goes , wish there was a way to convince you in the "power" could see a way to publicating the magazine,an answer to a higher power!

  • the subscriptions have been transferred to a different publisher and will be completed by either Road & Track or Car & Driver. the phone number to call is 800-876-8316 if you have questions or want a refund. they didn't have a lot of info about why since they aren't ACBJ Publishing.

    • I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET MY MONEY BACK I PAID UP TILL 02/01/18 SO THEY OWE A GOOD BIT OF MONEY AND I WANT IT BACK TODAY I RECEIVE A MAGAZINE CALL CAR AND DRIVER THAT SAID THAT WOULD BE SEND INSTEAD I DO NOT WANT THIS I AM 79 YEARS OLD I WANT MY MONEY BACK, I LOVE NASCAR MAGAZINE I GAVE ONE TO MY GRAND DAUGHTER FOR CHRISTMAS

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