Jayski's Silly Season Site

Jayski's Silly Season Site is a web site focusing primarily on NASCAR news and rumors. The website was founded by Jay "Jayski" Adamczyk in 1996 after he had difficulty finding news regarding the Melling Racing team, and subsequently worked to get all NASCAR news grouped together on the site.[1] The site was purchased from Adamczyk by ESPN in 2007; after ESPN shut the site down in January 2019, Adamczyk reacquired the rights to Jayski-related properties in April 2019 and rolled out a limited version of the new website with a full launch occurring on May 13, 2019.

Jayski's Silly Season Site
Logo prior to 2017, 2019–present
Type of site
NASCAR
Available inEnglish
OwnerJay "Jayski" Adamczyk
Created byJay "Jayski" Adamczyk
URLwww.jayski.com
Commercialyes
RegistrationNone
LaunchedAugust 26, 1996
Current statusActive
over 500,000 daily page views

The term silly season refers to the period near and after the end of the annual NASCAR season when many teams seek to make changes to prepare for next season.

Website

The name for Jayski's Silly Season Site is a reference to the midpoint of the NASCAR season when rumors within the sport most often circulate.[2] The main feature of the site is a "News and Rumors" page for the major three NASCAR series.[3] The sites also hosts pictures of the paint schemes used by teams throughout that year, television schedules and tributes to deceased drivers.[4] The site also lists series statistics and external links to teams and drivers.[5]

History

Adamczyk founded the site in 1996 and used his moniker from his time in the military, Jayski, to brand the site.[4] On December 3, 1999,[6] Adamczyk quit his job as a computer programmer for the Federal Aviation Administration to work on the site full-time.[7][8] Two years later, Jayski's content began to be featured on Knight Ridder's racing website, That's Racin'.[7] That freed Adamczyk from several business commitments (such as advertising),[9] and enabled him to focus solely on creating content,[9] and hosting external links to newspaper and magazine stories on the NASCAR world.[6][7] In January 2004, sports network ESPN began to host Jayski.[6]

In early April 2007, as part of its renewed interest in NASCAR following re-acquisition of broadcasting rights, ESPN purchased Jayski.com.[10][11] Jayski underwent a stylistic overhaul in August 2009.[4] The site was redesigned in early 2017, becoming part of ESPN.com,[12] but Adamczyk continues to operate the site on a daily basis with a staff of two.

Jayski's Silly Season Site was featured in Time's The 50 Best Websites of 2011.[13] Jayski ran a podcast until 2013.[14][15] Adamzcyk had later expanded the Jayski staff to include two other employees to compile information about NASCAR.[16]

On January 28, 2019, ESPN ceased operations of Jayski.[17] The move was part of a wider exodus from NASCAR for ESPN, which also let go of reporters Ricky Craven and Bob Pockrass over the 2019 offseason.[18] Many within the NASCAR community expressed gratitude for the two-plus decades that Jayski ran online.[19]

The domain of jayski.com was acquired back from ESPN in April 2019, and a partial site was rolled out while the search for a new web host partner began.[20] A full site, now hosted by NASCAR Digital Media, was revealed on May 12, 2019.[21]

References
  1. Sigala Jr., Sal (July 25, 2009). "Jay Adamcyzk (a.k.a. Jayski): Congratulations On a Job Well Done". bleacherreport.com. Bleacher Report, Inc. Retrieved July 25, 2009.
  2. Mosher, Geoff (September 25, 2005). "Jayski.com grows with NASCAR – A relaxing day leads to a one-man empire". The News Journal. Archived from the original on December 14, 2005. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  3. "Jayski Named Grand Marshal for ARCA Race". www.charlottemotorspeedway.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  4. "Jayski.com updates look | HeraldNet.com". HeraldNet.com. 2009-07-24. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  5. "jayski.com website - server info, stats, DNS, IP, popular keywords - siteencyclopedia.com Websites". www.siteencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  6. Rosewater, Rose (February 16, 2005). "With Web site, quiet outsider emerges as racing insider". USA Today. p. 6F. Archived from the original on November 30, 2005. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  7. Fleischman, Bill (October 9, 2003). "South Jersey fan has site to behold". Philadelphia Daily News. Archived from the original on October 11, 2003. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  8. Herrin, Rick (November 3, 2005). "A fan's information superspeedway". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Archived from the original on July 18, 2006. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  9. Levine, Al (May 30, 2003). "Fan's race site has Net effect". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on June 5, 2003. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  10. "ESPN Buys Jayski.com". Multichannel. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  11. Kaplan, David (2007-04-02). "ESPN Acquires NASCAR Fan Site Jayski". gigaom.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  12. "February 2017 – The Driver Suit Blog". thedriversuitblog.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  13. McCracken, Harry (August 16, 2011). "The 50 Best Websites of 2011 – Jayski's Silly Season Site". Time. Archived from the original on September 23, 2011. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  14. "Listen to ESPN.com: The Jayski Podcast on TuneIn". TuneIn. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  15. "ESPN: The Jayski Podcast". www.podbean.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  16. Caldwell, Dave. "Yet Another NASCAR Tradition Seems To Have Run Its Course". Forbes. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  17. Niehaus, Matt. "Jayski Closes Down Website: A Remembrance". ApexOff. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  18. Vining, Daniel. "Jayski Bids Farewell After 22 Year Run That Helped Shape Motorsports Journalism Online". Pixelated Speed. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  19. Epley, Justin. "COLUMN: Jayski changed the game for race fans". Morganton News Herald. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  20. @jayski (17 April 2019). "Several new news items added to jayski.com/ today because I (Scott) am a creature of habit and love update the site, even if the current one is temporary" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  21. @jayski (11 May 2019). "Since we are still pushing forward on the new website, one more "sneak peak". A little slice off the new main page of the site. Working on a mid-day launch tomorrow" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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