10/2/2025
Too Many Commas - Thank You, Keith
What do you say to people who have given you a gift you can never repay? How do you find the words to say thank you in a way that equals the impact they’ve had on your life?
For the past 30-plus years, I’ve said “thank you” to Keith Waltz during pretty much every conversation. Which was a lot, because we talked often. Still, I’m certain my words fell short.
Keith left us on September 27 at age 65 after suffering a stroke. Keith was one of those low-key guys who had an outsized impact on motorsports media. “He gave more than he took” is something of a cliché, but not in Keith’s case. He contributed significantly to motorsports media, and set an impossibly high standard for how it’s done.
That’s the wide view. On the narrow view, Keith was one of a handful of people who had an immeasurable impact on my life and writing career. Without Keith and a couple of others, my life journey would be very, very different.
Keith grew up in Columbus, Indiana, where his dad Russell was actively involved with the Southern Indiana sprint car scene. Keith was infused with the racing virus and after finishing his studies at Ball State University in 1983 took a dream job as associate editor of National Speed Sport News.
Speed Sport was known as “the Bible of American motorsports” for good reason. If you followed racing, Speed Sport showed up in your mailbox every week. Period. Under the expert guidance of Chris Economaki, Speed Sport had an enormous presence in motorsports.
Every racer longed to see his picture in Speed Sport. Every track and car owner yearned to read their name on those pages. And every aspiring writer knew that getting a byline in Speed Sport meant that you had truly made it in motorsports media.
My origins as a writer are most humble. As my friend Doug Wolfgang might say, “I was less than stellar.” I had no formal training of any kind, and no educational background. By the grace of a fortunate accident of destiny, in 1980 I stumbled into a part-time job as a sportswriter at our local newspaper. I showed no promise of ever achieving anything beyond that.
I began sending press releases and race reports to Speed Sport for Anderson Speedway. Every now and then they would run my name with the report: “by Dave Argabright.”
I have no idea what it feels like to take a hit of crack or any other drug, but it couldn’t be any more of a rush than seeing your byline in Speed Sport News for the very first time.
Life settled into a groove. I began writing a weekly motorsports column in our local newspaper (Track Talk – how original), and submitted an occasional feature story to OPEN WHEEL magazine thanks to the kindness and encouragement of editor Dick Berggren. In the meantime I toiled with a 9-to-5 job in corporate sales.
My sales work took me to New York City a couple of times a year, and with each trip I traveled across the river to visit the Speed Sport offices in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Everything about that office was larger than life; the urgency, the stature, and the fact that these people were creating an edition every week in which the American motorsports audience hung on every word.
Another connection brought me closer to Speed Sport as fellow Hoosier Jerry Gappens became Operations Manager of the paper in the mid-1980s.
One day in late 1986 or so I called Keith and mentioned I’d be stopping by the office for a visit the following week. “Good timing,” he said. “Jerry and I want to talk to you. We’ll take you to lunch.”
We walked down the street to a diner and took a table. After some small talk Keith said, “There’s a lot of racing in Indiana, and we need somebody from the area to write a regular column. Once a month would be good, maybe more often when needed.”
I nodded and said, “Well, nobody comes to mind, but I’d be glad to ask around to see who might want to write it.”
They both laughed. “You dumb shit, we’re talking about you,” Jerry said.
It is possible sometimes to pinpoint the exact moment when the trajectory of your life was changed. My moment came in that little New Jersey diner on a gray December day, with Keith Waltz and Jerry Gappens sitting across the table.
I wanted to write, and I had a glimmer of ability. But I had zero confidence. I put them off for almost a year because I was terrified at the idea of writing a column in a national publication. But Keith and Jerry, along with Dick Berggren, gave me confidence. That was the key. I started writing the column in Speed Sport and began sending more stories to OPEN WHEEL. Within a few years I chucked the sales job to become a full-time writer and never looked back.
Keith gave me more than just confidence. He was one of the most ruthless editors I’ve ever known. I’ve often accused him of sitting up with the Associated Press Stylebook in the middle of the night, poring over the pages and memorizing every nuance of the text. He had the powerful belief that your stuff needed to be right. It needed to read like professional journalism, dammit, and nothing less. My early years at the newspaper provided a foundation, but it was Keith who helped me understand that just writing it isn’t enough. It’s got to be good, even damned good, before it’s good enough. It is imperative to study the craft and learn the tools and techniques to do it well. It can never be perfect…but you never stop trying to make it so.
This wasn’t just in the beginning. Just a few years ago we were talking on the phone and Keith mentioned that he had just edited my column. “How’d it read?” I asked. “Too many commas,” he said without hesitation. “Why do you use so many commas? Don’t you know the rules by now?”
From then on I tried to keep a sharper eye on those commas.
In June 2024 Keith called me with the tragic news that Jerry Gappens had died unexpectedly. Somehow I felt that a part of me went away that day, too. When I got the news of Keith’s passing a few days ago, it felt like a very special chapter in my life had closed.
Without the help and encouragement of Keith, and Jerry, and Dick Berggren, there would be no books with my name on the cover. No television work, no hundreds of magazine stories, no Jimmy Wilson series, no dream of making a living as a writer. I would have followed my sales career to retirement and that would have been it.
I hope Keith was listening all those times when I tried to tell him how grateful I am that he believed in me. I hope he heard “thank you.” I’ll say it again and again and again, as long as I’m able.
The art of putting words together into a coherent story is still a driving force in my life. At this point I doubt I’ll ever lose that passion. I hope not. It’s been a good thing. But whatever the story is about, and however I try to tell it, I want to do it the right way. Keith Waltz taught me that. Thank you, Keith.
Article Credit: The Story with Dave Argabright
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