Kelli Stavast

Kelli Stavast is an American sportscaster who works for NBC Sports as a pit reporter for both their NASCAR (in both the Cup and Xfinity Series) and IndyCar Series coverage. She has reported for numerous other forms of motorsports throughout her career, as well as diving at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and freestyle skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang.

She worked as part of an on-air team with NBC NASCAR veterans Marty Snider, Dave Burns, Bill Weber and Wally Dallenbach Jr., leading to more work with the network. After a season of covering motocross, she was asked to cover IndyCar and NASCAR and make a move to Charlotte.

After two years of living in North Carolina, Stavast since has returned to Las Vegas to be with her fiancée, Gavin (whom she met in a chance meeting through his good friend, Kurt Busch). But she remains ingrained as a pit reporter in the NASCAR community, where she immediately felt at ease.

Career
Through the next decade, Stavast covered the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, Baja 1000, NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, and even the Red Bull Air Race. On top of that, she worked as a reporter for ESPN, ABC, and Fox, providing Stadium Super Trucks and American Le Mans Series coverage.

Shortly after graduating from college, Stavast got a job in Grand Junction, Colorado, working as sports anchor for KKCO, an NBC affiliate. The very first motorsports assignment that she had was covering Championship Off Road Racing for both NBC and SPEED. Of course, she knocked it out of the park, and it led her to land more roles around motorsports.

In 2015, Stavast joined NBC's returning NASCAR coverage as a pit reporter. She was announced to be joining the broadcast team on January 22, 2014 along with Marty Snider. They would be joined by Dave Burns and Mike Massaro (announced later in the year) as NBC's four pit reporters for the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series. Stavast was the only original member of the NBC broadcast team hired without a prior experience covering NASCAR, although she did report for other forms of motorsports for NBC, Speed, and ESPN including the Grand-Am, American Le Mans Series (and those two series when they merged to become IMSA), Stadium Super Truck Series, and Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series.

Personal life
Stavast attended where she graduated in 2002 with a broadcast journalism degree. She grew up in Colorado and moved to Las Vegas where her then-fiancé Gavin was living when she got engaged in 2016. They married in 2018.

NASCAR America and NBC Sports Group’s NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series pit reporter Stavast said yes to her boyfriend Gavin’s sunset proposal and shared her beachfront engagement and diamond ring details exclusively with The Knot!

Kelli, who has been in the thick of roaring race cars and daring drivers for years found her fiance through fate thanks to her motor sports career. The NASCAR reporter and sports broadcaster, who had just flown from Barcelona to Las Vegas for a huge aftermarket automotive convention called SEMA, told The Knot that a chance gathering of friends and friends-of-friends at Sushi Roku in Caesar’s Palace launched the couple’s love into high gear.

“My friend and I were finished with dinner and about to leave when he started yelling, ‘Kurt! Kurt!’ He had spotted another racecar driver Kurt Busch walking into the restaurant and invited him over to our table.” With the NASCAR driver Kurt was Kelli’s husband-to-be Gavin and she shared with The Knot, “The first thing he said upon our meeting made me laugh and that was it,” adding, “Gavin and I hit it off right away.”

The couple broke off from the group after dinner and Kelli recalled, “Gavin took me casino-hopping, teaching me how to play craps. Before we knew it, we’d been up all night and topped it all off with breakfast at The Palms!” A pretty great night for someone who almost skipped dinner due to jetlag!