OXFORD – Becky Adams gets the jokes when people find out her job description on husband Travis’ race team.

She’s the spotter. In layman’s terms, Becky is the voice in the driver’s ear that tells him where the traffic is, whether to turn left or right, or when the light turns red, yellow or green.

Go ahead, say it. Sounds like a wife on the Jersey Turnpike during the family road trip, right?

“I try to be encouraging. I try to keep him calm,” Becky said. “Only occasionally does it get on his nerves and he’ll say, ‘OK, I’ve heard that enough.’ “

It’s probably true that putting your spouse in that role adds complexity to the driver-spotter relationship.

But it’s also certain that if five-time Oxford Plains Speedway champion Travis Adams finally breaks through and wins the TD Bank 250 on Sunday night, he’ll owe a heaping helping of credit for the triumph to Becky’s eyes, ears and commands.

The spotter often is a forgotten man (or woman) in a race that places so much emphasis on the driver, engine, tires, brakes, pit crew, weather, qualifying draw and other costly parts and priceless intangibles.

Look out on the race track after about 20 consecutive laps of green-flag racing in Sunday’s main event, though, and it’ll be easy to see why the spotter is arguably every race team’s most valuable player.

Cars will be stretched out all around the relatively tight, 3/8-mile oval. Three, probably even four imaginary lanes of asphalt will be occupied. While the leaders are surpassing 90 mph on the short straightaways, slower cars are racing side-by-side or already are nursing damage in front of them.

Armed only with one or two rear view mirrors, their heads and necks restrained and wedged into a form-fitting safety seat, drivers are at the mercy of that extra set of eyes in the sky.

Remote control

More often than not, one split second of two-way radio communication saves the eventual 250 winner from mid-race disaster.

“I’ve been working with my spotter, John Randolph, for eight years, and I’d put him up there with any (NASCAR Sprint) Cup spotter,” said Shawn Martin of Turner. “He knows what I need to hear. I trust that when he says ‘clear,’ I know it is.”

Because of the occasional obstructed view and the magnitude of the race, many drivers dole out two headsets and dual radios.

“I actually have two spotters,” said Dave Farrington Jr. of Jay. “My dad is in the pit and my uncle is in the grandstand. There’s a big part of the track in Turn 4 that you can’t see from the pit, especially at night.”

This year, track officials will require spotters on the grandstand side to sit in a designated area in front of the scorers’ booth.

During the main event, a second spotter is likely to stand on the team’s “war wagon,” or tool box, behind its infield pit stall.

That’s the arrangement for Oxford’s Dennis Spencer Jr.

His father will monitor the race from the belly of the beast while uncle Ken Wills surveys the scene from above. Wills has spotted for the team in both of the four-time Late Model and Limited Sportsman champion Spencer’s previous top-10 finishes in the 250 — fifth in 2007, ninth in 2008.

“I’ll tell him ‘car high’ or ‘ car low’ or ‘clear all around.’ Pretty much every move he makes on the track, left or right, is from what we say,” Wills said.

Know your audience

Every spotter needs to learn his or her driver’s racing language and personal preferences.

Some only want to hear when there’s an accident in progress a few feet ahead or when another car’s front end is lurking at the back bumper.

Others appreciate cheerleading. Scott Robbins, the 2002 TD Bank 250 champion, benefited throughout that race from his wife Jessica’s pep talks and his brother Spencer’s blend of information and light-hearted banter.

Dennis Spencer Jr. generally encourages radio silence.

“They know what I want to hear,” Spencer said. “If I’m by myself, there’s no need to talk. I’m just concentrating and doing my thing.”

Family connections and long-term relationships seem to be an asset in the spotting realm.

Tim Brackett has attempted to qualify for 16 previous 250s. For most of them, his son T.J. has provided the chatter through the ear buds.

Not this year. Both Bracketts are entered in the race.

“I’ll have Mark Fox. He’s pretty good. He’s spotted Saturday night races for a long time,” Brackett said. “I really only want to know when there’s a car under me. I don’t need a lot of cheerleading.”

Becky Adams faced a seemingly impossible task when she took over as her husband’s spotter.

Travis’ father and chief mechanic, Don, died unexpectedly two months before the start of the 2009 season. He was 56.

Father and son were best friends on and off the track, inseparable from Travis’ teenage years as a championship go-kart racer.

Their communication during races was mostly feedback from Travis about the handling of the car or catch-phrase encouragement from Don. “Hit your marks” and “little bites” were the father’s favorite mantras.

Rather than be intimidated and knowing that she would never replace that soundtrack in her husband’s head, Becky saw it as an opportunity to develop her own voice.

“I basically learned from listening to his father for nine years,” she said. “We used to ride home from the races on Saturday night and Travis would say, ‘Gee, I wish Dad would have told me before this was going happen.’ He was more of an encourager. I tried to take what Don would do and what Travis also wanted him to do and be a combination of the two. And I think I’m doing OK.”

In it for the long haul

Being the swivel on your driver’s head is challenging enough for a 40-lap feature on a Saturday night.

Doing the same job in a 15-lap heat race with 15 cars and only four available qualifying spots or in a two-hour traffic jam with three times that many starters is an entirely different matter.

But Becky Adams is no rookie. Travis’ decision to graduate from Oxford and join the American-Canadian Tour this summer has helped her negotiate the learning curve.

“You have to learn about a whole new group of guys he’s racing with,” she said. “You learn pretty quickly if there’s somebody just ahead of him or just behind him that he needs to know about. Most of them are pretty good.”

Spotters often have a diversified job description when they’re not watching their drivers turn left.

“I do all the tires,” Wills said. “Dennis (Jr.) picks them out, and then I set them up and try to get the stagger right. I don’t get involved in a lot of the other technical stuff.”

With Adams’ father deceased and a volunteer crew available primarily on weekends, Becky and Travis work together in the garage almost every night of the week.

When the green flag is unfurled for Sunday afternoon’s qualifying, Becky will share the spotting duties with her mother-in-law, Connie. Travis’ wife will direct traffic. His mom keeps an eye on the flagstand and caution lights to call out any yellow or green flags.

The inherited and expanded duties have forced Becky to abandon other jobs that were close to her heart.

“For all those years I was the one to buckle Travis into the car,” she said. “I’ve had to let that go to the crew.”

Should Adams win Sunday night, there’s no question which member of that crew will be the first one in the window, greeting the champion with a kiss and casting backseat drivers in a new, improved light.

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