In 1993 Hinton joined Dallas Cowboys football coach Jimmy Johnson and wrote Turning the Thing Around.
Three spectators were fatally injured after a tire went into the grandstands during a race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
On July 3, 2008, ESPN announced that it had hired Hinton as a senior writer for its digital platforms.
[3] On February 18, 2001, NASCAR driver and long-time friend of Hinton, Dale Earnhardt, was killed on the final turn of the Daytona 500.
Hinton and the Sentinel suspected that, like Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty, Earnhardt's cause of death had been basilar skull fracture (Hinton had recently published a three-part series on the subject of NASCAR safety) and claimed that under Florida law, the state was legally required to turn over Earnhardt's autopsy photographs.