The day is here and the Indy 500 TV programming is set to kick-off.
It will be ESPN2 up first at 11AM Eastern Time with one hour of pre-race programming. Then, ABC will take-over at Noon with another pre-race show and then the event itself.
This is traditionally one of the toughest programs for the ESPN crew that normally handles the IRL races to produce. First of all, Indy has their own in-house TV production company just like NASCAR. IMS Productions will handle the manpower and staff the equipment at the Speedway.
This has led to things being a bit off-balance on the TV side. For those fans who remember the pre-race programming from last year, nothing more needs to be said. This year the pre-race show will no doubt be a little better coordinated.
ABC likes to have a show host for big events, and once again TV viewers will be dealing with Brent Musburger. Although Musburger is clearly a lover of stick-and-ball sports, he has come to understand the Indy 500 quite well.
This fact may come as a surprise to NASCAR fans, who dealt with a clearly out-of-place Musburger in 2007. ESPN has not yet announced if Musburger will return to the ABC Sprint Cup package later this season.
Luckily, the telecast has Marty Reid in the play-by-play position. While he does not have the dramatic flair of a Paul Page or the pipes of a Bob Jenkins, what Reid does have among all types of racing fans is credibility. Beginning with his off-road days and the old SCORE Series, Reid has also been involved in ESPN's NHRA coverage, is the voice of the IRL and fills-in on NASCAR events as needed.
Last season, Reid was involved in the infamous NASCAR Busch Series race from TN where ESPN actually pulled the live broadcast off all the ESPN Networks as the track chaplain was delivering the opening invocation. Once again, college football and NASCAR proved they do not mix. The point being, Reid has dealt with his share of challenges in live racing on TV.
What has IRL fans buzzing and may well get new fans talking is the hilarious combination of personalities alongside of Reid in the Indy 500 booth. Scott Goodyear's reputation as a wholesome and all-around good guy is just as solid as Eddie Cheever's reputation as a guy who is so difficult to deal with he could upset Gandhi.
Both have solid open-wheel experience, but their differences in style and personality make the combination work quite well. Reid may have to spend some of his time calling the race and some of his time playing referee when things get intense. Finally, the ESPN/ABC group may have hit on an effective team of announcers in the booth.
Most fans know TV veteran Jack Arute and ESPN reporter Vince Welch. Those two will play a key role at Indy by handling the pit road stories. Both of these personalities have a lot of experience, and could wind-up being called-on if serious issues arise from on-track incidents. Let us hope that is not the case.
Borrowed from ESPN's NASCAR coverage will be Jamie Little to fill the third pit road role. Little has a tendency to get a bit loud and a bit intense at times when neither is needed. This season, she has done a great job of defining her on-air personality on the NASCAR trail. As a former IRL TV veteran, Little should have no problem fitting-in at this event.
Squarely on the pit road hot-seat is young Brienne Pedigo. Now heading into her second Indy 500, this daughter of Panther Racing's owner has been working hard to gain credibility with the audience. She cut her TV teeth on the USAC broadcasts on the Outdoor Channel and still has some work to do on her TV skills. Now, with a full field and lots of good racing teams, this Indy 500 will provide her some good content to develop as stories during the event.
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We appreciate you taking the time to stop by and help us with this first Indy 500 live forum.
241 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 241 of 241You know I take the that back
hey jd! that was fun! thanks so very much for having the space available for us today!
on to charlotte . . . uh, lowe's!
anon445 less people watching who are familar with this blog, trust me they are sitting there with their mouths open too
how about hearing from 2nd 3rd and 4th...
I give a thumbs UP to Eddie Cheever in the booth.
Nice to hear an "analyst" NOT try to take over the play-by-play like the analysts will later tonight.
Cheever is honest and up front.... I like it.
ABC blew the end. Once again all we see is the leader crossing the finish line. And the flagman, wife and crew. Fantastic battle going on for second and we didn't see a bit of that at the end. You blew it ABC. And why advertise with 17 laps left? To show us advertisements we've already seen numerous times the last three or four hours.
With this viewer it doesn't matter how good the broadcast was before the finish, but I expect to see the action on the track, not wives, mothers, girlfriends or crew jumping around. Geez that annoys me!
Well, if your driver (like me) was battling for second, they did NOT show the finish. There was plenty of time for the wives and family.
That was awful after a great telecast.
I was rooting for Marco, I would have liked to see how close he came to 2nd place...
Wish we could see the finish of the top ten in replay.
ken,
I thought the guys in the booth were simply great. Different personalities and styles work so well. Marty Reid did a super job.
haus20 said...
how about hearing from 2nd 3rd and 4th...
May 25, 2008 4:47 PM
on my tv
Thanks to everybody for stopping by for this Indy 500 special forum.
It was a lot of fun and I hope you have a great holiday weekend.
JD
JD,
Thanks so much for doing this. Hopefully a few people saw what they've been missing with open wheel racing.
Also if you happen to correspond with any of the fine folks at ABC/ESPN please pass along my dismay with the ending ;)
(to put it in polite terms)
one big thing I noticed was that no one tried to explain everything in minute detail,,maybe only once or twice to "cutaway car"
I really like that high speed flying cable camera. I think that was a great addition to the broadcast. How come FOX doesn't use that anymore??
Thats the way the Indy 500 finishes every year on TV.
I liked the cable cam and I also was glad they didn't over use it.
JD -
You're right.
Today was a great example of having a good mix of voices and personalities in the announce booth.
But.... Personally, I think the play-by-play seat should belong to Mr. Paul Page.
It's a shame that Paul isn't in some way connected with the 500 broadcast.
WOW this is interesting. on ABC is a NASCAR program hosted by Rusty. this is competing with the FOX pre-race show.
Anon 5:01,
It is a paid program. Nice...
WOW! Anon
Thanks for the Gunselman update. I had not heard a PEEP on any show about that.
I also miss Dario in the Indy races.
I have to say the camera work across the finish line STANK. Looked like the end of the FOX NASCAR race....winner, flag man, wife, crew, wife
So now that we have finished
Danica, Danica, Danica
it will be time to go to
Jr., Jr., Jr.
can't they just cover the race?
JD, I dont have a paid program...I have something called "Identity of a racing champion presented by Lifelock". It seems very interesting. Kind of like that ABC summer series last year and with the same style as those NMG programs. You arnt seeing this? I am on KGTV in San Diego
Thanks for the forum JD.
Congrats to Scott, better luck next time to Vitor & Marco. Those two have been soooo close for multiple years now.
Go get 'em Danica!
Great job Milka! Proved you DO belong in this series as far as I'm concerned. I thought Buddy came down a bit too hard there.
And Sarah, what is there to say except tough luck - again.
Terrific job by the ABC/ESPN team except for the lack of finish line. SUGGESTION: GO SIDE BY SIDE FOR THE FINISH!!!!
Show the wife or whomever alongside the finsh line checkered flag.
Duh!
see you guys on the nacsar in race comments page...
JD, I am the only one seeing this NASCAR program on ABC? it is in HD so that make me think it is national.
bevo -
You are so right about Texas IRL races:
As a 40+ year viewer of all motorsports those have been some of the best most exciting races I've ever seen.
I'm getting it and watching it instead of Meyers.
Anonymous said...
JD, I am the only one seeing this NASCAR program on ABC? it is in HD so that make me think it is national.
I have it in Orlando, just DVR'ing to watch later.
Well it was a great race.
I must say I caught the END of 1991 500 on ESPN classic this week.
Showed ONLY the winner (Mears) and then a bunch of women, family and crew hugging. MOST DISAPPOINTING. I did not know INDY always did this??
still stank.
I wished they would've let Danica go talk in the pits. I remember when she grabbed Wheldons arm after a race last year. She is not afraid to argue with the boys.
Wow! Look at all the comments here.
Great race. Props to the Milkman for delivering. And more importantly, thanks for the vicariously thrill of that sugar smack from Emma. Whoo Whoo!
Three issues to bring up:
1. How about a “Through the Field” update somewhere during the early, boring part of the race? I got the impression there some drivers racing behind those in the top 15, but received no evidence of this unless they crashed.
2. A one race suspension for any driver instigating or participating in fisticuffs in the pit lane (at least in front of any cameras). Call it the “Danica Rule.”
Picture if you will, Danica storming down pit lane and physically showing her displeasure with a driver who knocked her out of the race. Said driver, already about to lose his job for crashing himself too often, momentarily forgets he’s a gentleman and decides to treat Danica like one of the boys. Danica is ripped, but so are all the other drivers and they’re all bigger than her. Front page sports section, image of the IRL Golden Girl shocked and knocked on her butt. Then what? The kind of publicity that the IRL doesn’t need.
3. Hey, what do you think about Daryl Waltrip’s pre-race suggestion of Humpy Wheeler going to the IRL as their new promotions director?
Of course they blew the end. ABC ALWAYS blows the end of the 500. ALWAYS.
All in all, a very great broadcast, until the end. Why do they have to show the wives rather than the field finish the race?
But I did get tired of All Danica All the Time. They even missed some good racing at the front because they're so enamored with Her Majesty. Personally, I cannot stand her whining on the radio. Stuff happens, and a good driver can take a car that's not the best and do something with it. I lost all respect for Danica when she got mad at Dan Weldon last season, and shoved him in pit lane. Being a gentleman, Weldon couldn't retaliate, but you can bet your behind if Danica were a man, Weldon would have shoved her right back. You didn't see any other driver go after crew members after a wreck, Danica was the only one. She's a spoiled brat, IMHO.
As someone who's been to many Indy 500's, I've always been impressed with their medical staff. Nascar has adamantly refused to hire a full time medical staff for their races. Being involved with the Nascar Foundation, I've known that the ladies' guild of the Foundation has offered to raise money for a fully staffed mobile medical center for the last two years. Mike Helton and Brian France have steadfastly refused their offer. The women would have raised the money and then donated the medical unit to Nascar under the umbrella of the Foundation. Why the bigwigs refuse, still confounds everyone.
But all in all, Fox and TNT could take a lesson on how to do a very good race broadcast.
My apologies for a post on another thread for putting down Milka Duno. She was the highest finishing woman in the race. Good job!
Sorry, that ABC couldn't be bothered to go over the full results of the race and I had to read about where she finished elsewhere. At least they showed all the drivers during the introductions.
Other than that and a couple of other quibbles, I sat down, glued to the set for five hours. Beyond the race itself, credit must go to the coverage for keeping my attention.
ABC has always used that camera angle at the finish. I have no problem with it.
That camera angle at the end has been the same at the end of every race I've ever seen at the speedway (500 400 and USGP) I'd be willing to bet the Moto GP race will use the same. I'm pretty sure it is something the speedway requested. (demanded) be done. I think it would be great to do a screen like the race of pit road show the finish line on the right. then in little boxes on the left show the flagman (top) and wife/familyetc in the bottom .
Thanks for the enlightenment about this always being the FINISH CAM at the 500.
I should've had a clue when I saw the CLASSIC show from 1991 end the same way.
darbar I am going to disagree about danica being upset but agree the focus is on her too much. She only weighs 100 lbs..she probably just wanted to let off verbal steam.
But I love Dale jr and detest the media saturation with him.
I do TOTALLY agree with you about NASCAR needs REAL MEDICAL STAFF. Some doctor wrote a book on this and was on WT last year with Despain. Said real experts need to be able to handle trauma as in airplane crashes as that's how some car wrecks can be as far as impact.
These little EMS groups from the town du jour are not good and could be considered Risky business. I heard NASCAR's excuse is money and more races, yada, yada. but I think NASCAR should re prioritize it's money for saftey but sadly they are reactive as opposed to proactive from all I have read in their history.
:(
These little EMS groups from the town du jour are not good and could be considered Risky business.
These "little EMS groups" are trained and certified by the state. They are qualified and save lives.
They may even save yours, someday.
agree the focus is on her too much. She only weighs 100 lbs..
How are these two things rleated?
If she weighed more, would be be able to handle stress better?
You've apprently posted too much and have run out of things to say, because you're now saying things that make no sense at all.
Take a break, Sophia.
Anon you are clueless and missed my points that most people get. A small woman is hardly going to beat up a man. Back off.
There is a need for KNOWING personal info for each driver and not your average ems which is easy to become in most state!! I can't remember if it was Dr. Olvey (?) that points out in his book he wrote a couple years back...rapid response. OW does have better medical attendents
This safety team at the 500 will also be the same ones who will work the Allstate 400. There will be some who will work Edmonton (IRL) but that's a one-off deal because of unification (the IRL agreed to move that race up a day to that Saturday in order not to conflict against the 400) and much of the staff will be flown to Indy to work the 400.
The IRL has two staffs working the 500 -- the "regular" IRL team (three trucks) and the "Indy Only" team. The latter will be at the 400.
The 2-hour rule used in F1 and the IRL (for road and street races only) is probably one of the questionable rules in motorsport. The IRL does have a sensible clause that states if they are in the final 10 laps when 10 minutes remain, the rule may be waived and the race runs to the finish.
Bernie's Formula One Administration television needs to learn what's a good clip. Not even James Allen of ITV (UK; they are the network that gave us the original versions of Millionaire and Idol) can control the cameras. Every country must use Bernie's feed, and they don't listen to the host broadcaster. If there's an incident they can't call out the truck to show the incident from another angle. Peter Windsor and his spotter (they are trackside) can't call out incidents to the FOA truck.
Varsha used to work split CART races on ESPN when they were racing on the same weekend as the IRL, and probably knew enough from directors what is and is not appropriate for camera cuts.
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