The Sprint Cup Series moved from ESPN to ABC for the Saturday night race from the Bristol Motor Speedway.
Nicole Briscoe hosted the pre-race show with Ray Evernham, Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty. Tim Brewer was in the Tech Garage. Marty Reid called the race with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the TV booth. On pit road were Dr. Jerry Punch, Jamie Little, Dave Burns and Vince Welch.
The pictures and sound were again solid. There were no technical problems. Several TV markets around the nation chose to show NFL football or other programming. TDP provided alternate viewing choices sent to us by ESPN.
The pre-race show focused on paybacks by drivers, including video of drivers fighting going back for over a decade. The race was billed as being a clash of egos and lots of potential deliberate accidents.
The weather was great, the stands were full and the teams put on a good race from start to finish. This post is an opportunity for you to voice your comments on the ABC coverage produced by the NASCAR on ESPN team.
To add your race recap, just click on the comments button below. This is a family friendly website, please keep that in mind. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
65 comments:
I just can't get over the schizophrenic coverage. Good direction on Friday night, awful direction tonight. They really missed Allen Bestwick managing the broadcast tonight. And it's about time that Rusty gets pitched out of that pit studio permanently.
Disaster!
I thought there were too few commercials.
Kudos to Kyle.. You can't argue with talent and guts. Sort of reminds you of a guy with a mustache..
Taking your comments on the ESPN production of the Sprint Cup Series race from BMS.
Where to begin??? ABC/ESPN should be embarrassed by this travesty of race coverage. They seem to have written a script during their pre-production meeting and would not waiver one iota from that script. First it was a Jimmie love fest and once he was punted, it became a Kyle love in. Cameras missed so much of the action on the track---many missed race incidents such as the Stewart hit and the Carl Edwards business. This was a train wreck of a broadcast and ABC/ESPN should be ashamed. And what's with all the commercials? I would hazard a guess that out of the 500 laps, we saw maybe 300? Maybe even less. I know ESPN has to pay the bills, but the overabundance of commercials is one of the biggest reasons why fans are tuning out. The NFL starts in less than 3 weeks, and once that happens, you can take a shovel and bury Nascar, both in TV viewers and interest in the racing overall. I know I will be tuning out once football starts, and I suspect that thousands of others will follow suit.
I refuse to re stae the same complaints over & over. espn should read last years comments.
This "race coverage" stunk up the joint period. Lousy schizo just awful. Disgusting. F-
Could they have added any more commercials? And subtracted any more info?
A wasted evening.
This blog kept me semi sane thru it all. Thanks JD
I suspect the racing was good but we didn't see it. I never thought I would ever miss Fox but this might make me do it(on mute of course). Close shots, constant commercials, jumping around with no explanation, not showing the finish and a clueless booth made for a horrible telecast. ABC ruined the best race they have to telecast.
Congratulations to Kyle!
I am sorry but the coverage was the worst I have ever seen in my 30 years watching Nascar. I actually felt insulted at times. I will just leave it at that.
I wish that I has been there to see the race live. Now that would be the way to see the race!
They sucked the life out of a terrific race. Thanks ESPN on ABC.
Interviewing the guy who finished 35th. Got to stick with the script.
Kudzu, yep ABC has to stick with that script! Glad Reut had a good race but wouldn't it be funny if JJ didn't make the chase? That would really ruin their script, I guess they would still show him driving around and around and around still.
The fans are sure sticking around. They must have good fireworks and other things going on.
Where should we start?
- The 'Trifecta': This was overly-hyped the entire night. Just as hyped as Chip Ganassi's "motorsports triple crown". What will be invented next?
- Commercials. I am strongly convinced one quarter or more of the laps in ths race were run under commercial. At points, it was ridiculous how bunched commercials were. Side-by-side coverage would greatly benefit this event.
- Tight shots & Bumpercam: Lost all perspective of where we were on the track.
- Points as of Now: While ESPN/ABC wasn't talking about the trifecta or on commercial, the Chase and points became the important story. The race was just in the background behind the 'points as of now' graphic.
- Useless garbage: Tim Brewer under green, or his explaination that cars get damage when they hit a wall. Rusty and Nicole reminding viewers multiple times that it was dark at the racetrack. Full screen driver commercial bumpers during green flag racing. Video clips of last night's Nationwide race repeated multiple times, yet again under green. The race continued to sit in the background.
- The end of the race: Without a single through the field all night, or explaination of the numerous tire failures, ESPN/ABC watched 5 cars cross the finish line and changed cameras to the celebrating crew. The rest of the field was ignored, as they were the entire night.
It is amazing how ESPN thrived last night at the same track, same announcers, and same number of cars. Yet tonight was the ESPN bomb of 2010.
Apparently, there were green flag pit stops, restarts, and good racing in the last 100 laps. Heck if we saw any of it with commercials every five minutes (not an exaggeration, but confirmed by the length of time between my tweets on the subject). I also learned that the weekend starts on Wednesday because we were beaten senseless with a "weekend" accomplishment that started Wednesday (at least when we weren't hearing from Cialis for the 5,678th time). I need to let my employer know that.
I thought the coverage was decent, not as wild as past Bristol races. As of now, 8 minutes of air time left and I am hoping they talk to Montoya after that incident with the 48.
Dont know what to say... After 4 solid ESPN races on ESPN i thought this was going to be a knockout
Boy was I wrong. From the Start ABC/ESPN treated Nascar like it was a rerun of According to Jim and didnt even show the race FROM BRISTOL mind you in select markets and ended up showing pre season football! (why does Nascar let this happen) Then the race starts and it seemed as if everyone was getting paid to produce a bad broadcast. now a days w twitter and everything there is no doubt in my mind that someone from ESPN was monitoring the comments and such but nothing was done. Nothing!!! Theres no way you can go from the past 4 races and last nights outstanding broadcast to this without someone saying something or changing something within the first quarter of the way through.... yet it got worse and worse throught the night. I feel and this is just me that ESPN decided to do this so they can drive away people to watch football. ESPN is all about stick and ball sports and w the NFL on now I think this was done on purpose. Any thoughts???
I really liked my last comment on last blog, sooooooo, I'll post it again for the edification and infotainment of all under our tender sky:
I know/ its only little Shrub /
But I like it.
w/aplog. to Jagger/Richards
Clarke
It was a hot mess.
Listened to almost all the race on PRN. Randy Lajoie is back on PRN post-race call-in show.
too many commercials, and missed too many restarts.
WXYZ pre-empted half of the race and all of the pre-race coverage for Woodward Dream Cruise. Parked cars could have been tape delayed without much angst.
Lee from Redford.
I do not understand why ESPN has made the clear decision to help destroy NASCAR. I'm just a fan.
This was the second-worst ESPN program, surpassed only by the "JJ in the garage for repairs" show last year.
ESPN knows how to show a race right;they could do it in their sleep. But, they have decided not to do so. I don't know how this benefits them, I'm just a fan.
I will continue to watch, I'm a fan. I will continue to keep a list of the endless commercials of products I might use and not support them, including the in-car advertisements.
And I will no longer equate such adjectives as respect and integrity with ESPN.
I'm just a fan but I'm not stupid.
Makiki
Honolulu
Interesting comments Jonathan. If you are right....then ESPN is in the drivers seat (no pun intended) because they control the Nascar coverage during the football season. They can do what they want with Nascar. If ESPN wants folks to tune into football coverage, what better way than to butcher the race coverage throughout the football season.
I don't believe it's a conspiracy though because it takes too many folks to create a disaster like the coverage we got tonight. It was a mess from top to bottom tonight!
2 points worth repeating:
1) commercials...3 minutes of racing (w/pre-recorded bumper at return) ... commercials ... 4 minutes of racing (with full-screen pre-recorded bumper of what happened earlier in evening) .... 30 laps to go (on a short track w/16 second laps) ... commercials.
2) Jamie Little asks Coach (Joe Gibbs) what it feels like to get the 'trifecta'. Joe Gibbs doesn't even own the truck that Vile Kyle won in on Wednesday. W.T.F.?
Enough said. Total disaster.
I think ESPN mailed it in tonight. Will they continue to mail it in the rest of the year? Nascar suits better hope not!
It would be nice if Marty Reid knew the rules of nascar.When the last caution fell Reid said "Lets see who the wave around cars are".Keep in mind the 00 and 18 were running 1-2 and had no reason to pit.Reid has covered open wheel and should understand the rule.The wave around works this way.When a caution is put out the pace car picks up the leader. All cars fall in where they are running (at the time of the caution) be they lead lap, or 1, or 100 laps down.If your car is 1 or more down, all lead lap cars between you and the pace car must pit for you (the lap or more down car) to get the "wave around". Works the same in open wheel.One difference they also can pit with lead lap cars and beat them out of the pits to gain back a lap.
I enjoyed the race. Love him or hate him, KB puts on a hell of a show for the fans. He makes it look easy. The day unfortunately left a lot to be desired. I tried to watch Race Day. I turned it off when Kenny Wallace tried to tell all of us ignorant race fans about the software for the track simulation programs the Teams use. Petty and Kenny need to go. Nicole and Rusty need to go.I think Marty Reid is just weird. I'm no fan of Tim Brewer,but he's done a much better job the last two weeks.DJ is solid. I'm glad the 'phantom cautions' were not prevalent. The two groove race track allowed for good racing with a minimum of cautions. I consider myself fortunate to have watched history made at Bristol. Too bad the race wasn't a sellout.
JD, Do you think there would be a philosophical difference in the way EESPN would plan to show a race on ABC versus on EESPN? Point toward a somewhat different demograhic on ABC than on EESPN?
This race coverage was horrid. I agree with all the bad things others have pointed out. My local station showed football instead of the race, so I had to run out and buy a digital antenna in order to see the race on their DT2 channel. I think ESPN should refund me the cost of the antenna!!!
I personally thought the pit reporters did a nice job tonight, especially considering how difficult it is to do that job at noisy Bristol. Jamie's interview with KB in victory lane was pretty good.
The racing was great, but Marty seemed flustered all night (I thought he was last night, too). The pre-race show really disappointed me with the obsessive talk about fighting - I thought this was auto racing.
As for Rusty- it looks to me like he has relapsed into the Rusty of 2007.
It would have taken about 16 seconds to show everyone taking the checkered flag- but we didn't even get that.
I understand that Bristol makes things chaotic for every team - including the TV team, but this was a veteran group of talented broadcasters.
They looked like rookies.
Let me break down the ESPN/ABC race season thus far:
Marty Ried- (cut to bumper cam) Great Racing Action all around the track!!(show top5 pictures on top and go to commercial)
(Repeat for 3-5 hours)
Did I miss anything??
Raceview and Trackpass was broken all night for majority of the users, and was never fixed. This made it extremely painful for those who actually wanted to know about drivers other than Kyle, Jimmy and Brad K.
The pictures were pretty good but the commercials are beyond out of hand now across all the 3 broadcast seasons.
WAY, way way way way too many commercials. I was keeping track for a while and while I did we were averaging watching 7-10 laps of racing, and missing on average 10-20 laps under commercial. Inexcusable, ABC/ESPN is not broke, they are (disney corporation) probably one of the richest companies in the world, so theres no need to have that many commercials.
Need to stick to wide angle shots that show 10-15 cars on screen at Bristol. Hard to follow a race when they keep jumping around. The wide angle instead of the tight angle will be able to show several good action passes going on without having to keep skipping through the field.
Worst brodcast for ESPN/ABC this year by far, they should be embarrassed on how they covered the sport tonight. Stick to covering racing without having to try to hype everything up.
ESPN wouldent do a bad brodcast on purpose to drive people into watching football. Why would they want people to turn off ESPN and watch FOX and CBS??
Well, I'm flummoxed. ESPN did a fantastic job covering the Nationwide race at Bristol on Saturday night. Last night, it was as if they had never covered a race before. On a short track, it is crucial to keep updating fans on the entire field to maintain some sort of perspective. ESPN failed to do so. They cut from shot to shot (including way too many bumper cams)without setting it up, thus totally losing the flow of the race. Much of the drama comes from cars making dramatic changes in where they are running. Fans never heard about any of them. I just don't understand how races run within 24 hours can be persented so differently. Embarrassing.
John, you've said many times that commercials pay the bills, and without them we wouldn't have a telecast, but there comes a time when NASCAR and the broadcasters have to step up and do something right for the sport.
Commercials 5 minutes into the race are just plain wrong. Commercials with 5 minutes left in the race are just plain wrong. The total amount of commercials in a race is just plain wrong. Take that plus the general poor quality of the coverage, and you have the reason for the ratings decline.
F1 gets more money for TV than NASCAR does, and the BBC shows the entire race, from parade lap to driver interviews, with NO commercials. None. I have no idea how this is possible, but NASCAR better figure something similar out, soon, before they advertise themselves out of existence.
I feel fortunate to have HotPass.
I watched the four in cars along
with a great presentation by PRN.
You could see on the split screen
that ESPN was butchering the coverage while the radio guys were
describing action all around the
track. I really think someone had
to go out of their way to deliver
a product as bad as ESPN did last
night. Is there a conspiracy? I
don't know, but I would like to
restate my comment from last week
that I think ESPN does look down their nose at NA$CAR.
once again, i learned more about what was happening at the track from twitter than i did from the race broadcast.
is this really what nascar wants for fans?
and once again, i believe that the actual racing at the track was likely very good but because we didn't see that in the broadcast, fans come away with the perception that what hapens at the track is boring. so they don't make travel plans, they don't buy tickets, they don't visit the swag wagons at the track. in short, they become disillusioned of all things nascar and are lost as part of the fan base.
combine the loss of serious fans with the failure to bring new fans into the sport and one has a plan for the destruction of the sport.
we've offered fan perspective through this site for several years now. amazingly, many of our concerns remain the same, season in and out. one is left to wonder if the network partners are even interested in responding and making the broadcasts more intelligent, informative and race-focused.
apparently not.
Horrible, absolutely horrible coverage. What happened? It was just like last year's broadcasts.
Can't wait for my Nascar Fan Council ballot to let them know how I feel about this coverage.
After being totally blown away by the outstanding broadcast of Friday night's race, I couldn't wait for Saturday night under the lights at Bristol.
What a letdown. I would have been better off and more edified had I just walked outside and sat looking at the moon for 3 hours.
The guys in the booth seemed lost. The comments were disjointed, rambling, and seemed to have nothing to do with what was happening on the track.
I'm not EVEN going to get into the ADHD camera work. Let me just say it was nauseating.
Showing JJ in the garage, full-screen, during GREEN FLAG RACING is just WRONG! We know he's damaged, but there are cars still on the track!
Tim Brewer showing a driveshaft, full-screen, during GREEN FLAG RACING is just WRONG! There are cars still on the track!
The infield studio with blonde girl, Rusty and Brad added NOTHING!
Showing only 5 cars crossing the finish line was WRONG. My goodness, a lap takes 16 seconds, can't a cameraman hold still for 16 seconds?
During the blog last night, someone said the direction was like cats walking around just stepping on random buttons. Sure seemed like it to me.
ABC had a ripe plum dropped into their laps, and they let fall to the floor and go "splat."
To everyone complaining about ABC affiliates showing football instead of the race, please remember some things.
The affiliates have the rights to negotiate deals with their local teams to show preseason football games. This is unlike the regular season, when the networks themselves have contracts with the league itself, and the affiliates are forced to show the games. If you have a problem with this, call your local ABC affiliate. This is not ESPN shoving NASCAR to the side for stick-and-ball sports. This has been done for years, well before ESPN regained its NASCAR coverage in 2007. NASCAR and ESPN have no rights to force any local affiliate to show the race if they have a contract with an NFL team to show their games.
I forgot in my earlier post to ask why Montoya wasn't interviewed to explain what happened with Jimmie Johson. He wasn't interviewed after wrecking Kyle Busch a few weeks ago.Nor was he interviewed after wrecking Logano at Infinion. The media has always given Montoya a free pass. By the way, if you replay the race, take note of how many times Rusty uses the words "I" and "we". Whether it's DW,Kyle Petty,Hammond or Rusty, I could care less what happened at North Wilksboro 32 years ago. I agree with an earlier post that observed that Reid was out of it all weekend. For what it's worth.....
The only fighting I saw,well really heard was Dale Jr and his "crew chief" on the radio. TONY SR WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
I agree that the Pit Reporters are not to blame for last nights disaster! They don't choose the camera angles or when to break to commercial.
Last nights broadcast was so bad that I am still upset today. I would consider boycotting ESPN...but I am such a football fan that it would be tough.
Anon at 9:42 - we also agree of your assessment of Rusty - so many times he uses I, I, I, I, or me, me, me. I think the broadcast would be better off without him there and of his opinions.
The comment by Ann_Ominous really made me realize just how far my enthusiasm has slipped. I couldn't be bothered with going to all that effort to see any of these "shows" that NASCAR calls a race.
Tried tv 10 minutes. Vertigo inducing tight camera shots made me nauseated. read later here, cam work horrible.
Read interesting stuff on twitter but listen online via PRN all night due to headache. Lost interest part way thru when it looked like Kyle was going to win again (sorry not a fan)
glad I missed the HORRIBLE camera work and showing JJ in garage during GF racing.
I personally think the NASCAR Fan council survey is a joke. It does NOT allow me to give reasons wo why I do not watch the coverage, via their multiple choices. I give my two cents at the end but the survey seems slanted..like they only want certain answers.
Never.Ever.Once have they aske specifics on the camera work.
Until then I delete the "Fan council" which is nothing but a badly written PR statement.
Just like I deleted the race on DVR.
If your eyes are not hurting/ or headache, you can read twitter for details & listen online.
TNT we hardly knew ye.
I repeat. Tv coverage is severely lacking due to HORRIBLE ZOOM CAM/BUMPER CAM/IN Car mania.
They do the same thing on Indycar qualifying...get nauseated on road courses.
Motorsports continues to jump shark.
Anon (Lee from Redford) Yeah the Dream Cruise could have waited, it was more like Dream Cruise American Idol with the singing contest, all those nice cars took a back seat to the little contest just like every year, WXYZ has some off base way of covering that event. They keep saying it's not all about the car's I got news for them, it is all about the car's As for the race, like I said "It was like wakeing up from surgery" I had much more fun reading all the comments on the blog last night. Thanks again JD for hosting this forum for us.
Mike
On the ESPN broadcast last night, everyone seemed to be lost except Dr. Jerry Punch.
We have listed over and over how ESPN has failed and could do a better job showing the race. That is all I want. To see the race. I am not going to repeat that list for ESPN (HYPE) today.
I think that the ESPN executive in charge of the NASCAR coverage should be put in a room with nothing but a TV. A regular TV, no HD or supersize. Most importantly……….No Remote!
That executive should be assigned a driver out of the top 15 in points. The executive should watch the race live from prerace to end of broadcast. After the broadcast, the executive should be asked these questions:
What was the best move your driver made during the race?
What was the worst move your driver made during the race?
What were the pit stops like for your driver?
What was the finishing place for your driver?
The only good feeling I have today for ESPN is that I won’t have to watch anything on ESPN. Tennis is on CBS!
As always, thanks JD. :)
I was unable to watch the race. I lived in a market that pre-empted the race, and my cable provider does not provide the other digital channels online.
I did not feel the need to buy an antenna (no other way for me to get a signal) so I settled for watching the leaderboard on NASCAR.com.
Thank you ESPN.
Maybe this off week is what ESPN needs for the A team, I know Nationwide racing is from Canada so make sure you bring the B team in! Who knows like I said before maybe there tired, the past couple weekends we've seen the same crew do both Nationwide and Cup.... Time to change that if were going to get Cup broadcasts like yesterday!!! I was up and gave the race another look when they replayed it on ESPN 2 and man was it hard to watch I turned it off and went to bed in disgust
There is a definite Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation going on with ESPN and their NASCAR telecasts. Why is that? Must be a single person or a small group of people in the employ of ESPN that doesn't work every race, perhaps one race a weekend. Just enough to poison the well, metaphorically. And it is not difficult to determine which telecasts either, is it. What I want to know is why, apparently, the only people to notice are the people watching from home. Certainly the World Wide Leader in Sports has someone, or a group who watches their telecasts and critiques those telecasts for the benefit of quality control in management.
Also, I noted during yesterday's Cubs game Fox Sports is no longer shooting HD in 4:3 safe mode and are letterboxing for SD. How much longer will the other NASCAR partners stall before they join the party? C'mon now people, it's the 21st century for crying out loud.
@Mark--I'd believe you....it felt like it's been the last few weeks. Get some racing going....commercial....get some racing going...some full screen nonsense oh lookie let's do a commercial break that's longer than the "racing" we showed now....wash, rinse, repeat. And not properly updating the field.
@DrewCrew--you forgot Captain Obvious in there too! Someone has to tell us that if you hit the all you'll get damage or that the tires go on the bottom while showing his manicure off and blinding the viewers with his bling. Since you know we'd never figure that out on our own :p. I had hope for him the other week when I heard he was doing a segment following Elliott's wreck at Pokeynose he let me down once again.
I have no idea what the critical reaction to this race is a result of. I imagine it's just because more people were watching and that Kyle Busch left a bad taste in your mouth, because the coverage was indistinguishable from any other ESPN race.
They were playing by a kitschy script, I did notice, but that was just the dialogue at random times, not the broadcast of the race videographically.
All the gripes that I have and you have with this production team aren't new and didnt seem exacerbated last night.
In fact the only highlight I noticed is making a huge use of split screens to often show racing near the back. They seemed to make a sure point to cover all battles on the track, regardless of where they were. They showed a remarkable amount of racing, perhaps too much, where a less frenetic direction could have been content to let the race soak in with shots of the lead for a while and let the booth actually talk coherently for a bit.
The broadcast was terrible. Watching the VS Indycar race right now and it's clear how bad ESPN did last night, and how good it could have been.
I think AB being absent really hurt, no offense to Nicole Briscoe, but Bestwick can't be beat in the pit studio or even in the booth. Marty Reid is doing a good job adjusting to Nascar, being his first year full-time with Cup. The waive around thing confused everyone in the booth, not just him alone...and if I understand it right, it's not exactly his job to know all the technical details, that's what DJ and Andy are up there for. They have proven they can work well together, but the consistency is just horrible.
Then we have the agendas, if it's not the trifecta crap, then it's JJ, then it's points. My twitter feed was filled with great comments about an amazing race form those who were at the race, but we were stuck watching commercials. It will be interesting to see the Jayski TV breakdown from this race, and how football affected the ratings.
After the great Watkins Glen broadcast of the Nationwide race, I'm really looking forward to Montreal next week. Then it's on to Atlanta and you just KNOW they are going to go BK-Edwards on us and endlessly replay the spring wreck.
I cannot comment on ESPN's coverage of the race because I was at the race. But for all those complaining about them not showing the racing the last part of the race, there wasn't much. A few drivers made some progress forward, but not many. I could have left at lap 400 and not missed much at all. ESPN didn't have much to work with the last 150 laps or so.
First of all, I hope that MRM4 had a great time last night at Bristol. That's a track I want to go to before I die.
Now, to the TV coverage: I can't believe the commercial load. It was incredible! Every time the action got good ABC/ESPN went to commercial. I can only speculate that at least some of the ads are make-goods due to the continued decline in ratings.
I also noticed that "up to speed" was not shown last night. I don't know if this was an oversight or if the production staff simply dropped it due to the many ads.
Allen, hope that whatever is wrong gets resolved soon and that we will see you on ESPN in two weeks.
That giant suckin sound was fans tuning away to the NFL games
one word describes the ESPN coverage of Saturday night's race.
AWFUL!
Other than enjoying the National Anthem as sung by the kids and the flyover, after that it was just awful. Disjointed, messy, too many commercials and people talking about "nothing" or following some script instead of what was going on during the race.
I gave up on the broadcast at 10:00and went to bed rather than watch the last 30 laps at Bristol. Not because the racing wasn't good -- it may well have been, but ESPN wasn't showing me enough to make me interested enough to stay up.
I don't care about the chase blah blah, I don't want to see so much of the race from in car or bumper cam shots that I can't tell what is going on at the track. I sure don't want to hear the "party line" as produced by NASCAR and ESPN.
I want to see the race and if I can't get that from ESPN, then I'll just check the internet and find out the results afterward because I'm not interested in wasting time watching this mess.
Interesting points, Jonathan. Heaven knows, but ESPN/ABC did a darn good job of hammering nails in for my sitting around watching racing for the next few weeks.
Labor Day weekend - probably not --we went to Atlanta last year and had a great time, but I can't afford to do that every year. I'm looking forward to going to the races this fall that I do have tickets for because then I won't be subject to someone else's agenda and can watch the daggone race which is what I'd like to be able to do from home, too.
My comments are limited to TV coverage not who won or the races themselves which, hearing from several people who were there, were great in all 3 series plus the Mods. TV is never going to match being at the track.
That said... I'm still carsick from the coverage!!! WHAT is the deal ESPN?! I just don't get how one night can be pretty good and the very next night a disaster. If the problem is using the same people for both races, use 2 teams!!! I said I was NOT going to mention the C-word for the rest of the season. But I don't get how so much action Sat night was missed. Stewart is my driver and I had to hunt OTHER SOURCES to find out what happened to him! I shouldn't have to. And the booth confusion was making me crazy! Cryin out loud I'm a veteran fan, can't even imagine how they expect to attract new eyeballs with clusters of this magnitude. Again I didn't bother with post race TV hunting, waited next night for SPEED Victory Lane.
Can't imagine it worse but still I shudder to think what's going to happen to TV coverage when the Chase starts. Until hockey starts NASCAR is my main sport interest. When I'm watching racing on TV I hate feeling like I'm an afterthought.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one who thought the coverage was AWFUL. NO explanation of why/how Jimmy Johnson was able to get so far ahead of Carl (?) at the very start of the racel. 12 broadcasters (3 in the booth, 4 in the studio, 4 on pit row, 1 in the tech garage) are WAY too many.
Commercials that went on and on, and were highly repetative - esp. one on driving drunk that seems to be an ABC favorite.
To add insult to injury, this area did not see it on ABC, but rather something called the CW. ABC had the Redskins getting creamed by Baltimore.
Forgot to mention in my last post. WE DO NOT NEED TO KNOW WHETHER CLINT OR MARK IS 5 POINTS OUT OF 12th AT LAP 250 OF A 500 LAP RACE. Yes, I'm screaming, as I did at the TV. The Chase points ONLY matter during the last 10 laps at Richmond. Give us a break between now and then. Let us know about ALL drivers, ALL teams, ALL positions.
Late to the party. At the IndyCar race in Sonoma since Thursday. Had to watch race late Saturday night.
Started with HotPass. PRN is terrible, although I like not having to listen to commercials (that was the silence people were commenting on). Since it was late decided to switch to ABC, so I would have to fast forward thru commercials, weird, I know, but it was late :-).
Yikes! What a mess.
I have come to the conclusion ESPN wants out of its Cup contract. Why else would you broadcast something that was incomprehensible and impossible to follow?
On the remote chance they want to fix it...LOL....two people: Ricky Craven, Ray Evernham, please.
I am sure Brad D is the nicest man in world, certainly appears to be from his demeanor on TV. But he, like Rusty provide no value. Neither are insightful. Mostly repetitive, especially Rusty. We just don't need so many talking heads! Tim "you hit the wall and the spoiler is closer to the wall" Brewer...enough said.
Please just say "NO" to: single car shots, close ups, bumper cams, only following chosen few, etc. "Lather, rinse, repeat" to quote Sophia, wherever she might be.
My enthusiasm is waning. The very people who should keep me glued to my sofa, ignoring friends, family and projects, are driving me away from the only sport I follow. So sad.
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