ESPN came into Dover with the challenge of getting the story of the Chase across to fans. Instead, the theme selected was the supposed tension between crew chiefs and drivers. Needless to say, once the race started, nothing like that ever happened.
Nicole Briscoe has her hands full with Brad Daugherty and Rusty Wallace. From the Infield Pit Studio she hosted an hour that mixed pre-produced features with interviews and comments from her analysts.
Marty Smith interviewing Denny Hamlin was the high point, but the Rusty and Brad show was the low. Rusty told viewers Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson might be done while Brad continued to tell everyone that everything was just fine. Two team owners on TV unable or unwilling to say what was really on their minds.
Allen Bestwick worked like a dog to keep Dale Jarrett in this race. He constantly asked questions that got Jarrett talking during lulls in this uneventful race. Luckily, Andy Petree was solid once again and shared his strategy opinions freely.
The four pit road reporters were more aggressive, chasing comments from crew chiefs after critical pit stop decisions like the old days of classic NASCAR on ESPN. It would really help the telecasts if the pit road gang was allowed to do updates rather than Briscoe, Wallace and Daugherty.
ESPN's signature "hyper-tight" coverage was forced to loosen up as the cars raced on the ragged edge and restarts resulted in packs of cars racing for position. The director worked hard to stay ahead of the pack and the vast majority of the race featured cars racing toward the viewer. That certainly makes a difference.
As things settled down on the final fuel run, Jarrett and Petree did a good job of keeping viewers informed of the dynamics playing out on the track. Bestwick is excellent and directing traffic and the information gaps left by Marty Reid are a thing of the past.
It was a clean finish with the camera showing the top cars coming across the line. It was a small crowd on a dreary day and there were lots of other pro sports on TV at the same time. The best news is that the rain held off and the race finished without any significant delays.
This post serves to host your opinions on the ESPN coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from Dover. To add your comments, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
23 comments:
How cute! They are wrapping up their coverage with their driver-crew chief thesis statement. The script has returned!
Was nothing unexpected here in terms of coverage. Same ol' same ol' ESPN.
I do, however, ge so very sick of the pre-conceived "story lines" for the day and today's (Crew Chief - Driver conflict) was worse than most. Suitable for a "Real Housewives" show, but not for a sporting contest.
Boring race and broadcast matched that. There was no energy, no play by play. Just talking, and mainly talking about drivers and their crew chiefs. Scripted telecast. Glad thats over. Kansas wont be any better as far as action is concerned.
It was an average broadcast of an average race, not much else to add. Good enough to update viewers but bad enough to encourage channel surfing.
The last 30-odd laps of this race deserved to be broadcast with a camera shot which covered Busch, Johnson and Edwards in a single frame. Compare today's camera angles, width of shots, etc, to races from the 80's on Youtube. The loss of overall perspective is a shame.
i was entertained... Give this race a solid C no more no less!
Solid camera shots, and yes I did notice how they stepped away from the hyper tight shots that was a plus!
Nice to show the finish as well... But it seems like ESPN is very spotty on this only once in a while do we get to see 15 cars cross the finish line its not often
I thought the race coverage and the event itself was really good today. The race strung out at times, but there was a lot happening and I thought ESPN did a great job (with Allen's lead) in keeping us up-to-date with everything. The commercials were tolerable, the wide shots were great, particularly during the NonStop breaks, and I thought Andy's analysis was spot-on once again.
I thought Countdown was better than the past couple of shows. I know they beat the driver-crew chief thing to death but there were some stories that merited the time on the topic. You have to remember that, for those people who don't keep up with NASCAR Now or stories on the Internet every day, the Countdown show serves as a wrap-up of the previous race and week's activities while setting up for today's race.
Now, I'm not saying that they do this well each week (a little more focus on today's race would be nice, a la NBC's old Countdown to Green), but they felt it important to discuss Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson at great length because Hamlin's Chase is over and Johnson's appeared rougher than in years past. It's a matter of finding a mix between that kind of news and actually setting up the race today.
I love the racing at Dover and I love attending that track for events, and I appreciated Allen mentioning that the crowd hasn't been the best in recent years, but drivers and the people who attend love it. I love listening to Allen in the announce booth and he helped make ESPN's coverage pretty damn nice.
Looked good to me. Especially now with commercial free RaceBuddy.
And awesome finish!!!
Remember to get 22 cents of gas with your Shell Card.
I dont understand why they show 2 boxes with one on the car and the other either a in car shot or a of crew chief. Why can't they show the battles like that. The last laps were some of the shi oh crappiest directing work ive ever seen, anybody with a half a brain would of had at least half screen of the top 3 tightening up
Hate to say it, but the Chase would be 10x more exciting with Mike Joy, Larry Mac, and DW in the booth.
We found everything to be just great. Not a Waltrip in sight or within hearing distance. Beautiful.
It bothers me that ESPN won't cut short the commercials when something happens, especially since we can see that something happened. Instead, we get to sit through a couple minutes of commercials waiting to figure out what happened.
Also, on the last round of green flag stops, they did a lousy job of keeping people informed as to where the drivers got sorted out. Gordon was running in the top 10, pits the same time as Johnson, yet somehow restarts in the teens? Instead, we got way too much on BK's power steering belt. Someone should tell ESPN there's no need that Tim Brewer show up a certain number of times.
It was cold and drizzly at dover. Made me glad that I had packed my heavy coat AND rain gear. In the crowd that was there - lots of people left early because it was so cold.
Glad I missed the TV coverage, I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten to see Gordon driving up through the field on TV. Although Gordon didn't have the finish I hoped for, he had a pretty good car most of the day and Weasley didn't win, so not too terrible a day.
It seemed like the TV booth wasn't all that into it at the first of the race. I'm not sure what their problem was to start out.
I noticed that BSPN cut AB off twice in mid sentence to show their beloved commls. Speaking of commls. It's all good that they are showing the side by side race/commls. However, do they really have to show a driver in the box and the comml in the other? Why bother? Why not just show the comml in full screen?
One more thing, BSPN get rid of the script. Let the race dictate what to talk about.
You have to admit they had the script right this week. It was all about the crew chief.
Addington calmly rode the wave of KB's rage last week and made all the right adjustments this week to make the 22 fastest at the end.
And what about Kurt's little girlfriend in winner's circle? Shouldn't he get divorced first?
Random thoughts:
Rusty and Brad are simply blathering at this stage. Utter nonsense spews from both of them. It's football til it occurs to me, "oh yeah, the flag probably dropped".
I wonder if Kurt Busch realizes it's him and wife Eva featured this month in the Greg Biffle pet calendar. Awkward. LOL
I've decided it's time to seek grief counseling. I've felt like this ever since it was announced Mikey was joining Darryl in the booth at FOX next year.
I thought the booth did a mediocre job. I refused to listen to the 'B' Team on pre-race. Espn really upset me with 100 laps to go. They ran the running order across the top of the screen,but didn't show the interval in seconds or the number of laps down drivers were after the last set of pit stops. This went on for 5-10 minutes. Espn is always very superficial about detailed running order info on the screen and from the booth....unless you're the first two cars. There was one incident, I believe involving Biffle where he spun and DJ said he just lost it. Maybe someone heard that on a radio,but the video they showed was about a quarter of a mile behind the spinning car where you couldn't see anything. The race was too long as most were.
The networks and NASCAR have lowered my expectations to where I thought this was an average race with an average telecast. I skipped the Rusty/Brad sideshow and didn't notice Rusty until he commented that they had to show non-chasers sooner or later. He sounded so disappointed.
I wish ALL of the networks would realize one thing: Stock car Racing has no script. Keep the soap opera stuff for their daily drivel Mon-Fri. If Dover was uneventful, wait until Yawnsas Speedway.
Garry said --- but Garry didn't you hear? Yawnsas has a casino - therefore the raceing will be GREAT!
well I'm watching the rusty and brad show this season, cause I'm sure not going to watch the waltrup and waltrup show next season...I caN'T BELEIVE fOX
I noticed the coverage of the racing was much better during the commercials! No need to listen to those people droning on about the same old stuff. I tell I'm really sick of them! I wish they would just shut up and talk about racing
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