Where In The NASCAR World Is Doug Banks?

ESPN's latest press release eliminates Doug Banks as one of the hosts of NASCAR Now, the daily show seen on ESPN2. Back on March 14th of this year, The Daly Planet wrote a column about Mr. Banks. It was entitled "the Doug Banks era begins...this should be interesting." As you may remember, Mr. Banks was a hip-hop urban DJ with a large following in the black community.

Mr. Banks sudden presence on a national NASCAR television show was never explained. There was never any information about Mr. Banks interest in the sport, his interest in television, or his sudden career move. It became apparent to anyone watching this program that Mr. Banks had absolutely no NASCAR knowledge at all.

Now, it seems that Mr. Banks has gone as swiftly and strangely as he arrived. He has not been re-assigned to any other TV role on ESPN, or any of its networks. We have not seen him getting more TV experience on ESPN News, or even doing reporting assignments in the field. Mr. Banks seems to have left the building.

If this was a daily national baseball or football TV show, the hiring and subsequent firing of Mr. Banks would have made headlines. It also would have been splashed all over the sports blogs from Deadspin to KissingSuzyKolber. But, this is NASCAR and not Baseball Tonight or NFL Countdown.

As viewers have been discovering, the NASCAR knowledge in the ESPN middle and senior management is limited. The experienced types are working on the races themselves, which have been fine all season long. This leaves a twisted bureaucratic mess of managers to try and develop both the on-site pre-race show, and the daily Bristol, CT studio show. With the programming executives sticking their hands in the pie on the production side as well, things are just plain horrible.

Mr. Banks seemed to be a nice guy. It was tough to tell because he was never allowed to be himself, only to read a script. Over-and-over again, he was forced to dance to the ESPN2 drummer. The NASCAR talk was bad, the reporter conversations were bad, and the interviews with NASCAR drivers were absolutely horrible. But, how is that his fault? Who knows what ESPN promised this man if he would come on board.

Let's hope for Mr. Banks sake that he is back in radio and rebuilding his career after this very strange trip to NASCAR land. As much as I would like to meet Mr. Banks and shake his hand for giving it a try, I just don't think I will be seeing him at a NASCAR race anytime soon. So, good luck to you Doug, it was nice almost knowing you.

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"NASCAR On Fox" Crew Scared Of A Little Rain

Thirteen races ago the NASCAR on Fox crew began their coverage of the NEXTEL Cup Series with the Daytona 500. Since that time they have logged a lot of miles and put a lot of content on our TV screens. The NEXTEL Cup race at Dover would have been the finale for the portion of the season that Fox Sports broadcasts.

This fourteenth race was postponed by rain on Sunday, leaving a multi-hour period of time for Fox Sports to show us the work they have done this year. Hundreds of hours of race footage, features, and interviews were ready to be used by the production team. Instead, they chose to run and hide from the rain. This was one of the worst TV programming decisions of the year for both the Fox Network and NASCAR.

Here in South Florida, Magnum PI was on my Fox station in full swing by 2:30PM. Ninety minutes after taking the air, the NASCAR on Fox gang along with the Fox Sports executives chose to "go away." On the final Sunday of their NEXTEL Cup race coverage, this decision remains completely puzzling.

Remember, this year Fox Sports does not telecast the Busch Series races. They also do not carry the Truck Series events. This crew was on-scene to telecast the NEXTEL Cup race only. The entire Fox Broadcast Network of stations had cleared several hours of time for them on Sunday. There were no football games to deal with, no college basketball in progress, and no other agendas for the Fox station group to fufill.

As the rain fell in Dover, the NASCAR on Fox telecast quickly became the type of slapstick comedy that drives viewers crazy. Chris Myers in the Hollywood Hotel had used every single bit of Jeff Hammond and Darrell Waltrip's "racing buddies" comedy routine by the end of the first hour. It was clear that the strategic vision to deal effectively with this rain delay was lacking. Simply "continuing to talk" while the track dried was absolutely not working.

Think about this one point. Fox Sports and its parent company News Corp. had spent millions of dollars on the rights and the production of the thirteen NEXTEL Cup races the network had broadcast this season. On the Sunday of the final race, it was raining. The two choices were to review the content that Fox has spent millions to purchase and produce, or go have lunch. I hope it was a good lunch.

Beginning with Daytona, this season on Fox has been full of great finishes and good stories. From Mark Martin's heartbreaker at Daytona to Jeff Gordon's "Stanley steamer" in Darlington, fans would have liked nothing more in this rain delay than to re-live these moments with the crew that originally broadcast them.

Instead, viewers were treated to Darrell Waltrip in a turban answering corny questions and trying to fill time. The Hollywood Hotel should have become the headquarters for a season-in-review show that featured videotape played back of the best moments and the finishes of the previous thirteen races.

This is exactly the type of situation where Chris Myers becomes an instant problem. Only a veteran NASCAR TV "insider" like Steve Byrnes, Krista Voda, or John Roberts could have led a multi-hour highlight show. This was a chore for the infield team, and their leader was not up to the task.

Every driver's motor home, every team transporter, and even the Media Center would have been the easy-to-find location of everyone who needed to be interviewed about the season so far. Drivers, crew chiefs and owners could have watched the incidents, good and bad, and then appeared on-camera with a reporter to talk about the memory. They could have addressed what they learned, what has changed, or if they were still upset.

The decision by the NASCAR on Fox gang to leave the air after ninety minutes of "fill" time short-changed the one group Fox had already alienated this season. That would be the fans. This TV crew had missed Kyle Petty's third place finish at Charlotte. They had only shown the winner finishing as their new "TV technique" in the previous races. They had missed high-profile drivers finishing in the top ten as if a NASCAR team's efforts were "not worthy" of Fox unless they won the race. Suddenly, the Producer did not "get it," and the fans knew it.

There has been a lot of chest-beating this week about the quality and legacy of the NASCAR on Fox telecasts. There has been a lot of publicity generated by Fox about their crew, their awards, and the revenue-generating websites and special interests now enjoyed by many of their on-air personalities. One special interest group that this crew missed serving on Sunday was the millions of fans who set aside time in their lives to watch several hours of NASCAR programming.

What an opportunity to showcase the good things that the Fox team had done this year. What an opportunity to remind us of how many races, how much time, and how much effort had been spent by the production staff to show us the final TV product. What an opportunity to show us the technical toys, the TV compound, and all the behind-the-scenes things that viewers never get to see.

Finally, what an opportunity to send this TV crew out on a high-note. Viewers would appreciate the hard work it takes to arrange and then carry-out quality substitute programming like a NASCAR on Fox season-in-review show. But, that just did not happen and the Fox team this season went out with a thud.

My Magnum PI episode was about Vietnam buddies and their bond. Magnum and his pals were shown slogging through rice fields and dealing with the monsoon rains. It was somehow ironic that this TV show from the 1980's was on the air because the NASCAR on Fox crew did not want to get wet. Like the millions of other NASCAR fans in North America, I turned off the Fox Network for the last time this season, and moved on with my life.

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Punch And Company A Little Off Their Game

There is no doubt that Jerry Punch is one of the most sincere and hardest-working TV racing personalities in the business. I had the pleasure of working with Jerry at ESPN, and he was a reliable and honest guy, approachable and very fan friendly. Over the years, we have seen Jerry in a wide variety of roles.

Most older fans remember Jerry as the key pit reporter in ESPN's early NASCAR days. As a medical doctor with a love for racing, the fans understood that Punch had worked his way up from a public address announcer at a local Carolina track to the big time. After NASCAR departed, Punch chose to stay with ESPN and began to carve a name for himself as a well-spoken sideline reporter for college football telecasts.

This season, Jerry has shared play-by-play duties for the Busch Series telecasts on both ESPN2 and ABC Sports. Marty Reid has appeared when Jerry was on vacation, and worked well with the NASCAR team of announcers. In Dover, Punch returned to Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the booth with mixed results.

The booth announcing team did not appear in the NASCAR Countdown pre-race show to discuss any aspects of the upcoming Busch race. They were present and called the live Busch Series qualifying, but should have at least appeared on tape with an on-camera preview of the race.

ESPN has been working hard on its technical aspects, and the live reports from both the driver and his crew chief throughout the race are a good look inside the minds of actual participants. Having DJ speak with the driver, and Petree speak with the crew chief was a great touch to keeping things in the right perspective. This has been an outstanding feature of these telecasts.

The concept of turning on all the in-car communications during a re-start is not growing on NASCAR fans. This chatter is available online, through NEXTEL, and can even appear on your cell phone. There are too many voices, and somehow limiting the number of channels would provide a much clearer picture of re-starts. In races like Dover, you can only hear "green flag green flag green flag" so many times.

The HD in-car cameras are of great technical quality, but ESPN is struggling to determine a philosophy of use. In this race, the in-car shot often lost the race perspective for the viewer, and even eliminated good racing action. In-cars are best used in a definitive two car battle, even if the angle is from the car behind, such as Jeff Burton in this Dover event. In case of accidents, in-cars should only be used as replay cams. This was evident several times as ESPN missed incidents.

It seemed that while Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree were into the race, they had trouble meshing with Jerry Punch for some reason. Punch seemed to be very intense, and often times was not very happy, and struggled for words. We have discussed that the play-by-play role for Punch is a work in progress, but sometimes it seems that he might be better suited for a reporting job. Jerry likes detail, and the play-by-play role just generates excitement and directs traffic.

Often, the production staff would cut-a-way from a pack of car racing and return to the leader only to have an incident occur. It often occurred in the pack they just left. Its great when someone is leading, and someone else is two car lengths behind. We just don't need to see it while there is pack racing going on. The accident at the end of the race told the tale. It was never explained, and never followed-up before the telecast left the air. This was a rookie mistake that should not be repeated.

Let's hope that ESPN incorporates the booth announcers into NASCAR Countdown, NASCAR Now, and SportsCenter for the rest of the season. As the network approaches their NEXTEL Cup debut, they are going to need their "faces of NASCAR" on-camera and on-the-air as much as possible. An on-camera "wrap" of the Busch race on the one hour Monday NASCAR Now should be mandatory.

With the technical aspects, the pit reporters, and the booth analysts in place, ESPN has only to confirm the play-by-play position before their NEXTEL Cup debut. While the administration says they already have a schedule, both Jerry Punch and Marty Reid are hoping that their name is on it when it reads "NEXTEL Cup on ABC Sports."

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