SPEED's Iowa Truck Series Challenge

It's a little over sixteen hours and a tad over one thousand miles to reach Iowa Speedway from the Mooresville, NC area. This weekend, while the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series are in New Hampshire, the Camping World Truck Series heads to Iowa.

We mentioned just last week that the truck series is now a ragtag bunch with only a handful of top teams and drivers. On Tuesday defending series champion Todd Bodine, pictured above, confirmed that his team will be unable to go to Iowa due to the lack of sponsorship.

Rookie Johanna Long has also withdrawn from the race to leave a current field of 31 trucks. It's a guessing game as to just how many of those entries are there to actually race. There are no Sprint Cup Series cross-over drivers this weekend, so the field will be headlined by several "regulars."

The loss of Bodine is rough. The Onion's bald head, bright smile and lollipop-sucking personality makes for a fun TV interview. His driving makes for some fun TV viewing. In the same way that personalities like Johnny Benson, Ted Musgrave and Rick Crawford have faded from the series, the loss of Bodine this weekend really hurts what many call "the show."

There have to be some "career men" mixed-in with the current minor leaguers like Austin Dillon and Cole Whitt who will certainly be moving up the ladder soon and leaving the trucks far behind. This weekend, only Ron Hornaday really fits that bill.

The other drivers are mostly in transition with some trying to return to the big leagues while others are just happy to be racing and getting a paycheck in these very tough times.

SPEED has the race live at 8PM ET on Saturday night. Krista Voda hosts the pre-race show at 7:30PM. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons will call the race with Hermie Sadler and Ray Dunlap on pit road. This week in Iowa, even the TV staff is smaller in number.

The great thing about the trucks on SPEED has been the simplicity. This weekend, it may be that new names take advantage of this stand-alone race and emerge with good performances. Having that opportunity on national TV in primetime on a Saturday night is not a bad thing.

The trucks will be racing 200 laps around the .875 track in Iowa. As many of us who watched the trucks develop over the years can attest, this size track is exactly what allows the series to shine.

The TV challenge for SPEED is to tell the story as it happens without NASCAR spin. If ten trucks start-and-park, then show it and say it. If no trucks park and everyone is racing the distance, point it out for the viewers.

When one door closes in racing another eventually opens. Even with Bodine gone and no Sprint Cup series drivers in the field, Iowa could be a race full of surprises and fresh opportunities for new faces.

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Kentucky Speedway turns to NASCAR TV

By the time Monday rolled around, it was very clear that the Kentucky Speedway traffic story had gone viral. Even the mainstream media had clamped onto the story that thousands of Americans had been trapped in traffic for many hours and were angry at everyone from the Kentucky State Police to the speedway owner.

The subsequent response from the facility and its parent company, Speedway Motorsports Inc., fell flat. Hazy statements expressing regret and passing blame were exactly what SMI did not need. This situation was heightened when NASCAR Chairman France put out a strongly worded statement saying bluntly that this cannot happen again.

Both ESPN's NASCAR Now and SPEED's NASCAR RaceDay had pre-race shows on Saturday. The ESPN show was long gone by the time SPEED came on at 4:30PM ET with RaceDay. By then, the traffic problems were all the talk of Twitter, Facebook and the wonderful world of social media.

Produced by the NASCAR Media Group for SPEED, RaceDay shook off any temptation to chase the traffic story and instead followed the company line of simply promoting the inaugural race.

The boasts of panelist Darrell Waltrip, whose own Kentucky roots were profiled in a TV special earlier that day, now seem incredibly ironic. As Waltrip and RaceDay partner Kenny Wallace carried on, thousands of NASCAR fans were hopelessly trapped in a logistical nightmare that defied explanation.

TNT followed the RaceDay lead and never actually reported on the developing story. Despite being on the air for more than four hours, TNT chose to focus on what was going on inside the track rather than outside. Tweets from TNT on-air personalities did made it clear, however, that they were aware of the disaster that was unfolding.

It is often left to the two Monday NASCAR TV shows to sort-out the details of the weekend. Monday's NASCAR Now was up first as host Allen Bestwick presented an hour of highlights and conversation. Despite several mentions during the show, it was 48 minutes into the program before the traffic story surfaced.

Bestwick spoke by phone with Kentucky Speedway General Manager Mark Simendinger after showing some soundbites of angry fans and recapping the statement from Brian France.

"All I can tell you is that our traffic plans failed miserably," said Simendinger. "Hearing the stories that you just played makes me sick. I don't know what to say other than the fact that we totally blew it. I really feel badly for what we put our fans through."

Simendinger updated the offer from SMI for Kentucky Speedway fans affected on Saturday to redeem their Sprint Cup Series tickets for another race at the speedway or any of the SMI-owned tracks.

"Today for us is about connecting with those fans that we injured," Simendinger continued. "There is no excuse for it and we are totally to blame."

The advantage RaceHub has over NASCAR Now is that the SPEED studios are literally a short drive down the road from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was SMI President Marcus Smith, son of Chairman Bruton Smith, who stopped by to speak with show host Steve Byrnes.

"It's really tough to say what happened or what could have been different," said Smith. "In hindsight, we can see where we need to make adjustments. We have been hard at work on this since Saturday and we are going to make a big difference next year."

Smith then echoed the earlier comments of Simendinger about the SMI ticker redemption policy. Smith's comments were more specifically directed to the fans who never got into the race track as that was the topic being discussed.

"We really pride ourselves on being the best in racing with fan amenities and customer service," said Smith. "So, for something like this to happen is very unusual. We are sad that it happened and really want to try and make it right."

It would have been nice if Smith looked right into the camera and apologized, but the fact that he appeared with Byrnes was a positive move. It clearly was not as personal to Smith as it was to Simendinger, but the appearance and the refund information was made clear.

The item left on the table by both TV shows is what becomes of the fans who never made the race and cannot or do not want to attend another event. The word "refund" has never been mentioned and seems that it will not. It should be interesting to see how that topic sorts itself out over the next couple of weeks.

The rumor going around ESPN is that in September NASCAR Now on weekdays will be moved from 5PM Eastern back to 3PM in order to make room for ESPN's homegrown hit Sports Nation.

Often, as with this Monday's show, the big one-hour 5PM "roundtable" does not re-air. NASCAR fans have one shot to see it at the scheduled time or record it for viewing when they get home. This shift to an even earlier time in the heart of the NASCAR season is not a good thing for anyone except ESPN.

It seems the SMI group turned to TV on Monday as an integral part of cleaning up the public relations mess of the weekend. Once again, it's nice to have two NASCAR TV partners producing programs that can get the job done.

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"Enhanced Audio" Has TV Viewers Buzzing

Since the "Wide Open" coverage from Daytona was done, TNT came back with another special feature for Saturday night's first Sprint Cup Series race from Kentucky Speedway. It was called "enhanced audio."

Here are some quotes about this special feature:

TNT Countdown to Green host Lindsay Czarniak explained the audio-enhanced coverage: "We are using special affect sound by bringing you something we call 'Inside Trax Enhanced Audio.' We’ve added 40 microphones all along the track walls, through the turns and down in pit road to get you closer to the action on the race track.”

This from a TNT news release:

The network’s exclusive prime time coverage of the race will be a special audio-enhanced telecast with 40 additional special effects microphones placed in multiple positions around the track, including pit road, the front and backstretches and the turns, to boost the listening experience for NASCAR viewers.

On average, TNT uses approximately 50 microphones for their race coverage on a track this size. The network also will utilize increased audio from in-car communication between the drivers and race crews and will continue to mic-up select crew chiefs and their teams through Inside Trax which will provide fans with inside access to the sounds and strategy of racing.

Once the race got underway, another element of the "enhanced audio" not mentioned by TNT was made apparent very quickly. That element was silence.

During restarts, pit stops and other select times that the special effect was used, the announcers stopped talking. This is nothing new, as other Sprint Cup Series TV networks have segments called things like "Crank It Up" to feature the sounds of the track.

What was different with TNT was that these segments were frequent and often seemed to cost viewers valuable information. Pit stops seemed to be especially tough for some fans to digest when all that was heard was the sound of air guns, engines and tires.

The pit reporters were given an opportunity to update the field once the stops were done or just after the race returned to green, but it certainly was a very different viewing experience. It quickly showed the importance of getting information in a timely fashion.

The pauses from the announcers led to an awkward feel from the trio in the booth. It certainly wasn't the type of flowing conversation-style commentary we have come to expect from Adam Alexander, Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach Jr.

NASCAR fans also had NASCAR.com's RaceBuddy available to them during the race. This online video and audio component features 4 in-car cameras, 2 battle-cams and views of the backstretch, pit road and corners. Several of the cameras have only the sound of the cars as the audio provided to users.

In TV, the actual sound of the sports event is called "natural sound." Nat sound is the short version used by folks in the business. The process of mixing the nat sound with the announcer audio and other playback sources is the job skill that keeps good remote audio mixers working nationwide.

Whether it is the sound of sneakers under the backboard in college basketball, the pop of a fastball into the catcher's mitt in baseball or the grunts and hits in an NFL game, today's sports TV fan has come to expect the entire audio experience.

TV viewers in our live race chat asked if this was just a gimmick for the last two TNT races. Others were upset that the "enhanced audio" portions seemed to be tied to the director showing in-car cameras almost exclusively. One late arriving fan wondered if he had stumbled into an IMAX movie.

As the race went on, the trill of "enhanced audio" seemed to be gone for many. There was a rush to find the local PRN station for a full audio feed from the track's radio partner. Folks on Twitter started trading online apps to get PRN stations.

All of it seemed to come down to one simple thing. NASCAR fans like to be informed. Not informed only about the race leaders, but about their favorite driver regardless of position. The search for information other than the ticker at the top of the screen was perhaps made a bit more difficult by the announcers and their periods of silence.

There is no information yet as to whether the "enhanced audio" feature will return for New Hampshire. That is the final race in this season's TNT package. ESPN then takes over starting in Indy at the Brickyard and handles the final seventeen races.

We welcome your comments on TNT and the "enhanced audio" experiment at Kentucky Speedway. To add your opinion on this topic, just click on the comments button below.