Waltrip And Wallace Share Bristol Media Spotlight

Last month NASCAR on FOX Lead Analyst Darrell Waltrip got on an airplane and flew to Bristol, TN with ESPN's Lead Infield Analyst Rusty Wallace. Waltrip later remarked that putting him on the same airplane with Wallace was like putting Jeff Burton in the same ambulance with Jeff Gordon last year in Texas.

These two very distinct personalities were in town to promote the fact that longtime Bristol race sponsor Food City was renaming the March Sprint Cup Series race the Jeff Byrd 500. In October of 2010, the former Bristol Motor Speedway General Manager lost his battle with cancer. It is a fitting tribute.

"In all my years of being around race tracks," said Waltrip. "I know of no one that was more loved and more respected than Jeff Byrd." The live press conference was streamed online as BMS continues to cement it's reputation as a group that understands the power of the Internet and the role of social media among race fans.

Waltrip will be in his normal role on Sunday for FOX. He will start in the infield on the pre-race show at 12:30PM ET and then move to the broadcast booth to call the race. Normally, he is then seen on-camera when the event is over offering his summary of the action. Clearly, Waltrip is the face of NASCAR on FOX.

This week Wallace will share that TV stage. Dale Jarrett has the weekend off, so Wallace will be in the ESPN TV booth alongside Marty Reid and Andy Petree in the Lead Analyst position for the Nationwide Series race. In support of his role, ESPN has worked hard to get Wallace as much exposure this week as possible.

On Monday, a feature story on Wallace appeared on scenedaily.com by reporter Erik Spanberg. Click here to read it. The story came on the heels of the news that Wallace had signed a contract extension with ESPN that would carry him through 2014. That is the final year of the current TV contract between ESPN and NASCAR. Clearly, Rusty was a top priority to ESPN.

Two of the quotes from the Spanberg story are very interesting in terms of NASCAR TV:

"Oh my God, I’ve learned so much in television, it’s unreal," said Wallace. "You can be the greatest driver in the world, but if you can’t explain it correctly, you’re no good."

"I really had a bad habit of trying to dominate the conversations (and) talk way too fast, that was a real big hit on me," Wallace explained. "I really had to go back and listen to some of my work. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to it early enough. I think I could have been better quicker. Now when I listen to what I did back in ‘07 and ‘08 and I listen to what we’re doing now, I think it’s way different. I understand. The way you pause in between your sentences, the way you share the microphone. I’m constantly learning. I’m totally open to it."

There is perhaps no tougher stage for a NASCAR TV analyst than trying to tackle a live race at Bristol. Short laps, fast action and a hectic pace means that the play-by-play announcer and the pit reporters are moving a lot of information to the TV viewers. Trying to step-in with analysis without stepping on the call of the race is a delicate balance.

TDP readers may remember that in 2007 Wallace was the original analyst up in the TV booth and had Dr. Jerry Punch alongside calling the action. First Wallace and then Punch wound-up getting moved out of those high-profile positions. Wallace moved to the infield and made way for Dale Jarrett while Punch returned to pit road and Marty Reid took over the play-by-play role.

Since SPEED will be handling all the practice and qualifying coverage for the Nationwide Series at BMS, Wallace will not get any on-air practice before the race. There will simply be a one-hour pre-race show at 1PM ET and then the live race at 2PM on Saturday.

Just like Wallace, Waltrip's TV contract was recently extended until 2014 as well. FOX has been working hard on raising the visibility of Waltrip on sister network SPEED and continually puts him in high-profile roles on news programs and specials.

Waltrip has also been working the media hard, including a first-time appearance on the SpeedFreaks radio program. Click here to listen to the entire interview.

Some of Waltrip's TV and social media comments were interesting. Here are some excerpts:

"I've learned a lot in the last year and a half," said Waltrip. "I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook and I've just started recently on YouTube. I've learned so much from fans. In the TV booth, I keep my iPad on and follow Twitter during the race."

"We (FOX) are very unstructured and we never rehearse. We found out early on that rehearsing really screws us up. I watch the other group (ESPN) and they rehearse all the time. That's all they do. They rehearse three hours. I have enough knowledge and all of us (at FOX) have kind of been around enough that it's hard to stump us."

Waltrip's point is well-taken. Reid has been having trouble with his NASCAR knowledge and Jarrett's lack of emotion during a race continues to be puzzling. Only Petree has been the steady influence for ESPN since the network returned to the sport five seasons ago.

It should be very interesting to watch Wallace on Saturday and then Waltrip on Sunday. Two former drivers who were once bitter rivals working in the TV booth at the very track that helped propel them to stardom. Both men draw the same reactions from fans. There is no middle ground.

Love them or hate them, it will be Wallace and Waltrip as key players in NASCAR's return to national TV on this critical weekend of racing.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Bristol TV Flashback: NASCAR on FOX

In 2010 we started to offer a platform for fans to voice their comments immediately after TV coverage of a Sprint Cup Series race.

Last March, over one hundred fans stopped by after the NASCAR on FOX coverage of the spring race from the Bristol Motor Speedway. The topics they raised were diverse, but several threads ran through the posts.

Presented without comment, here are excerpts from some of the comments as they appeared that day. Click here to read the entire post and fan comments.

On the topic of announcers:

"No one is CALLING the race!! All they do is chit-chat like teenagers at a high school dance. 16 years of watching NASCAR shot to hell!" (from John P.)

"I would love it dearly if Mike Joy would have told Darrell Waltrip about lap 178 to shut up & let him call this race. It never happened. Replay is not the same as seeing it happen live. We saw lots of replays. Even when Fox was "showing the race" reporters Tweeting from the track got word out about cautions & who was involved before TV bothered to tell us." (from JoJaye)

"I have no idea why Fox has 3 guys in the booth and reporters on pit road. It certainly isn't to keep viewers informed about what is happening on the track! Has someone at Fox lost the memo about going 'through the field'? Very few explanations about cars that went forward or back during the race, so I had no clue what happened." (from Sally)

"The disconnect between the camera shots and the TV booth was startling. Cars would be shown on the screen but the announcers were talking about something completely different. At first, I tried to make a connection but soon realized there wasn't any to be made. The TV truck was calling for shots & the booth was talking about something unrelated. One or both sets of individuals was failing the TV viewer each time that happened." (from Red)

On the topic of producing and directing the race coverage:

"I'm a NASCAR viewer from the days of 'Wide World Of Sports'. There is too much dependence on special cameras. I don't see that the ground-cam gives us any additional knowledge. The bumper cams can be useful, but too often we just see that one car is close to another. A medium shot of both cars could have established that. If there's an incident, look at all of the possible replays and pick the best one. ONE in-car, ONE wide-shot. I don't need to see the accident from every in-car camera in the field. Show me the shot that adds information." (from Don)

"Is it against the rules to show fans in the stands in order to get a wider shot of the action? What's the point of HD if you're focusing in on one or two cars at a time? I'd think with HD technology today they could probably show at least 10 cars at a time to allow us to see all the racing - and we'd still be able to read the ads on the cars. Instead they "zoom" us back to 4:3 days by zooming-in on two cars at a time. It just doesn't make sense. During the pre-race show they had this really cool live shot of the entire race track from the top of the stadium - stands, track, and all - that would have been even more cool with the race going on. Show us some racing from the blimp. Allow the "crank it up" cam to see the entire field go by. Mix it up a bit. Watching one car go around the track and talking about the driver in it doesn't equate to going through the field. Going through the field is telling us when a position is being fought for. What's going on with the drivers fighting for 35th in points? We never heard any of that." (from James)

"The coverage has gone from bad to worse. Locking in on the same dozen cars, in-car shots that are uncalled for, roof cam shots that are unnecessary, and managing to miss action on the track because someone is asleep at the wheel in the production truck is unforgivable. But by golly they'll make sure the plugs for the gopher are correct." (from TheMadMan)

Fox showed the winner and the next three cars finish the race on the TV coverage. Here are some comments on that topic:

"I love how those TEN SECONDS it would have taken to show the whole field finish were far too valuable for the Fox director. TEN SECONDS!" (from Anon fan)

"I want to see the cars cross the start finish line at the end of the race, it's why I bothered to watch all day, to see them cross the finish line and what order they did it in. Instead I'm seeing the inside of the 48 car or the crew celebrating. I'm no longer "hooked" on NASCAR TV and if I was a new fan, this would not make me come back next week." (from Gina 24)

"I understand the race ran over, but for crying out loud, would it kill you to show the cars crossing the line. I don't give a rat's behind about the joyful crew of the winner. I want to see where my favorites finished. And why did you post the graphics before the race ended? Did you NOT know what lap it was? I did." (from TexasRaceLady)

"The final 3 laps were poorly produced. The finishing order was posted before the race was completed and only the first five cars were shown finishing before there was a cut to the winner's in-car camera while the top five's faces remained across the top of the screen. I had to go to a website to get the actual finishing order." (from Red)

"I was livid when Fox failed to have the courtesy to show all of the cars finish the race. This is especially maddening at Bristol where a lap only takes about 16 seconds. Why they did not take that small amount of time to show the field coming across the line when that would miss only moments of JJ's celebration is beyond my comprehension." (from KoHoSo)

Those three topics dominated the live chat during the race and the post-race comments. Bristol is a completely different track that requires a completely different type of TV coverage.

Fans wanted more focused commentary and less story-telling from the announcers in the booth. More information from the pit reporters was also a concern. In the race, using wideshots instead of in-car cameras and shots of single race cars that forced FOX to replay most of the important moments was a hot topic. Finally, the lack of showing all the lead lap cars racing to the finish was a very popular issue.

Sunday's race coverage starts on FOX at 12:30PM ET. The same broadcast team, including producer and director, returns for this telecast. The green flag is scheduled to wave at 1:13PM.

This post is simply meant as a reminder of the challenges TV viewers faced last season on this event. Each new year brings a fresh start and it should be very interesting, with the above fan comments in mind, to see how the NASCAR on FOX team handles the race telecast.

We invite your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Tuesday TV/Media Notes

Some items of interest that came our way this week:

Monday night was the conclusion of The Bachelor on ABC. Emily Maynard, the former fiance of the late Ricky Hendrick and the mother of his daughter was the contestant chosen to marry Brad Womack. Various websites continue to report that the two are not going to get married in real life. Maynard is a TV veteran, having hosted the syndicated 3 Wide Life show several years ago. It should be interesting to see if Maynard winds-up on TV again and if her new role is associated with racing.

Rusty Wallace will move up from the infield and join Marty Reid and Andy Petree for the Nationwide Series race this Saturday afternoon on ESPN. Dale Jarrett has the weekend off.

Nicole Briscoe hosts NASCAR Now this week on ESPN2. Mike Massaro will travel to Bristol, TN as a reporter for the weekend edition of the show.

The most recent double-super top-secret NASCAR Fan Council survey asked if more of the actual pre-race activity, including concerts by musical groups, should be on TV. Fans have been asking to see the Bristol, TN pre-race either on TV or online for years. Wonder what the NFC is thinking about?

The History Channel has announced that it will be sponsoring the Nationwide Series race in May at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Top Gear 300 incorporates the name of a TV series with versions produced in both the US and UK. This sponsorship is from the US budget, so expect to see Rutledge Wood, Tanner Foust and Adam Ferrara front and center.

Apparently things are not working very well for the 2011 version of Inside NASCAR on Showtime. It looks like Randy Pemberton has been pushed aside for the new presence of Kyle Petty, but that has not made a dent. The show was downsized from one hour to thirty minutes and is struggling in this format. Showtime is leaning on uncensored scanner highlights that essentially keep the profanity on the team radio as an attraction for viewers. There is little in the way of conversation and analysis due to the time restrictions. Should be interesting to see if the series hangs in there after this season.

SPEED is front and center on Friday from the Bristol Motor Speedway as the network handles all the on-track activity for both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series. The network comes on the air at 11:30AM ET and ends with Trackside at 7:30PM. Even on Saturday, SPEED will handle the Nationwide Series qualifying in the morning before ESPN takes over for the 2PM race.

The television voice of the AFLAC duck, Gilbert Gottfried, has been fired. Gottfried is a comedian by trade and he posted several poor attempts at humor using the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami as a topic on Twitter. AFLAC does 75% of its total business in Japan. One in four homes in Japan has residents insured by AFLAC. Gottfried was fired immediately after his social media blunder.

Jeff Gordon continues to be a popular talk show guest. He will appear on the Ellen DeGeneres show on Friday, March 25. Check TV listings for the time of the show in your area.

Country star Billy Ray Cyrus will sing the national anthem on Sunday for the Sprint Cup Series race. Family musical group "Carter's Chord" will handle the anthem duties on Saturday for the Nationwide Series race. That country group is currently signed to Toby Keith's record label.

This post will be updated on Tuesday as more news items appear as the sport heads to Bristol. We invite your comments on the topics above. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.