TV mistake misleads fans, Harvick at the Budweiser Shootout
When you televise as many races and events as Fox and their sister network SPEED have, you’re bound to make a mistake sooner or later. This time, the mistake confused both fans and some drivers.
“The entry blank was ‘green-white-checkered’ one attempt.”
—Kerry Tharp
During the two Budweiser Shootout practice sessions, as well as other moments of their coverage from this weekend, Fox and SPEED had explained that the Budweiser Shootout had to end under a green flag. However, when NASCAR only gave one go at the green-white-checker, fans began scratching their heads when the race was declared over.
The blunder by the broadcast network even caused eventual race winner Kevin Harvick to become a little confused when the caution came out as the field took the white flag on Saturday, thus ending the race under yellow.
Drivers are introduced prior to the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway on February 6, 2010 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)
“I was a little bit off kilter on that one,” Harvick said in his post-race press conference. “They knew. But I thought myself, I didn’t say a word on the radio. That’s why I didn’t say a word. I read on something somewhere, it wasn’t the entry blank, I know that for sure, but I read race will end under green. Maybe it was on a TV telecast as I was delusional sleeping in bed on Thursday. I don’t know. Maybe I dreamed it. But they knew what was going on. As long as they know what’s going on.”
Kasey Kahne and Jamie McMurray were also asked about the confusion that arose as a result of the mistake made by Fox. This was their exchange:
KASEY KAHNE: I’m happy I’m right here. I mean, I don’t know. I thought it was ‘green-white-checkered’.
JAMIE McMURRAY: I’m the same way. On TV it said it must end under green. There wouldn’t have been anything left. They would have just kept wrecking.
KASEY KAHNE: In the drivers meeting they did say one attempt at a two-lap ‘green-white-checkered’. That’s what I understood. The way it ended was normal.
After the race, NASCAR spokesperson Ramsey Poston confirmed on his Twitter account that it was clearly stated in the pre-race driver’s meeting that there would only be one attempt at a green-white-checker finish.
A total of 76-laps were ran in the race that was originally scheduled to go just 75 laps.
SPEED Sets Broad NASCAR Foundation for 2010
(SPEED TV PR)
With a slate of new programs, an updated and enhanced Web presence and an upgraded 14,400-square-foot, at-track production and interactive marketing compound offering more to race fans than ever before, SPEED is putting the finishing touches on the most ambitious NASCAR on SPEED season in network history.
Coming off a season of record Nielsen ratings for six NASCAR programs, including its live coverage of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, SPEED plans to keep the momentum moving forward in 2010.
“This isn’t a once-a-year process at SPEED,” said network President Hunter Nickell. “Developing and strengthening ideas across all of our NASCAR on SPEED platforms is ongoing … ideas coming to fruition over the next few weeks were born months ago and ideas just now being discussed will roll out later this year. SPEED is never ‘finished’ when it comes to finding the next cool way to connect with NASCAR fans.”
This week, SPEED signed former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty to a new multiyear deal that will position the veteran television personality with John Roberts, Kenny Wallace and Wendy Venturini on the popular NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pre-race show, NASCAR RaceDay Built by The Home Depot. Petty also will appear on the post-race program, NASCAR Victory Lane, and continue his role on the popular game show, NASCAR Smarts.
“I drove a car for 30 years but my interaction with fans last year seemed double that of what it was my entire career because there are so many fans who come to the SPEED Stage and stand around when nothing on-track is going on, just waiting for something to happen,” Petty said. “Just talking to fans and seeing their perspective. Sometimes you have a perspective of the sport — and mine was always inside those four fences of the garages and inside that circle — but to step outside that offers a little different perspective. I now can see why fans say certain things or do certain things or act certain ways where before I didn’t understand it at all.”
As the season gets underway, SPEED is dedicating much of its effort to strengthening its Monday Night NASCAR lineup, with the following rotation beginning Feb. 15 — NASCAR Race Hub (7:30 & 11:30 p.m. ET), NASCAR in a Hurry – Monday Edition (8 p.m. ET) and a new 30-minute talk show with fan favorite Jimmy Spencer, entitled What’s the Deal?, at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Nicky Morse, The Racing Chef, will join the NASCAR on SPEED team in 2010, visiting restaurants around the race track and highlighting the culinary expertise of race fans who take enormous pride in their campground feasts.
“They are very dedicated and very, very competitive,” said Morse, who will be featured on NASCAR Race Hub to open the season. “Somebody is going to cook 100 pounds of crawfish at their boil, so the next person wants to cook 200 pounds and some shrimp. They are very competitive, but they are very generous. I’ve never walked through the infield or a campground where someone doesn’t invite you in to sample what they are cooking.”
Three additional Monday night NASCAR shows are in development, with a planned rollout following the Las Vegas racing weekend.
Race replays for all three NASCAR national touring series are scheduled throughout the week, beginning with an encore presentation of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on Mondays at noon. Tuesday nights, SPEED will air a cut-down version of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, tentatively titled NASCAR Fast Laps, at 8 p.m. ET. The full Cup race will re-air Wednesdays at noon and the full NASCAR Nationwide Series race replay will air Thursdays at noon. In addition, SPEED will air NASCAR Classics on Thursdays at 3 p.m. ET.
In addition to its weekly NASCAR on SPEED lineup, SPEED will continue to be the home for the Gatorade Duel at Daytona, the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, all three NASCAR national touring series awards ceremonies and the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
The only title not returning in 2010 will be the long-running This Week in NASCAR.
“Everyone at SPEED has a tremendous amount of respect for this franchise,” said Steve Craddock, SPEED SVP of Programming. “While it went through several hosts, set designs and even titles, the basic concept of a little Monday night bench racing amongst friends remained the cornerstone of the production. SPEED grew up with this series, spinning off ideas and building what has grown into NASCAR on SPEED 2010. We owe a lot to this show and the teams that have worked on it over the years.”
At the race track, the SPEED Stage continues its evolution, as the network teams with Jay Howard Enterprises (JHE) and GMR Marketing to deliver a one-of-a-kind fan experience. First producing shoulder programming from the track in 2004, the original effort took only a single tractor trailer and two JHE employees to deliver. In 2010, the five-tractor-trailer effort now rolls in with three SPEED Stages and a lineup of interactive fan activities, where ‘SPEED Fanatics’ (my.speedtv.com) can experience what its like to operate a camera, sit on mock sets and get autographs from SPEED personalities and other NASCAR stars.
SPEEDtv.com, the online motorsports authority, also is strengthening its NASCAR offerings, recently hiring five-time NMPA writer of the year Mike Hembree to serve as NASCAR editor under award-winning Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. Hembree, who most recently worked at NASCAR Scene, also is a three-time winner of the Russ Catlin Award.
“Mike is one of the most talented and respected journalists in NASCAR, a great writer and reporter for more than two decades,” Jensen said. “We are extremely fortunate to have him on board at SPEEDtv.com.”
In addition to strengthening its editorial staff for 2010, and its continued content relationship with NASCAR.com, SPEEDtv.com is working on a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing its NASCAR position, including:
- Fantasy racing and statistical support
- Enhanced standings, results and race schedules
- Re-designed homepage and article templates
- More original and related content and features
SPEED™, anchored by its popular and wide-ranging coverage of NASCAR, is the nation’s first and only cable television network dedicated to automotive and motorcycle racing, performance and lifestyle. Now available in more than 79 million homes in North America, SPEED is among the industry leaders in interactive TV, video on demand, mobile initiatives and broadband services. For more information, please visit SPEEDtv.com, the online motor sports authority.
NASCAR fans innocent victims in Time Warner/Fox battle
Come January 1, 2010, over 14 million cable customers will no longer have Fox networks. Fox, of course, televises many of sports’s biggest events, including a large bulk of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Unless Time Warner Cable and Fox can come to a deal and renew their contract over the next three days, many NASCAR fans will be without their Sprint Cup Series until June, when TNT and ESPN take over.
Even more greatly effected is the Camping World Truck Series, which has boasted improved ratings each year it has been on SPEED. However, The SPEED Channel, which is owned by FOX, may go “dark” in the new year, which could end that streak promptly.
According to numerous internet reports, Fox now wants cable companies to pay their local Fox stations a monthly fee along with a fee for their other regional and national networks, such as FX, SPEED and the Fox Reality Channel. The change of charging an extra monthly fee for Fox’s local stations would only apply in some markets, as Fox does not own every local Fox affiliate. However, people that live in Dallas, Los Angeles and New York will be among those affected.
The added fee is believed to cause a 300 percent increase over the price that Time Warner paid Fox in their previous agreement. Time Warner, however, says they will not pay the added fee because it will in turn force them to raise their customer’s monthly bill. Fox, on the other hand, claims that the nation’s second-largest cable provider is more than able to pay the extra price for their networks.
With all of this at hand, NASCAR fans could be one of the many innocent victims in this battle that appears to have no resolution in site. With the season-opening Daytona 500 less than two months away, this disagreement is sure to cause an uproar amongst NASCAR fans, who join NFL and MLB fans as those who will be greatly affected by this clash.
20 years later, pit road a safer place for crews—and media
The question gets asked nearly everytime a pit road reporter from one of the four TV networks that cover NASCAR pops in to deliver some of the happenings from the pits. That question is: “Why are they wearing fire suits?”
The simple answer can be found at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 19, 1989—20 years ago.
Dr. Jerry Punch, who currently works in the booth for ESPN’s NASCAR races, was working on pit road in his blue blazer and tie, a standard for pit road reporters at ESPN at the time. However, as he covered the pit stop of Richard Petty—whose car had a broken header pipe—a fire broke out when the car backfired and ignited fuel that had been spilled during the routine pit stop. Before Punch could react, he found himself just ten feet away from a blazing fire.
Nelson Crozier, who was working as Punch’s spotter, joined ER technician Punch as they attempted to help the situation by tending the team’s gas man, who was on fire, by wrapping him with a rubber mat.
Punch continued to help the crew member until other emergency personnel arrived. Later, he attempted to give a live report on TV. Little did he know, however, his mustache was singed and the windscreen and his polyester blazer was melted.
“As I’m doing a report on camera, my mustache that I had back then is all singed, the hair on the back of my hand is gone, my microphone windscreen is melted—it’s just dripping down across the microphone, and the sleeve on my polyester blazer is all basically melted into a goo—and all you can see is these brass buttons hanger there,” Punch said.
During the entire period these events were taking place, ABC’s coordinating producer of motorsports at the time, Geoff Mason, was watching the entire series of events unfold right on his TV set in New York.
“They had had high cameras on all of this and I don’t realize as I’m giving a report that people in the (TV) truck and people watching back at ABC in New York are just aghast that I was in the middle of this,” Punch said. “Our coordinating producer of motorsports at ABC was Geoff Mason. Geoff was watching back in NY and he immediately called the truck and asked, ‘Why in the world are our people not in fire-protective gear?’”
The Atlanta race on March 19, 1989 was the last race in which a pit road TV reporter did not wear fire protective gear. In fact, all nearly every motorsports that is televised and broadcast on radio with pit road reporters wear a fire protective suit.
Pit road safety for the pit road reporters was not the only thing that changed as a result from this accident. NASCAR also implemented numerous pit road rules to prevent accidents like this from happening in the future.
“It’s not that he (the gas man) was sloppy; that was the nature of pit stops back then,” Punch said. “You’d always see gas trickling down the side of the car and the car would leave and there’d always be a puddle of gas on the ground behind the car. They’d just put a little speedy dry on it and sweep it up.
“After that it became much more sophisticated with really, really tight dry brakes. It made it harder to gas the car. That led to a lot of safety innovations.”
So, next time a pit road reporter is show on TV in a fire-retardant suit, it is because of a call Mason made just 20 years ago.
“To this day, I’m so appreciative of Geoff Mason just steeping in and absolutely making a great call for safety first,” Punch said.
TV execs not against ‘two day shows’ next year
It has been a popular rumor recently that NASCAR is looking to have more two day shows for NASCAR race weekends. Originally designed to save costs for teams, it cuts out anywhere from one to two days that teams have to be at the racetrack for the event. This not only helps teams save money on hotels, but it also makes it easier to arrange travel for the next event if they can show up Friday instead of Wednesday or Thursday.
A two day weekend basically means that the Sprint Cup Series drivers would practice and qualifying on Saturday in preparation for a race the next day. The same applies to the Nationwide and Camping World Series.
However, NASCAR hasn’t confirmed or denied whether or not they will begin utilizing more two day weekends next season. NASCAR CEO Brian France, who was on a teleconference today to announce the switch to more universal race starting times for next season’s Sprint Cup Series races, continued to offer the same stance that NASCAR has taken all year on the question of two day shows.
“Let me just say that that comes from a cost discussion that we have on … we’re trying to save the teams money in their annual budgets,” France said. “We have cut weekends back some from time to time. We’re not cutting races back and not shortening those. You’ve got to remember qualifying, practice, is good content. It actually rates fairly well for all of our partners.”
However, France did bring up a valid point about how increasing the amount of two day shows next year could cause some bad ramifications for track promoters.
“It’s also promotionally difficult for the tracks themselves that are trying to build interest for the weekend in their local market when there’s not practice and activity at the track,” France said.
Some have also speculated that a change to more two day weekends would also bring harm to NASCAR’s television partners. However, Fox Sports’s David Hill things otherwise.
“It’s actually better for us, because we don’t have to extend the other time for the crews doing the set up. It’s a huge set up,” Hill said. “So the fact that we can’t do anything while the track’s hot. So the call of the cooler the track, the closer to the weekend, the better it is for us.”
David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting’s distribution sales and sports, also said that the change would not harm the way TNT, which does six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races during the summer months, covers NASCAR.
Truck Series ratings bring double-digit growth for SPEED
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race from Las Vegas enjoyed an 18-percent increase in Nielsen Household Ratings year-to-year on SPEED, averaging a .46 (338,000 households) as compared to a .39 (285,000 households) in 2008. This year’s race, a late-night start for East Coast audiences, peaked at a .51 (381,000 households), up 6 percent from last year’s peak of .48 (349,000 households).
This marks the second consecutive week that the NCWTS race on SPEED has increased ratings by double digits (Loudon was up 40 percent a week ago), and continues the overall trend of year-to-year Nielsen Household Ratings increases for the series. To date, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races on SPEED have averaged a .80 Nielsen Household Rating, up 3 percent from last year’s .78 at this point in the season. No event has shown a ratings decline since July.
The next NCWTS race on SPEED is Oct. 24 from Martinsville, beginning with NCWTS Setup with Krista Voda at 12:30 p.m. ET, followed by live and exclusive race coverage at 1 p.m. ET.
SPEED™ is the nation’s first and foremost cable television network dedicated to motor sports and the passion for everything automotive. From racing to restoration, motorcycles to movies, SPEED delivers quality programming from the track to the garage. Now available in more than 79 million homes in North America, SPEED is among the fastest-growing sports cable networks in the country and, the home to NASCAR on SPEED and an industry leader in interactive TV, video on demand, mobile initiatives and broadband services. For more information, please visit SPEEDtv.com, the online motor sports authority.
Trucks see another ratings increase on SPEED
Wednesday’s Camping World Truck Series race from Bristol Motor Speedway saw a six-percent increase of SPEED’s ratings from last year’s event.
Nielson Ratings saw that race peak at a .72 rating, with the race being shown in more then 582,000 households. A total of 492,000 households tuned into the race, up from 460,000 last year.
Ratings so far this year are up seven-percent when compared to last years. SPEED’s coverage of the Camping World Truck Series averages 665,000 households, compared to last year’s date equivalent 615,000 households.
Seeing a major increase in ratings was NCWTS Setup, the channel’s pre-truck race show. The show, hosted by Krista Voda, saw 175 percent increase from last year. The show was seen in a total of 407,000 households.
SPEED also broadcasted the inaugural Whelen Modified Series event at Bristol on a tape delay before the Camping World Truck Series event. It scored a .75 rating with 329,000 households tuning in.
The Camping World Truck Series is preparing for back-to-back inaugural events at Chicagoland Speedway and Iowa Speedway. The SPEED team will cover qualifying for the Truck Series, as well as the race next Friday. Qualifying coverage begins at 5 p.m. ET with NCWTS Setup beginning a half-hour before the race at 8:30 p.m. ET.
