Reflections On Daytona

[Mike Kellner]

did you not watch the Daytona 500 last night? It was all about Danica.

I watched everything but the extended red flag period, we ate dinner soon after it started and when I was done, I left the TV on low and surfed the net until they fired the engines. The level of Danica worship was about 10X lower than Indycar last year and about 100X lower than Indycar 4 years ago. You would have to be a Danica hater to say there was too much Danica. It had the least Danica I can remember for any race she has been in. Interestingly, when the wife and daughter asked about the race, guess what question they asked..... "How's Danica doing?". Once I said, "she crashed on lap 2 and is 60 laps down", not another question all night.

I don't think I'd call it cornpone, it's NASCAR, and in a surprising coincidence, the announcers are Southerners. Whatever else you can say about DW, he knows a ton about stock car racing, and is quite good at spotting what is important and why. I am not sure who would be an improvement if you sum up knowledge and ability to explain it.

It could have been that I was lass attached to the race and the commercials bothered be less, but it seemed like there were fewer of them than last year's Indy. Indy had a lot of commercials and it seemed like 4 - 5 minutes of commercials separated by 3 - 4 minutes of racing. NASCAR was more the other way around. Part of it was NASCAR showed more of the auto race when they were not in a commercial break. Indy has a real tendency to show useless stuff. I did not feel as disconnected from the race and it did not feel as chopped up and incoherent as the last few Indys. Maybe it was just that the announcers knew what was happening and kept us up on the story. The story telling was considerably better.

I missed interviewing the bag of Speedy Dry and the stuff about Tide. I tend to do something else during long Reds. Keep in mind, they had done about 5 hours of no racin' filler Sunday and had two more hours of mostly boring stuff to fill Monday night. You just run out of stuff to say after a while.

I'm just sayin' NASCAR and F1 are miles ahead of us in the success department, measured by fans in the stands and viewers at home. I believe a lot of it has to do with the relative quality of the TV shows. I'm not saying we need to copy either exactly, but we could learn a lot from both.

[Jakester]

With the dead air marathon those guys went through, I thought they did pretty good.

DW? He was quite the driver in his day, and his personality is big broad and brash. There are times I find him hard to take though, like last night when he explained how Jimmy Johnson taking his hands off the wheel just before the big thump was something NASCAR drivers learned from Danica Patrick, and multiple mentions of racing at over 200 mph when top speeds were in the 193-194 range (yeah, it's closer to 200 than 100, but it's still not 200...but they did run at least one 200 lap last in the race). Boogity (can't bring myself to type it three times) is more overused/overdone than git 'er done.

Digger has far outlived his usefulness and needs to be retired.

[dvs]

......
I'm just sayin' NASCAR and F1 are miles ahead of us in the success department, measured by fans in the stands and viewers at home. I believe a lot of it has to do with the relative quality of the TV shows. I'm not saying we need to copy either exactly, but we could learn a lot from both.

Bingo! I agree 100% The tv product just isn't working.

[Miles1166]

Um hello McFly, did you not watch the Daytona 500 last night? It was all about Danica...showing her putzing around after her wreck, numerous garage shots of her car being fixed while she is sitting in the car and hardly other garage shots such as KuBu actually helping his crew repair the car. DW slobbing over DP was laughable. Trust me, NASCAR and Fox, TNT and ESPN will do the same thing just as reference ABC doing for Indycar races. However, but the Danica storylines @ Indy are usually warranted becasue she was competitive, not so much last night.

I never stated nor commented that I watched last nights Daytona race and for the most part I didn't. I caught the fire and some of the green white checker. But I was in my editing bay editing and color correcting until around 10 pacific. I occasionally caught a moment as I walked by my bosses office television. So, I was commenting based on my past experiences of watching NASCAR and Daytona broadcasts.

[Miles1166]

What specific Indycar races have you noticed sloppy camera work from IMS Productions? I believe IMS Productions is well respected within the broadcasting community....it is contracted out for other sporting events and programs.

As far as races with dropped shots or poor camera work. I can tell you I specifically commented on the Indy qualifying coverage last year and problematic bush league work especially during driver interviews. However, anyone who tells me that the grid runs were perfectly executed camera work or directing is dreaming. They were a great idea and still are and I would enjoy them getting those right. However, they were far from Sunday night football seamless. I'll watch and point out this season when the director is cutting to a camera that should be on someone and instead they are wandering around loing for their shot, and no, I'm not arguing this is easy work, just that it's not perfect and seamless as alot of other broadcasted sports tend to be. And to be frank, people here have been complaining for years about dull camera placement that does a poor job demonstrating the circuit or the speeds of the IndyCars, and those decisions are at least partially responsible. And while IMS productions is respected and used for other things, part of that is that there very few production groups in that part of the country available with those type of grade A facilities and equipment. I'm sorry if you disagree. But like I said as the season goes along I'll point out some of the clunky work that they do, and even when they do a serviceable job I'll point out how safe and by the numbers they tend to be as a broadcasting group that's not exactly pushing the envelope or innovating.

[Angry Onion]

While the Waltrip and Waltriper are not my cup of tea they are somebodies cup of tea and illicit an emotional reaction.

Oh, I'm sure the emotional reaction the Waltrips send me into is illicit in most states

I'm don't think Reid, & Goodyear are anybodies cup of tea.

I don't mind them, mistakes and all.