NASCAR fans treated to a high-tech production
Kurt Roberts lifts his right arm and holds it out straight.
This, he indicates, is how tens of millions of NASCAR fans at home view a broadcast of a race such as today’s Lenox Industrial Tools 300, to be shown on TNT at New Hampshire International Speedway.
Flat. Level. Smooth.
The story behind the TV story is a bit different.
“It’s organized chaos in here,” Roberts said. “Yelling, screaming. One guy will yell something to the producer. Another will yell, ‘Shut up.’ When accidents happen, that’s when it gets real crazy. And then, when it’s all over, everyone high-fives each other and leaves.”
It’s Friday afternoon, 48 or so hours before Nextel Cup show time, and Roberts, a technical manager with TNT, is giving a tour of the network’s facilities.
Now, he’s in TNT’s main production truck, standing in front of a wall of small screens, each showing a different camera angle. In-car cameras are here, rooftops there . . . eight robotic cameras being controlled by operators in another truck over here, hand-held cameras in the pits over there.
In all, there are some 50 cameras — about as many as would do a Super Bowl, Roberts said — offering a director 50 shots to choose from.
This afternoon, veteran director Mike Wells will sit in front of all the cameras, a couple of producers to his left, high-tech graphics and replays and sound and everything else that goes into a broadcast at his disposal. A technical director will sit to his right and push buttons, pull levers.
And the fun will begin.
New networks, new challenges
Bill Weber, TNT’s lead announcer, works the garage area. It’s Friday afternoon and he’s bouncing about, checking in with this team and that, seeing what’s new. Who’s doing what? How are things shaping up for the weekend?
The NASCAR season is split between networks. Fox does the first half of the season, and NBC and Turner team up to split the second half that started last weekend at Chicago. ABC and ESPN are returning next season, and NASCAR officials are excited about that.
Weber is in his second season as the host of the broadcasts on NBC and Turner. Benny Parsons, the 1973 NASCAR champion, and Wally Dallenbach Jr., another former racer, join him in the booth. Allen Bestwick is the lead pit reporter.
Their goals, Weber said, are multi-purpose.
“The last six years there’s been a major push to try and educate and inform new fans while making sure we still entertain old fans, and that’s been the biggest challenge,” Weber said.
They might offer an extra recap, an extra explanation of what might have happened, aimed at the viewer who’s newer to the sport.
How they’re meeting the challenge is open to debate.
“It depends on who you ask,” Weber said. “I know a lot of longtime fans think it’s Racing 101. But then they go to work on Monday and a guy walks up to them and says, ‘Man, I watched my first Nextel race yesterday and that’s a lot of fun.’ That way they know there’s a new fan and they can help educate them, as well.”
The drama offered by new and improved in-car cameras helps on both counts, Weber said.
But not every driver and team is interested in dealing with a camera in the car. Weber thinks NASCAR ought to make camera mounts, with dummy weight if there is no camera on board, mandatory in all cars.
“The on-board camera is what really captures the attention of the new fan and really makes a longtime fan feel like they’re in the seat,” he said. “Some guys don’t want to run it for the weight or the location of it. If every car had a mount and weight, it wouldn’t be a handicap or a challenge for a team to run with one on board.
Hi-tech on air, in stands
Cameras have been in cars for a couple of decades. But not like this.
“The technology of in-car cameras has been around for probably 20 years,” said Jim Hunter, NASCAR Vice President of Corporate Communications. “But it never worked. That’s one of the big things now. The technology overall is so much better. And it’s still advancing. The information they give the viewer: the RPMs, when they’re getting on and off the throttle, all that type of information is new in the last five years.”
Improvements in technology are not just for those watching at home, either.
Fans in the stands long have been able to listen to drivers and crew chiefs and race officials over scanners.
This year, Nextel itself has come out with FanView, a battery-powered, handheld unit that is a scanner and more. It allows for watching the race, listening and calling up all sorts of details at the touch of buttons. The product taps into NASCAR timing and scoring and the TV broadcast.
It even has an audio replay feature. Listeners can call up the last three minutes of scanner conversation in case, for instance, someone wants to play back the discussion just before, or after, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth get into it on the track as they did last week at Chicago.
About 5000 of the units are available for rent at the track today for $50. At Talladega and Daytona and a couple of other tracks, Nextel has run out of its supply.
The goal, said Nextel public relations manager Becky Cox, is to have units available for sale by the time NASCAR returns here for its September race weekend.
She said they are likely to retail in the $400 range.
“We think they’ll make a great gift for the holiday,” she said.
What to look for
Weber is looking, and hoping, for a good race today.
Keep an eye on Gordon and Kenseth if they’re anywhere near each other on the track, he said. And watch Ryan Newman, who is starting on the pole today and, at No. 18 in points, needs good finishes in the worst way.
Then there’s the racing overall.
“This track has come light years in improving the brand of racing,” Weber said. “There are a lot of challenges when they come here. They’re coming off Chicago, where it’s a mile and a half and it’s real fast. This is a mile. There are 43 cars out there. It’s a tight pit road. Some guys are mad. Some guys are desperate. That’s a good combination. There are a lot of ingredients for what could be a fun Sunday.”
Weber and Parsons and Dallenbach and the rest of team TNT will be all over from high above trackside.
And out behind the main grandstand that will be teeming with steaming-hot fans this afternoon, past all the white hospitality tents, 16 full-sized trucks make up the TV compound. Most are TNT trucks, others are for Speed Channel and NASCAR Images operations.
There are wires, wires everywhere.
TNT travels with a crew of about 140 and brings its own caterer, its own power and its own golf carts to get around the grounds.
“We’re pretty much a self-contained city,” Roberts said.
Setting up for television starts Wednesday afternoon and takes about a day and a half. Breaking the whole show down tonight will take about three and a half hours.
Then it’s on to Pocono, and they will start all over again on Wednesday and set out to put on another nice, smooth show.
