Monday, August 27, 2007

ESPN's NASCAR Coverage Needs MAJOR Overhaul

I have grown very sick and tired of ESPN's NASCAR coverage. From the live races to there "NASCAR Programs" like NASCAR Now. They don't seem professional to me and especially their race coverage is boring.

This past weekend at Bristol, Kasey Kahne was leading with Newman in second. Caution came out and everyone came down pit road. They never showed Kahne or Newman on pit road except of Kane leaving and being the first off of pit road. They showed other guys on pit road that were much farther back. All the viewers new was that Kahne was the first on and first off. Newman was second on and 4th off. They didn't even really know that, they had to wait for the restart.

How many times do they not show the top 2 on pit road especially when they are racing pretty close? Granted, no matter what and no matter what station, Newman does not get much coverage. But running in second should have got some and with Kane leading he should have been shown on pit road.

Commercial. Could they possibly have squeezed in more commercials? It literally seemed like they were going to commercial every 10 to 15 minutes during the Sharpie 500 at Bristol. How ever often they did was just to much. Maybe they planned for more cautions, but they defiantly had to many commercials.

And on top of that if a caution came out in the first 75% of the race, they let the commercial finish and then come back to the race. Later in the race they did improve on that.

At Bristol they were covering a 1/2 mile track and seemed hard for them to keep up on the action, for the tv crews at least. I am sorry, but at a half mile track you should be able to swing or switch the camera's to the action VERY fast. Did not seem to happen at Bristol.

Rusty Wallace is constantly being corrected on the air. I understand his role there. He is a past champion that brings a driver perspective to the coverage. But recently he was corrected a couple times on the air about his comments on the Sharpie 500 at Bristol.

At one point in the race Michael Waltrip was 2 laps down and racing lead lap cars really hard. Wallace came out and basically said that maybe Waltrip was doing that for TV time for his sponsor. I thought that was a little uncalled for. How about he was running his race and he is competitive by nature. You just usually don't hear things like that out of announcers.

ESPN's analyst.....go home. All of them are dry and boring and some of them act like they are reading a script.

ESPN's Tim Brewer with the cut away car. He might be a 2 time champion as a crew chief, but he has no business being on TV. I am sure he is very knowledgable, but he has no personality. He is too dry and "stumbly". Go home.

Surprised they did not show the clean air/dirty air graphic! I know there is not alot of aero at Bristol, but ESPN seems so proud of their "Draft Track". I was just waiting for them to use it at Bristol.

ESPN's NASCAR NOW...I watch for info...most of it I already know from reading news articles on line, but still I watch it sometimes in case there is more news or to maybe hear a different perspective on things. Couple of times a week. It is really bad and I don't like it. The same analysts that they use for race coverage and the host asks questions that just floor me sometimes. And he doesn't "seem" NASCAR knowledgeable to me.

ESPN's season is over, but it's owner ABC will be covering the rest of the season. Does this mean that the same crew will be working the races. I hope not, but probably.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ditto for me on ESPN..Andy Petrie is alright but Rusty grates on my nerves..Brewer looks like a deer in the headlights everytime he is on....I just wish Fox had the whole thing

Anonymous said...

Who 'da thunk we'd miss DW this much?

Unknown said...

Rusty has got to go. Andy Petrie is very good. Rusty does not know what is going on. too bad fox doesnt have the whole thing.