Rant.......Too much pre-race nonsense.

T

TRDnAZ

Guest
Is it just me or is there just too much pre-race show? I mean the build up to the race is getting out of control for crying out loud. I don’t need to know every little thing all the drivers and teams did at last weeks race (I watched it!).
Please spare me every little detail about all the other mindless crap like tires, setup, what happened in qualifying, how wet the rain is, what to name the “digger” cam etc. I mean come on! If I what more information, I can find all I need to over-dose on, on the internet. Is it just me or have the networks decided to broadcast all live sporting events like there some kind of reality show? I’m telling you I don’t need the talking head announcers trying to build up the drama of the race. The race itself builds the drama! And when the TV listings give you the time the broadcast starts, the race should start not more than 10 minutes after. I mean say the prayer, sing the national anthem show the fighters fly over and say “gentlemen start your engines”! Let’s Go Racing!.
 
TRDnAZ said:
Is it just me or is there just too much pre-race show? I mean the build up to the race is getting out of control for crying out loud. I don’t need to know every little thing all the drivers and teams did at last weeks race (I watched it!).
Please spare me every little detail about all the other mindless crap like tires, setup, what happened in qualifying, how wet the rain is, what to name the “digger” cam etc. I mean come on! If I what more information, I can find all I need to over-dose on, on the internet. Is it just me or have the networks decided to broadcast all live sporting events like there some kind of reality show? I’m telling you I don’t need the talking head announcers trying to build up the drama of the race. The race itself builds the drama! And when the TV listings give you the time the broadcast starts, the race should start not more than 10 minutes after. I mean say the prayer, sing the national anthem show the fighters fly over and say “gentlemen start your engines”! Let’s Go Racing!.
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I think there needs to be a pre-race show...but no longer than 30 mins...I also wish that when the start time of the race is advertised on tv it should be for the actual start time...not the start time of their hour or hour and a half pre race show.

But then again Id be happy if Fox just left nascar all together.
 
Personally, I think there's too much coverage anyway. You've like 6 hours before and after the race, then the whole round-table shows on Monday, Nascar Now, and you name it. I think the over-saturation has really hurt the sport. I remember when I would get excited because there was a race weekend coming up, and how it was a special experience when you'd see a new piec on a sports show about Nascar. But now, it's just too much on TV.
 
I agree...

Too much prerace, although I loved the "NASCAR on TNT Live" prerace show.

I'd like to see it just like the good days - come in, run your intro piece, show the National Anthem and flyover (which they never show anyways), talk to/about 2 or 3 drivers, air the command, show the friggin' starting grid (which used to be one of my favorite parts of the broadcast, they fail to do this now), race summary and conditions, and then go racing.

FOX's prerace coverage bores the hell out of me. The ESPN Countdown sucked.

I found TNT's prerace show, however, to be highly entertaining, very informative and very enlightening. TNT's the only sign of hope in modern sports television.

Bill Weber can disappear under a rock somewhere - but I love Wally and Kyle. Lindsay's hotter than anything they're gonna show me on TNT :growl:.

Swap Ralph and Bill and lose Marc Fein and they've got an A+ broadcast.

FOX's prerace sucks - Chris Myers is an idiot. They're the ones that need to cut back. At least ESPN and TNT have seperate titles on the DirecTV guide for the prerace shows so I know when to tune in for the actual race.

I hate FOX's hour and a half prerace crap - and you never know when to tune in - they're very slick about it from a marketing standpoint. At this point, I couldn't give a rat's ass if I miss the start anyways, it's not like they actually show the starting grid or anything anyways.
 
VaDirt said:
Personally, I think there's too much coverage anyway. You've like 6 hours before and after the race, then the whole round-table shows on Monday, Nascar Now, and you name it. I think the over-saturation has really hurt the sport. I remember when I would get excited because there was a race weekend coming up, and how it was a special experience when you'd see a new piec on a sports show about Nascar. But now, it's just too much on TV.
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I disagree, rpm2night was nightly programming for years.

They can spare me of all the special things they do in the race.

"Digger" the "Gopher Cam" :bleh:

I :bleh: everytime I see Digger.

And NASCAR on FOX does not need it's own theme song. I miss the old theme music they used to use. Considering FOX5 plays that "Let's Go Racing Boys" song at least 60 times a day, it's gotten old.

Personally, I miss NBC. I thought their coverage, back when they had Allen, was spot-on.
 
I hate FOX's hour and a half prerace crap - and you never know when to tune in - they're very slick about it from a marketing standpoint. At this point, I couldn't give a rat's ass if I miss the start anyways, it's not like they actually show the starting grid or anything anyways.
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I gotta agree, this is the worst part of Fox and it has come to point that i dont care when the race starts, I'll just tune in sometime and hope the race has started.

I think they do way to much.
 
bowtie said:
Give me Eli Gold any day!!
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I remember when Allen and Eli were giving the call for MRN.

Put those two in the booth along with a decent driver analyst and they'll have it made.

I'll take Bill Weber over Jerry Punch though. I don't know why ESPN keeps Allen contained to the Countdown. He's the best commentator they have by a mile.
 
Ideally-

Coverage starts, we see the grid, engines are fired, and the race starts.

After the race is over, thats when most of the coverage should be held, to get the driver interviews, thoughts, analysis, etc.


Pre-race coverage is nowhere close to being necessary. Post-race coverage should be, but yet as soon as the checkered flag waves they interview the winner and they sign off.
 
The pre-race show should concentrate on the highlights and lowlights of qualifying, practice and then whatever news worthy happened during the week. 30 minutes should be more than sufficient.
The post race should cover as many drivers and their individual stories as you can fit into the 30 minutes, along with some interviews with notable Nascar officials if something different happened that may need explaining.
That shouldn't be a real hard format to follow. It tells us enough without bogging down in the minutiae.
 
Some of these pre-race shenanigans make my ears hurt and my eyes glaze over. I find myself turning the volume waaaaaaaay down until the race actually starts.

And don't even get me started on some of those "renditions"/slaughters of the national anthem. :tongue:
 
too much coverage...... hmmmmmm..... with the risk of gettin flamed, I'll say this....... remember when the race was pre-empted by TAPED golf matches, or the last 20 laps droped for goin long, and in its place- Heidi....?????? No thanks, not gonna fuss about too much coverage.........:beerbang:
 
speedwayphoto said:
too much coverage...... hmmmmmm..... with the risk of gettin flamed, I'll say this....... remember when the race was pre-empted by TAPED golf matches, or the last 20 laps droped for goin long, and in its place- Heidi....?????? No thanks, not gonna fuss about too much coverage.........:beerbang:
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Speedy, I gotta agree with you on this one. Seems to me that there are so many newbies to the sport that they just don't know what it's like to be without the sport on TV or anywhere else for that matter. But so be it. Life begins at birth and so do the fans.

But I will say that the sport has been saturated, though I don't mind. I remember when I was living in Iowa in the early 80's. ESPN began to show some of the races, not all, but many of them. The next year, they added more races until they finally had achieved full coverage. In the early part of that, getting any special dirt on anything NASCAR required me to get a subscription to Grand National Scene, which later was renamed Winston Cup Scene, and has probably gone through a few more name changes since. Anyway, now and then I could actually listen to a race on the radio, even a Busch race, but not all the time. I remember vividly how my skin would goose bump up when I would hear that familiar music when MRN was coming on the air. I still long for that at the beginning of the year, but even here in the heart of NASCAR, few radio stations will carry the Nationwide Series. But I digress. I was in great need of information about the sport I so loved and thought about getting a subscription to the Charlotte Observer, but I found a freind in NC (she turned out to become my wife) who not only was a fan of NASCAR but a fan of my favorite and she supplied me with news and rumors. Not long afterward, the computer would allow me to find just about anything I wanted to know about the sport and soon, I was overwhelmed with information about NASCAR. At first, I tried to read everything I could, but soon realized that in order to do that, I'd have to be online 24/7 and then would require a second or third person to help me.

Nowdays, I pick and choose and sometimes I just don't care what is happening, but I'll find out about this or that sooner or later. I am still an avid fan of NASCAR's top series and the next lower one as well, but since I work on Saturdays and there isn't a radio station that carries that series here now with the exception of PRN, I can't witness those races very often. But I can and do read about them on the internet.

I feel that one day, the baloon will burst and all those newbies to the sport will be long gone and the only people that will be interested will be the real race fans who love the sport, not for the fad, but for the real excitement it brings, and if any of us old timers are still around, we will once again have to rely on other sources to get any kind of info about the sport we so dearly love.

If you don't like the extra coverage, watch Heidi instead! :)
 
speedwayphoto said:
too much coverage...... hmmmmmm..... with the risk of gettin flamed, I'll say this....... remember when the race was pre-empted by TAPED golf matches, or the last 20 laps droped for goin long, and in its place- Heidi....?????? No thanks, not gonna fuss about too much coverage.........:beerbang:
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Well, I live in DC. The local FOX station cancelled coverage of The Daytona 500 for a little bit of snow a few years ago. :mad:
 
I don't think there is too much coverage, I think there is too much lousy coverage. Some of these shows on Speed are for the idiots that only watch reality shows and wrasslin, nothing else. It's too dumbed down.

I don't have a problem with the pre-race shows if they are giving me some new information or an interesting perspective on a hot topic. Otherwise, it's overkill. I thought TNT did a nice job with the drivers from the past. I didn't get to see all of them.

Fox does doupe people into tuning into their pre-race show by advertising that as their starting times. But that's what their supposed to do. When people complain about it, I say look for the real start times. I found that http://racing-reference.info/ has the starting times (give or take a few minutes) for the races. I actually think these times are when they do the "start your engines" call. I hardly watch the pre-race shows unless I'm bored, there's nothing for me to do, or the family is out of the house.
 
MRM said:
I don't have a problem with the pre-race shows if they are giving me some new information or an interesting perspective on a hot topic. Otherwise, it's overkill. I thought TNT did a nice job with the drivers from the past. I didn't get to see all of them.
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TNT's prerace show was awesome. If all the networks did theirs like TNT, it'd be perfect.
 
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