The Announcers Thread

Is he the last announcer left in the world?

DW has just dropped his FoxNASCAR load -- JG can't go running away from that fact. He's the new old-guy-champion driver in The Booth.

I don't know if he wants to grow really old in that seat like DW has...
 
It won't be that long, I will be shocked if it's really a two man booth next year. They will have some new gimmick, announcer in the cloud, or other way to fill it in.
 
I think Jamie McMurray will be the one replacing DW. I think it was the Jenna Fryer article that said Fox wanted DW to call it quits after the Daytona 500 and he didn't go for that. At the same time, McMurray chose to race in the Daytona 500, then switch to Fox after that. Seems to me like he was going to replace DW, but things didn't work out that way.
 
In 3 years Jeff Gordon will be the new DW in that he will have no idea how the new car will react in situations. Harvick could still race with the new car and in Xfinity to keep up with the changes.
 
DW will be hard to replace. He has the gift of gab - he can talk about stuff when nothing is happening.
 
Its official - When they are speaking off screen, I can't tell the difference between Burton or Jr.

Not that its a big deal, more of an observation.
 
The one thing I like about NBC is the excitement they bring to a broadcast. Not a big fan of Burton and Letarte but Rick Allen is one of the best in the business. Wish it was just him and Jr., and they had a type of Crank it Up.
 
Rick Allen and the chattering gerbils... bleh. But even worse was the absence of the "scoring pylon" on the left side of the screen. So hard to keep track of who is doing what. C'mon NBC, give me the running order pylon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sdj
Rick Allen and the chattering gerbils... bleh. But even worse was the absence of the "scoring pylon" on the left side of the screen. So hard to keep track of who is doing what. C'mon NBC, give me the running order pylon.

Excuse me sir, but isn't it "the screaming gerbils"? ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: sdj
Rick Allen and the chattering gerbils... bleh. But even worse was the absence of the "scoring pylon" on the left side of the screen. So hard to keep track of who is doing what. C'mon NBC, give me the running order pylon.
Excuse me sir, but isn't it "the screaming gerbils"? ;)

You would think these guys are doing radio, they need to take a breath and shut up for a moment or two. Jeff Burton is very irritating to say the least and unfortunately Jr. is being tottered by these motor mouths.
 
I think part of it is that Jr and Burton have the same tone. They have to review the broadcast after each race and they should be able to hear what we hear.
 
Please give Jeff Burton the old heave hoe, his voice is irritating, like finger nails on a chalk board.
DW was a good ole boy with lots of knowledge but I did not like his boogity boogity Lets go racing boys.
I like Kyle Petty but not as an announcer. I do not like Jeff Gordon, he is pro-Hendricks racing, announcers should not be rooting for one particular team.
What ever happened to Allen Bestwick ?

Dale JR doesn't make it as a full time announcer, I think he could ad some insight, but not be the lead announcer.

I think NASCAR and many race tracks do not fully understand just how important announcers are. Look back at Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons, they had insight, good voices, and did not talk too much.
Look towards pro baseball and pro football, or better yet College football and you can tell the difference between fantastic announcers and bad announcers. It "do" make a difference.
The better the announcers the better the telecast becomes.
But again, NASCAR needs to make changes to help produce a better product.
Personally I believe they have diluted auto racing coverage by having too many divisions. Its like the local tracks going to more and more divisions, fewer cars in each class which usually lessens the competition.
Do we really need a Truck Racing series, looking at the empty seats at the larger tracks one would think not.
If these teams switched to the Sportsman series it would make that series more competitive, and some of those may more up to the Grand National series.
I still refer to them in these terms as the sponsors keep changing and its kind of confusing, Is the Monster series and the Infinity series the top class ? I know the answer but do the new fans that Nascar needs understand the difference ?
I do not understand how NASCAR makes their rules, it seems like if a Grand National, a Sportsman or an ARCA car are all safe enough to run at the Super Speedways, why have so much difference in the rules ?
These difference in rules only drives up the costs of building these cars.
Nascar has a reputation for only having a small number of drivers capable of winning a race and these drivers are provided the most expensive cars that can be produced. These Super Teams have a garage full of dozens of race cars for one team, and each year they build more, actually they build new cars all year round. They build cars for specific tracks. They are all the same except for a little something different here or there. NASCAR has to do something to control the costs of building and maintaining these race cars. If it were not for teams getting tens of millions of dollars per year from sponsors to offset their costs these race teams would go broke.
Sure the race fans want to see cars go fast, but how many can see the difference of a half second on a Super Speedway ? Fans have no idea how much it costs to go just one tenth of a mile faster.
Money buys speed is the old adage from the beginning of racing.
But I digress.
What fans want to see is a very competitive race that has interesting announcers.
 
Looking through threads, seems like there is a lot of posts about announcers so why not just keep it in one thread?

I prefer FOX over NBC, though that's not saying much.

On the Fox side; Mike Joy seems to have given up, D.W. is a character mostly created by FOX, and Jeff Gordon sounds like he has no confidence at times. Larry Mcreynolds pretty decent and is always good for some laughs when he gets excited and his voice rises about 20 decibels. The pit road reporters are decent, but I could do with out Chris Meyers and Michael Waltrip

NBC? Well as you can see by my name, Rick Allen is basically a joke. The guy dramatizes EVERYTHING. "SIDE BY SIDE FOR 15TH PLACE!!!!" He acts like it's the last lap for the Daytona 500. Steve Letarte is really just clueless and tries to build up the importance of every race and Jeff burton thinks you have to shout to get your point across

At Indy last week, I think it was Jeff Burton who said along the lines "I want the bottom line, to me that's the one that's gonna work, but the top line could work to so maybe that one should be picked"

What's the point of even talking if you are going to say something stupid like that? I feel like announcers now feel like they constantly have to talk. They dont let the racing speak for itself.

Go back to old ESPN broadcast with Bob, Benny and Ned and sometimes they'd go 2-3 minutes with no talking. They knew how to call a race

Well said, I totally agree with you,
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Please give Jeff Burton the old heave hoe, his voice is irritating, like finger nails on a chalk board.
DW was a good ole boy with lots of knowledge but I did not like his boogity boogity Lets go racing boys.
I like Kyle Petty but not as an announcer. I do not like Jeff Gordon, he is pro-Hendricks racing, announcers should not be rooting for one particular team.
What ever happened to Allen Bestwick ?

Dale JR doesn't make it as a full time announcer, I think he could ad some insight, but not be the lead announcer.

I think NASCAR and many race tracks do not fully understand just how important announcers are. Look back at Ned Jarrett and Benny Parsons, they had insight, good voices, and did not talk too much.
Look towards pro baseball and pro football, or better yet College football and you can tell the difference between fantastic announcers and bad announcers. It "do" make a difference.
The better the announcers the better the telecast becomes.
But again, NASCAR needs to make changes to help produce a better product.
Personally I believe they have diluted auto racing coverage by having too many divisions. Its like the local tracks going to more and more divisions, fewer cars in each class which usually lessens the competition.
Do we really need a Truck Racing series, looking at the empty seats at the larger tracks one would think not.
If these teams switched to the Sportsman series it would make that series more competitive, and some of those may more up to the Grand National series.
I still refer to them in these terms as the sponsors keep changing and its kind of confusing, Is the Monster series and the Infinity series the top class ? I know the answer but do the new fans that Nascar needs understand the difference ?
I do not understand how NASCAR makes their rules, it seems like if a Grand National, a Sportsman or an ARCA car are all safe enough to run at the Super Speedways, why have so much difference in the rules ?
These difference in rules only drives up the costs of building these cars.
Nascar has a reputation for only having a small number of drivers capable of winning a race and these drivers are provided the most expensive cars that can be produced. These Super Teams have a garage full of dozens of race cars for one team, and each year they build more, actually they build new cars all year round. They build cars for specific tracks. They are all the same except for a little something different here or there. NASCAR has to do something to control the costs of building and maintaining these race cars. If it were not for teams getting tens of millions of dollars per year from sponsors to offset their costs these race teams would go broke.
Sure the race fans want to see cars go fast, but how many can see the difference of a half second on a Super Speedway ? Fans have no idea how much it costs to go just one tenth of a mile faster.
Money buys speed is the old adage from the beginning of racing.
But I digress.
What fans want to see is a very competitive race that has interesting announcers.

You ask, "Do we really need a Truck Racing series" Hell Yes! It is the best "RACING" of all three series. IMHO.
 
You ask, "Do we really need a Truck Racing series" Hell Yes! It is the best "RACING" of all three series. IMHO.

Trucks have been the best series this year and it isn't even close. You got at least 16-20 trucks that are capable of winning compared to like 8-12 in Xfinity.
 
Dale JR doesn't make it as a full time announcer, I think he could add some insight, but not be the lead announcer.

I like Dale Jr. in the booth.

He provides insight that I'm not used to hearing.

But he needs to stop and take a breath now and again instead of the rapid, machine-gun style chatter.
 
I like Dale Jr. in the booth.

He provides insight that I'm not used to hearing.

But he needs to stop and take a breath now and again instead of the rapid, machine-gun style chatter.
It's today's directors and producers. They try to interject fake enthusiasm in everything like they do in reality shows. Hysterics is becoming the norm in the booth and it's awful.
 
Then why are the stands so empty ?

1) Because the stands are pretty empty for the other two series too.
2) Because a lot of fans have decided to use their limited racing dollars on seeing the Cup race only.
3) Because a lot of "racing fans" aren't very smart and wouldn't know good racing if it fell on their heads.
4) Because a lot of "race fans " are more enamored with watching big stars than watching good racing.
5) Because a lot of "race fans" have never even bothered to check out what they are missing, so they don't know any better.
6) Because the Truck Series often races on Friday night when fewer people are able to get to the race track.
 
1) Because the stands are pretty empty for the other two series too.
2) Because a lot of fans have decided to use their limited racing dollars on seeing the Cup race only.
3) Because a lot of "racing fans" aren't very smart and wouldn't know good racing if it fell on their heads.
4) Because a lot of "race fans " are more enamored with watching big stars than watching good racing.
5) Because a lot of "race fans" have never even bothered to check out what they are missing, so they don't know any better.
6) Because the Truck Series often races on Friday night when fewer people are able to get to the race track.

Excellent answers. I do not watch the truck series as I do not think of trucks as race cars, I know that that is just me.
I am a fan of the early ASA American Speed Association and the best part of it was that the rules allowed cars from all over to compete against each other, We got to see our local stars take on the best in the region and a few national stars, with trucks, not too many tracks race them, no grass roots support.
I am not knocking the series, just saying one of NASCAR's problems in my opinion is that it is competing against itself.
Now they went out and bought ARCA.
Thank you for your intelligent and honest post !
 
I agree 100% about the ASA. That was some of the best racing I have seen in my entire life, but I really liked it from the early 90's forward when the rules package seemed to put everybody on a more level playing field equipment wise. As for ARCA, it holds a very special place in my heart, but honestly, its circling the drain, and if NASCAR didn't buy it, I don't think it could go on much longer. It kind of broke my heart recently when they only had 17 cars start a speedway race. It wasn't that long ago that they were starting 40 cars, and you had to have a pretty solid run just to get a top 15.
 
Sadly most race fans are dumb as **** to realize how good the Truck Series is. Plus they don't invite too many to the playoffs.
 
Don't you think ARCA going to the expensive carbon fiber, or whatever its made of made it too expensive for many of the teams.
The old ASA started going out after switching to expensive fiberglass bodies and the V-6.
We ran a few ASA events locally before that, but it was all we could do to afford weekly racing and a few local ASA races as it was.
Going back to competitive races, I have been too many tracks and have seen some great racing, but it was from the lower classes with drivers I never heard of and I think that is the problem with the Truck series. yes. competitive races for a lower level series with mostly drivers that no one knows of, with a few exceptions.
I was a big fan of the old sportsman series when they had about a half dozen Grand National drivers. I know a of fans complained about that, but it was fun to see some of those Sportsman regulars run with those cats and sometimes beat em. I believe Nascar could of come up with a bonus program for the top 10 finishing Sportsman regulars.
I think it helped some Sportsman drivers get some much needed recognition if they could compete with Grand National stars.
Like you it is not worth watching any series that only has about 17 cars total.
I believe I read where NASCAR is going to make ARCA part of their K & N filter Series, It may become the ARCA K & N Filter Series, and become an entry level driver development series. It could be interesting if they have several regional divisions along with a National Championship Schedule.
But again it just add more NASCAR vs NASCAR . The Grand Nationals, the Sportsman, the Truck, and now ARCA.
I ask again if NASCAR thinks that ARCA cars are safe enough to compete on the Super Speedways then why have 2 more series that have more expensive cars ?
If NASCAR went back to a Grass Roots series, where all 3 divisions used the same chassis, but different engine rules for each class then all 3 series would see tremendous growth.
Nascars top series could set it up so that each of the 4 auto manufacturers , Chevy, Ford, Dodge, Toyota were allowed to have 6 cars each guaranteed a starting spot in each event, a total of 24 cars, then that would allow an additional 20 open positions , for a field of 44 cars. Each track would more than likely have at least 40 cars trying for those 20 open positions. Thats growth.
Nascar could say that each of the 4 manufacturers could have three - two car teams. ( 24 cars )
No more than two cars per team. Race teams with 4 cars are gaining a whole lot more info than a 3 car, a 2 car, or a single car team. The Manufacturers would want all their teams to share info so now more cars would be more competitive.
So this would still allow NASCAR the ability to promote drivers as at least 24 of them would be running for factory backed teams and be guaranteed to start every event.
Just some thoughts to kick around.
 
Back
Top Bottom