July 20, 2008
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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Last weekend I was at my parent’s home in Florida, and as I was looking through a box of old things I had stashed in their garage, I came
across some old TV Guides. I have no idea why I kept them, but in looking through them, I found one from the week of February 17, 1990.
That was a fairly unremarkable week in TV, with the exception of the fact it was Daytona 500 week.
Now, unlike today where you can find TV coverage on multiple channels of every form of racing there is, back then, coverage of NASCAR was
still hit and miss. CBS had the TV contract, but they didn’t have all of the pre and post race coverage that is out there today, and the
coverage pretty much seemed to start right before the green flag and ended right after the checkers.
I know I am spoiled by the fact that I can log on to the internet and get live updates on pretty much anything going on during a race
weekend. When we watch races, we have cameras showing us every angle, and it seems more than half the cars in the field have cameras
mounted to give us almost every possible angle possible of the driver, the car, and what is going on around the car during the race. We
have Race Buddy and Digger bringing us the racing up close and in high definition. You can log on to NASCAR.com and if you have trackpass,
you can see a live leader board, how fast the cars are going, and listen to the drivers talk to their crew chiefs on the radio. If you
don’t like the TV coverage, you can listen to the race on your local MRN station, on your computer, or on Sirius NASCAR radio.
There is NASCAR coverage in most newspapers. If you don’t want to look through the paper, you can come to websites like this one and catch
up on all the news in the sport. ESPN has NASCAR Now, and SPEED has NASCAR Live, Trackside, Raceday, and This Week in NASCAR. The week
before the Daytona 500, there is multi-page coverage in the USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and even the TV Guide.
However, back in that TV Guide from February 17, 1990, there was only one page devoted to NASCAR's biggest race. The article, from page 28,
was written by Jim Baker, and is titled “”Race-Cam” Makes 500 a Winner”. Reading it reminds me that NASCAR hasn’t always been so hi-tech.
“No sport can put viewers into the action like auto racing-thanks to the in-car camera that CBS introduced at the 1981 Daytona 500. This
Sunday CBS's noon-to-3:30 PM Daytona coverage should demonstrate how the use of “Race-Cam” has grown.”
Did you notice the coverage was only 3-and-a-half hours long?
The article continues “The technology now includes a camera that looks over the driver’s right shoulder, plus a “Face-Cam” (showing the
driver) and “Bumper-cams” mounted on the auto’s front and rear…..a “Side-Cam” that shows these high-speed vehicles touching on the turns is
not far away.”
We have gotten so used to seeing all of these angles, it is hard to believe that once, 17 years ago, they were all new and marvels of
technology.
“CBS began wiring Race-Cam drivers for sound in ’83. (Ken) Squier, (CBS motorsports editor at the time) expects four to race with cameras
Sunday: 1989 winner Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and one more.”
The article notes that up to that point, only two Race-Cam carrying drivers had actually won a race: Cale Yarborough in 1983 and 1984, and
Geoff Bodine in 1986. Now, we expect to see the winning driver pumping his fist in the air live as we listen to him thank his crew for
helping him win.
Bob Fishman, who directed every Daytona 500 telecast with the exception of three Olympic years (’92, ’94, ’98) from that very first on in
1979 until CBS’ last one in 2000, commented in the article that the camera was “The single best TV-sports technological achievement because
it took auto racing out of the dark ages. This is the only sport where we’re allowed to be in the middle of the field….NASCAR embraced our
being there and didn’t consider TV and intruding monster. The audience was very regionalized (heavily Southern) until then, but we made it
different.”
In the 25 years since Cale carried that first in-car camera, we have gone from that wide-eyed awe at how technology was able to bring us
the drivers’ view of a race to the ability to complain when we see a driver give a one-fingered salute to another driver live or to feel
relief when we see a driver moving around in his car after a hard crash. It is also a reminder that while we have had a quarter of a
century with the cameras, we had 35 years without them, not to mention little to no TV coverage at all.
You might love or hate the TV coverage we have today. Next week marks stage three of the NASCAR Cup Series TV Contract as ESPN and ABC take
over for the last 17 races of the season. Whether you love or hate DW and Larry Mac or Bill Weber and Kyle Petty or DJ and Rusty, you have
to at least appreciate the fact that as a fan, you have the chance to watch the race live, in color, from multiple TV angles, and in more
and more cases, in high definition. If not, take a moment and remember back when the “Race-Cam” was new and only in four cars, or better
yet, when a NASCAR highlight was crammed in between skiing and tennis on Wild World of Sports. It might not be perfect, but it is a heck of
a lot better than it used to be. And our comfort with modern technology allows us to complain when the coverage isn’t perfect, and forget
days gone by when fans would have thought they had died and gone to heaven with the level of coverage that we have today.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff
and/or management of IRN.
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