Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media
Eventually, it'll happen. It has to. Remember, this is a Fox production.
If not during Sunday's whoop-de-dooed coverage of the Daytona 500, then sometime soon thereafter, Fox will have figured out how to make the lead car on the race track glow like an old hockey puck.
That, and much more in the way of audio, graphics, rolling ticker, camera angles and Darrell ``Jaws'' Waltrip's insight is what to expect when the network-with-a-'tude takes over NASCAR coverage to start a major- league-level, six-year, $2.4 billion commitment it shares with NBC.
Although one of the story lines at Daytona this week has been how the new Dodge cars will do, the question from the TV side is how Fox will dodge controversy with its new broadcast partners.
``Will the cars glow?'' lead race announcer Mike Joy repeated. ``It's not a question of if but when. We may not have it for Daytona, but we are looking at technology where you can push a car number button up in the booth, and it will put a colored halo around that car for a couple of seconds.
``It may sound a little awkward, it may look a little awkward at first. But that's a lot better than using a telestrator and drawing a circle around a car, because by the time you finish drawing the circle, the car's not in it anymore.''
The so-called Super Bowl of NASCAR - we prefer to call it The Big Race at the Beginning - might not be the best place to road test something like a glowing car.
Although the Fox commercial blurb for its NASCAR coverage is ``motor sports as you know it will change forever,'' neither Fox Sports chairman David Hill nor Fox Sports executive producer will throw anything out there if it isn't ready for visual irritation. But that's what the network has been monkeying with for the last week and a half at Daytona.
It used the Bud Shootout last Sunday, the Twin 125 event Thursday and will include the NAPA 300 Saturday as live-event warmups before Sunday's race coverage starts at 8:30 a.m.
Compared to when Fox leapt into coverage of the NFL, Major League Baseball or the NHL over the last seven years, Goren calls gathering talent from CBS, ESPN and its own garage for this motor sports project is ``bigger than anything we have ever done. . . . I think this is the most complicated and difficult launch in the short history of Fox Sports. This is like launching an Olympics for the first time. You compound all of that by making your first broadcast the Super Bowl of the sport.''
Hill, who says he wants Fox to ``explain the mystery of the sport'' with its coverage, says he's most ``stoked'' about the sound enhancements, especially designed to occasionally let viewers hear the race for several laps without broadcasters twangin' and yammerin' over it. The segments, which Fox will has called ``Crank It Up'' and showed off a few times on its Twin 125s coverage Thursday on Fox Sports Net, might be dangerous to your living room's health.
``If you have surround-sound, that's the time to just watch your windows because they could be shattering in the process,'' Hill boasted.
And that's even without Jimmy Kimmel.
--It's their turn: Part of the Fox strategy for covering NASCAR will be putting events on Fox Sports Net and FX cable channels, including magazine shows. Some cable systems don't have either, so the plan in Murdochland is that this will cause NASCAR fans to raise a ruckus.
Fox plans to put the May 5 race from Richmond, Va., and the June 10 race from Michigan on cable. Thursday's Twin 125 races were on Fox Sports Net.
An added element to Fox's ownership rights is that ESPN gets shut out on credentials for its ``RPM 2Night'' show, which is viewed as a competitor to Fox's new ``Totally NASCAR'' magazine-type show. ESPN can cover NASCAR events now only through ``SportsCenter'' news reporting, but even that has been spotty this week.
Kind of a tough spot for ESPN, which helped the sport become a corporate giant with its coverage through the '80s and '90s before the Fox-NBC deal. Small consolation is that ESPN has been allowed to keep the 24-event NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, which begins with today's live telecast from Daytona at 8 a.m.
--Minor controversy: What Hill refers to as a ``storm in a carburator'' - Fox's decision in last Sunday's Bud Shootout to reveal the names of some car sponsors during pre-race intros but leave out others who didn't buy advertising time on the broadcast - has been resolved.
Fox won't do it anymore. Enough said.
``When (NASCAR) revealed the amount of angst it caused, we took time to think about it and realized we're in a marathon, not a sprint,'' said Hill. ``Frankly, it was only a 20-second thing in a three-hour telecast. We were just trying to give a bump to the people who backed us.''
The policy at Fox hasn't changed as far as identifying racers and cars - it's name and number. Neither ABC nor CBS made it a practice to refer to drivers or cars by their primary sponsors because, frankly, it's too wordy.
The analogy from race director Arnie Kemptner: ``In an NFL game, we don't say, `Gosh, did you see Ray Lewis with that Riddell helmet and the Nike shoes, knock the crap out of that guy?' ''
Then again, if it means mentioning Mark Martin's No. 6 Viagra-sponsored car, maybe it's best to leave the Fox attitude in the pits.
--Gearing up: The History Channel, which has sponsored Busch Series cars in recent years, has a two-hour special (Saturday, 8 p.m.) called ``The History of Stock Car Racing'' that takes the sport from its bad-boy bootleg-running beginnings through the corporate-sponsored monster it has become.
Not glossed over are the several key driver deaths that have occured over the 50-plus years of organized racing. Commentary from Junior Johnson, Buddy Baker and former ABC pit reporter Chris Economacki move the show along at a quick, but effective pace.
Waltrip, who retired from racing last year to join the Fox team, also says on the documentary: ``It's a beautiful art form when it's done right. Driving a car the way it's supposed to be when the driver uses his head and not his foot . . . it's a beautiful thing to see a car go around a race track.''
Afterward, Fox Sports Net's latest segment of ``Beyond the Glory'' (Sunday, 9 p.m.) looks at the Petty racing family.
SOUND BYTES
WHAT SMOKES
--Reporting on the so-called Anna Kournikova computer virus that was infecting computer e-mail this week, KABC Channel 7 sportscaster Bill Weir announced on Monday's newscast, ``Every night we'll show you a clear picture of Anna, that way you get your daily intake and it won't jeopardize your files.'' Weir, however, said Thursday he discontinued the practice since ``they found a cure for the virus,'' plus, the story just kinda died a natural death. But we appreciate the effort.
--And from Fox Sports Net's Van Earl Wright on the subject: ``If you need to know just how lethal an Anna Kournikova virus can be, ask Pavel Bure or Sergei Fedorov.''
-- If any publicity is good publicity, NBC must be pleased with what its own are saying about the XFL. On a recent ``Late Night'' with Conan O'Brien, the host quipped about the ratings dip from week one to week two: ``I have to put the right spin on this because I'm also on NBC - apparently, it went through the toilet.'' Bob ``ME HATE XFL'' Costas, a guest on the show Tuesday night, added this observation: ``It has to be at least a decade since I first mused out loud, 'Why doesn't somebody combine mediocre high school football with a tawdry strip club?' Finally, somebody takes my idea and runs with it.''
WHAT CHOKES
--If Lifetime can squeeze in WNBA programming, why can't The Food Network feast on the NBA? Because, it's just stupid. Sunday at 9 p.m., a semi-regular show called ``NBA Cafe': Eat To Win'' with host/chef Bobby Flay reports to ``go behind the scenes with players'' to reveal what foods fuel them. First off: Shaquille O'Neal and his personal chef, Thomas Gosney, who supposedly makes the perfect club sandwich. Nice idea, but we see more harm than good with this considering this country's citizens' obsession with stuffing their faces. Potential shows could be ``Shawn Kemp's Dieting for Dummies,'' an hour-long program that includes a 55-minute nap; ``Calories In The Key,'' with former NBA foodaholic John ``Hot Plate'' Williams and his postplaying career as a sampler for a catering service, and, dare we even propose it, ``The Butt-Naked Chef'' with Dennis Rodman.
--Attention to ESPN ``SportsCenter'' anchors: The ESPYs are over. Stop referring to them. Jack Nicklaus, named to captain the President's Cup team Thursday, didn't cap off his week with the honor just because he was the ESPY lifetime winner on Monday.
CAPTION(S):
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Photo: no caption (Shaquille O'Neal and personal chef Thomas Gosney)
Box: SOUND BYTES (see text)
