No Basketball But Plenty of PPV

Well, we have made it through January and for me at least the winter seems to be rolling along at a pretty good clip. That surprises me a bit during the age of Covid as normally I pass the time by spending forty to fifty nights in various sizes of gymnasiums watching basketball. High school, small college, junior college all the way to Carver Hawkeye arena, I have always loved to watch the game no matter what level and while I am usually a spectator, at times you will find me running the shot clock for Iowa Wesleyan or filling in as the p.a. announcer for the the Mount Pleasant Panthers. It gets me out of the house during the winter and makes the time fly by until racing season begins here in the Midwest.

With restrictions on fans this year though I have not been to one single game in person, and even though some of those restrictions have been eased on the high school level, I decided before the start of the season that I would sit this one out in order to do my best to avoid the virus.

Thank goodness for Pay Per View dirt track racing!

Yes, I know that I have not been a big fan of the medium and those of you that have followed the Back Stretch for some time now have seen me on several occasions provide specific scenarios of how I feel that it will be the death of the grassroots level of our sport, especially with the monthly or annual subscription services. Let's just say that my feelings haven't changed any, but due to the virus, I have joined the process and as we roll into Spring here in the upper Midwest I will become part of my own experiment to see if my hypothesis is proven. (Note: You will need to dig through past entries here on the Back Stretch to see what that means, just my way to encourage you to become a regular reader!)

I am now an annual subscriber to one service, I have been given the chance to do one night at a time on another and currently a soon to be new subscription service has been offered up for free on a Facebook page for a sixty day period while their App is being finalized. Let's just say that there has been no shortage of dirt racing to watch, both live and replays of completed events during the dead of winter. I have been so bad about it that my wife angrily noted that this is worse than when I am gone three to four night a week during the summer because even though I am at home, I still am not paying any attention to her because of RACING! One thing holds true though, and it is something that everybody has said all along, watching a dirt race on your computer, your phone or by using casting to put it on your big screen which I have had the pleasure of doing, is absolutely NOTHING compared to being there in person.

Everything I have to say on this subject from here on out is my opinion and I realize that not everyone will agree with me, nor should they as we all have our own preferences, but the first statement that I will make is that I will still prefer to drive an hour for a weekly show with Modifieds or Stock Cars as the featured class rather than to stay home and watch one of the biggest events in Late Models or Sprint Cars even if I have already paid the subscription to see that big event. That choice is made even easier if that weekly show is using an average points invert for its starting lineups.

Here's a hint for you new readers, my belief is that my choice in the paragraph above would be in the minority and thus the concern for the future attendance at that local track.

With his plethora of coverage, let's just say that the range of quality has been quite wide and even with the good ones I often find myself dozing off only to wake up during the victory lane ceremonies and unable to rewind it back, at least on the live ones.

You know all of those people who tell you that the reason why your track should be on Pay Per View (PPV) is because it will convince viewers to actually attend one of your events in the future? Yea, well for several tracks that I have tuned into over the past few months let's just say that it actually had the opposite effect on me. Not convinced? Pull up the full replay of an event from this past weekend and you will see that it is ten hours, eight minutes and seventeen seconds long. I watched some of it live on Saturday and let's just say that it wasn't ten hours packed with action like you would find at the IMCA Summer Nationals or at a Mike VanGenderen directed mega event. The highlight of this one was celebrity John Schneider's handling of the Star Spangled Banner that actually brought a tear to my eye, but I think you have to watch for a couple of hours before you even get to that touching moment.

Then of course there was the big show in November where the track conditions were so dusty that the fans in the stands were thankful that face masks were mandatory and the only camera that could actually see the cars was the one in the helicopter. Or was it a drone? That was one that definitely did not encourage you to book your hotels, buy your tickets and make the trip in 2021 to attend in person.

One rule that should be mandatory at all live PPV events is the "one and done" rule. I'm not sure what is more annoying, some back marker who spins and sits two or three times during a heat race and is never sent to the pits, or a pole-sitter who overloads it into turn one on the opening lap and spins in front of the field sending everybody scrambling. Then, "since more than one car was involved on the opening lap" all drivers, including the offender, are given their spot back. This is annoying enough when you are actually sitting in the stands, but when a track on PPV allows this to happen time after time after time after time, it makes it real easy to make the switch over to the NZ Saloons at Riverside and make a mental note to never attend that track in the future.

The quality of production varies greatly as well and again this comes down to your preference. Several events use just one camera from a location in the grandstand while the high dollar efforts have six or more cameras at their disposal. Again I am likely in the minority, but I prefer the one camera view over the multi-camera efforts especially if it seems like the director is like a squirrel on crack pushing the buttons changing cameras five, six, seven times a lap. I feel that my preference comes from how I like to watch a race, from my seat in the grandstand. I have never been a fan of watching a race from the infield and the only time that I will ever do it is if I am announcing and our position is in the infield.

One good camera operator positioned in the grandstand can give you a wide shot at the start of an event so that you can see what is happening as the field shuffles for position on that opening lap and then will give you a closer shot of the best race going on at, or near the front of the field. In general that's the same way that I watch a race in person so that is my preference as to how I want to see a show on PPV.

The service that is giving the free preview right now is the total opposite of that. On the opening lap of nearly every race here is the camera cut sequence that you will get:

- Grandstand view of the field working into turn three getting ready to go green.

- Front stretch wall shot of cars coming off turn four taking the green.

- High shot from above turn one of the first few cars entering turn one

- Helicopter view of turns one and two

- A camera above turn three shows the field exiting turn turn two and starting down the back stretch

- An infield camera gets a quick shot of the leaders entering turn three

- The grandstand camera catches the leaders as they enter turn four

- And we go back to the speed shot on the front stretch to complete lap one.

All in thirteen seconds! Only a squirrel on crack can maintain this pace for an eight lap heat race or amazingly a forty lap feature and while some of you might find this to be a pretty cool way to watch a race, I find it incredibly hard to follow and to have any kind of perspective as to who is racing for what position. Yes, I will continue to take advantage of the free preview tonight and tomorrow night, but unless something changes with how they present their broadcast, I will not be purchasing my subscription in sixty days. 

Now don't get me wrong, I have seen some great productions from other providers using multiple cameras and I will specifically name two of them. The Chili Bowl preliminaries produced by the Racinboys Broadcast Network and The Wild West Shootout produced by the Dirt On Dirt team. Both events were presented live over several days on Floracing. Both of these events used multiple cameras, but they did it in a manner where the grandstand camera was the primary view and the others were used as brief supplements or to catch incidents that were not captured by the primary camera. In other words, the director was an actual race fan who understands what the viewer wants to see in order to actually follow a race instead of trying to be some kind of production wizard who is taking advantage of all of his bells and whistles.

I would chuckle when every time that the squirrel needed to show a reply of an incident he, or she would go to the grandstand camera view to provide it. Why? Because it usually was able to capture it much like you would if you were actually sitting in the grandstands.

That brings me to the wide variety of announcing styles that I have experienced over the past several months and as someone who has announced at least one night of dirt track racing in each of the past forty years, it shouldn't surprise you to hear me say that the announcer will either make or break your PPV. Yes, even a good announcer or announcers can overcome an overzealous director while a not so good announcer can drive you to the point where you just hit the mute button, one big advantage that PPV has over actually being there!

Again we are talking about a preference of styles here and there is a wide range of preferences among race fans from young to old. I know that my style is not a good fit for PPV and it wouldn't surprise me if I have been muted a few times myself, so my comments here should not be taken as me preaching about how to do it, they are only my opinions and are not meant to be considered right or wrong. No announcer is perfect, some of the best in the business still have little quirks that most people enjoy and others do not and that is not limited to race track announcers The biggest names in the industry such as Jim Nantz, Joe Buck, Kevin Harlan, etc. still have people who piss and moan about them on social media, but you wouldn't want them to change because they achieved their success by being who they are and the same thing goes for the cream of the crop on the microphones at dirt tracks. The difference is that all of them honed their skills on announcing to the fans in the stands and they are still adjusting to what is still a relative new medium in PPV.

I feel like I was at my best as an announcer in the 1980's. There were no VIP booths with speakers inside and a good sound system back then would be considered trash now. I started my night during wheel packing (for you younger fans that was when the race cars would come out and pack the race track for about twenty to thirty minutes prior to hot laps with mud clods flying in the air and giving you a nice tacky surface to start the show on) reading off the sponsors of the drivers who were participating and letting the fans know who some of the newcomers were and their accomplishments at other tracks. This would continue during hot laps, but my microphone would turn off once the green flag flew. Immediately following the National Anthem I would give the starting line up of the first heat race, car number, name and hometown, not always in that same order, for each driver from front to back. There was no time to rattle off a list of sponsors for each, otherwise the green flag would fly and I would be drowned out by the roar of the engines. In fact I was even careful to pause in giving the lineup as the cars passed in front of the grandstand on the pace lap in order to make sure that every driver's name could be heard.

Once the green flag waved I would make a comment or two when the entire field was racing down the back stretch, but once they were spread out enough that I knew that the fans in the stands could no longer hear me I would turn the microphone off and watch for interesting items to point out should the caution wave. Once the checkers flew I would recognize the drivers who transferred, or finished in the top four for instance and then read off the sponsors of the winner before asking the crowd to give him or her a big round of applause. That all went quick though because I had to get out the full lineup of the next race before the green flag waved and that was up to me to get that done as the flagman's job (Doyle Bennett, Bill Newman, Donnie Williams to name a few) was to run off a smooth and efficient program. They weren't going to wait on me!

All of these years later that is still my style because right or wrong, if the microphone that I am using is going out on the public address system at the track, those fans in the stands are my priority no matter how many people are plugged into me as well through the PPV. Sorry, but these people that I can see are the ones who spent the money and made their way to the track that night, they are the ones that are buying the concessions and hopefully reading the billboards of the sponsors in the area that are the lifeblood of the facility and that is why they come first to me.

Frankly I feel that race tracks are putting their announcers in a tough position if the same voice is being used for both the fans in attendance and those who are dialed in on the PPV as there is no way to do a good job for both audiences. Let me use two of my own experiences from this past year to illustrate. 

With Covid keeping the fans out of the stands during the month of May I was given the opportunity to do a DoneRightTV broadcast of a night of action at 34 Raceway where my self and Rob Hinckley were seated at a table, headsets on and a monitor in front of us so that we could see what the camera was on. We weren't being heard over the PA system, we were just working with the PPV crowd and it had to be the fastest four hours that I have ever experienced at a race track. Rob and I got into a nice flow where not only were were getting all of the essentials out there such as lineups and finishes, but we were also calling the races in a more conversational tone throwing in some facts and trivia about some of the drivers along the way. When you watch Jim Nantz do a college basketball game he doesn't describe every dribble or every pass as you the viewer can see that on your screen. Instead he and his color analyst add to the experience rather than sounding like some rabid auctioneer trying to paint a picture that is already painted.

I would like to think that this is somewhat how Rob and I sounded on that night and one the nicest compliments that I have ever received in my life came when I took off my headset after we went to intermission and the Producer smiled at me and said, "you've done this before." I mentioned the Chili Bowl preliminaries up above and thus far that is the best announcing that I have heard on a PPV broadcast yet. Anchored by Caleb Hart and joined by two or three "guests" at a time including drivers Kevin Swindell, Clinton Boyles and Thomas Messeraull, their call was calm, thorough and very informative. They were doing it as if they were sitting in the living room with me and I was thoroughly entertained.

Fast forward to June where I was asked to fill in on the microphone for Tony Paris at the Stuart Speedway. First of all we are blessed here in the upper Midwest to have some of the best and most unique race track announcers in the entire country so no matter who I sub in for around here, I am already at a disadvantage because I will never be able to match their style and Tony is one of those. The challenges for me on this night though would be many as you have the best Race Director in the business when it comes to presenting an efficient show, Mike VanGenderen rolling one race out right after another, plus it was live on PPV on RaceXR. With over 130 cars in the pits I'm doing my best to let the fans in the stands know the full lineup before the race goes green, in just one pace lap, and then I want to give a good play-by-play for the PPV crowd including the number of laps down and a list of positions, then as the checkers waved I would give the finish as the drivers crossed the line. Then, again in trying to keep up with my fans in the stands, I would give the finish and ask for a round of applause for the winner (the second time that the PPV fans would have to hear this) before hustling through the lineup of the next heat race that was already rolling down the back stretch and heading for green.

I hope that it all came off okay, but I have to tell you that I felt like it was the most miserable job that I have ever done on a microphone whether it was at a race track, a basketball game or doing play-by-play on the radio. I was so frustrated with my effort that I turned down an invitation to do it again a few weeks later because I did not know how I was going to be able to improve upon it. And that is why I believe that it is tough on an announcer to try to do both.

There was no shortage of action to describe that night at Stuart - Barry Johnson photo

I would love to hear what Ed Reichert had to say about the announcing as he sat in the stands at East Bay this past week. That's no knock on James Essex and Bob Dillner as their primary duty was to provide commentary for the taping of a show that will be edited and broadcast at a later date on MAVtv, they didn't have the time or the motivation to announce to the grandstand like a normal PA announcer would do. When you are announcing to the people watching at home you give the qualifying times while the cars are under green, you give the lineups while the cars are on the track and moving and you give all of your news and notes while you can't be heard over the roar of the motors. Then, when it finally is quiet, you annoy the crowd in attendance even further by making them sit and listen to your "shout outs" to those people who are watching on PPV. When you separate the duties, both audiences are taken care of.

The quality of announcing that I have heard over the past five months has been a wide range although I will admit that I am somewhat of a critic. Even the best sound like auctioneers as they scurry through the list of sponsors for each driver while giving a lineup, something that makes me tune it out to a point where I don't even "hear" one of them, so just how much exposure are those sponsors really getting in that scenario? 

Breathlessly telling me that Joe Blow just edged out Ed All by less than "point zero three four seconds" to lead lap fourteen really only matters to me if the caution comes out and the restart lineup is based upon how lap fourteen was scored. 

Modulate your voice and realize that if you try to make everything sound amazingly exciting, when something amazing actually happens you won't have anything else to give to it. And no, I'm not kidding you, I have actually seen cars race two and three-wide before so don't act so surprised to see it yourself in a race that you are calling.

Then there are the efforts that I have considered to be challenging. I recently watched a replay of race down south from this past Fall where the announcer plugged his own Facebook page a few times and then failed to deliver one full race lineup before the green flag dropped all night long. I mean these were seven or eight car heat races where at best he got the first two rows mentioned, along with their sponsors, but once the green flag dropped the rest of the field went unidentified. Then on a couple of heats there was dead silence as you watched, a break that we were told later was caused by a fan who had come up to the booth to argue something with the officials. 

Over forty years of announcing, and while I had a shirt on that matched all of the other officials, I have had several instances where somebody wanted to argue a point with me. My response would always be "I am the announcer, if I have mispronounced somebody's name please let me know, otherwise you need to go find a real official", and then I would go back to doing my job. This guy disappeared from the PPV broadcast not once, but twice although by then some of the viewers may have had it on Mute anyway and never knew what was going on.

I could go on with some other examples, but the last thing I want to do is to sound like sour grapes because it is a tougher job than most people think, but suffice it to say that your announcer will be more scrutinized than ever when your show is on PPV. I'm glad that I am semi-retired from that job!

So here we are, it is February 1st and with my current subscriptions and free trials it looks like I can watch live racing on twenty-two of the twenty-eight nights of the month. Oh, my wife is going to love that! I am going to have to learn how to deal with this "new toy" because when the weather starts to warm here I plan to put it back in the closest and go back to seeing the real thing! I hope that is your plan as well.