A FAN'S STAND
by Jeannine Petriel

A Few Random Thoughts: Jr. vs. Shrub

Why do I hear so many people thinking that Rick Hendrick has made a mistake by letting Kyle Busch go in order to get JR? While I agree that Kyle is a better driving talent than JR and I would even go as far to agree that in the long run Kyle will probably win more championships than JR will, I don’t think that Kyle is as great a catch as many commentators say he is.

Kyle has been compared to Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick in terms of his personality. Kyle is brash and outspoken, but that is where the comparison stops. Tony and Kevin are funny, Kyle is not. Would I invite Tony or Kevin to my house for dinner? You bet. I know that they would be openly honest, whether I wanted to hear what they had to say or not. I also know that by the time the evening was over, I would have a painful face and sore abdomen, from laughing so much. Tony and Kevin like to have fun and enjoy life. Kyle doesn’t make people think that about him. He strikes many as rude and complaining. I don’t want a brat who is going to complain about everything coming to my house for dinner and that is the persona that Kyle portrays.

NASCAR is only partly about a driver’s ability to drive a race car. I think in the current age of NASCAR, a driver’s ability to draw fans and sell products is at least as important as his driving ability. JR may not be the driver that Kyle is, but he has a huge fan base and sells more products than just about every other driver. That is worth a lot more to an owner than a bratty driver that he needs to parent and run around putting out fires the driver causes with his attitude.

BYE BYE IROC?????

This year we didn’t have any IROC races. I have to wonder if anyone noticed. I for one didn’t like the races and rarely watched them. The cars were carbon copies of each other (that means they all were exactly the same for young fans who have never had the pleasure of working with carbon paper). The cars had no personality and in recent years the Cup guys won most of the races so it was more of an extra practice for the guys as opposed to a real race.

So the days of IROC are over right??? I don’t think so. I think they have morphed into the days of COT. While the cars may have different paint schemes, don’t be fooled, the days of copycat cars has been coming for a while and with the advent of the COT, it is officially here.

MY DREAM TEAM

If I were in charge of broadcasting NASCAR I would have the following folks for my dream team of broadcasters.

In the Booth:

Mike Joy or Alan Bestwick- Both these guys do a great job of calling the race, ad libbing as needed, and keeping the other personalities on an even keel.

A crew chief- I have three chiefs that spring to mine that all could do a great job in the booth: Larry Mac, Jeff Hammond (both of whom have forgotten more than most of today’s chiefs will ever know) and Bootie Barker. Any of these three would give the technical information needed to offset the driver’s perspective.

ONE driver in the booth- Two drivers just doesn’t give the variety of opinions needed about the race. The drivers I would pick would be: Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, Mikey and Elliott Sadler. I think DW is better in an interview capacity. None of these drivers would be trying to broadcast and drive at the same time. As Kyle showed us, even with a 5 second delay it isn’t a good idea.

In the “other booth”

I am not sure what the technical term is for “The Hollywood Hotel” on FOX or the moving stage from hell on TNT, but here are who I would put in them.

Bill Weber or whichever one of Mike or Alan didn’t end up in the booth. Bill is good at reading prepared scripts, but lousy at making it up as he goes along, so he would work well here.

Whatever crew chief(s) didn’t make it in the booth. They are so knowledgeable about what makes these cars go that given a partner who has a clue about racing, they could be allowed to do a great job.

On Pit Road

I would have a bigger pit road team and probably not have any women on the team. I haven’t seen one yet that does a really good job as a pit reporter so I would hesitate to put one on the team. I am open to suggestions for Lady Pit Reporters though.

For the guys I would have in the pits:

Marty Snider, Dr, Dick Berggren, Dr. Jerry Punch, Matt Yocum, Ralph Sheheen, and Steve Burns. I would also throw in any retired drivers who wanted to try their hand at it, but only assign them one or two pits. These guys know how to bring us a pit road story and to toss the coverage around like a well done juggling act.

With that dream team I would include the following in the broadcast:

Wide Open like TNT did at Daytona. I liked the PIP advertising and would love to see it more often.

Through the field- They need to tell us where everybody is, not just the top 3, especially at boring races like Chicagoland.

The 3D replays of what really happened under all that smoke.

Some kind of cut away car like Jeff Hammond and Larry Mac had. It is so much easier to understand what they are talking about when they show it, but I would put it in a PIP like the commercials so we don’t have to choose between watching them and watching racing.

Those are my random thoughts as I sit here sweltering in the July heat and humidity. I would love to hear what the readers think about these and any other topics.

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