For the first time in six seasons, NASCAR will be displaying a brand new television coverage layout for the upcoming 2007 Season. After six years of FOX and NBC/TNT coverage, a new player arrives on the market in the form of ABC and its subsidiary, ESPN. While ABC and the ESPN family of networks begin their coverage with the Busch Series race on Saturday, a lot of uncertainties about the quality of the broadcast teams arise. ABC, despite a lengthy run as the home for the IndyCar Series, is just now getting back into the mix with its coverage deal with NASCAR, and time will only tell if Rusty Wallace has what it takes to make the transition from driver to commentator. TNT, now replacing NBC as the sole home for NASCAR broadcasts, is also undergoing a major change after the recent passing of Benny Parsons, and time will tell there how that team is able to cope. Thus, going into 2007, only one network broadcast team will remain intact – the NASCAR on FOX crew. And since they’ll be covering this year’s Daytona 500 (and every Nextel Cup race through Dover in June), it’s time to start evaluating what the boys at FOX have to offer.
FOX Sports
Mike Joy
Due in part because of the stature and demeanor of his colleagues in the booth on Sundays, Mike Joy is often thought of as the “junior†member of the commentary team (ie least experienced in NASCAR). This is actually misleading, since Mike Joy has been associated with racing projects since the early 1970s. A veteran commentator of Formula 1, CART, and Indy Racing, Mike Joy began covering NASCAR primarily in 1997, when CBS hired him to replace the legendary Ken Squier in the booth. His credentials helped earn him a job at FOX Sports – first covering Formula 1 races with the network, then moving to NASCAR beginning in 2001. Joy has since been apart of the core NASCAR on FOX crew.
Much like his cohorts, Mike Joy can sometimes be a polarizing personality on commentary. A lot of fans respect Joy for his charismatic, yet more grounded approach to calling the race (a necessity, given his role as the lap-by-lap play man). Mike Joy is much more professional sounding and less “country†than Larry McReynolds or Darrell Waltrip. At the same time, Joy is also viewed by some as the least entertaining of the three. All three personalities in the booth (Joy, Waltrip, McReynolds) have their own euphemisms and catchphrases that they use during a broadcast, with D.W. and Larry McReynolds having far more memorable (and marketable) euphemisms than Mike Joy. The general consensus amongst the fan base is Mike Joy is a solid rock to hold down his two excitable colleagues. He probably has a 60-40% like to dislike ratio, which is probably higher today than it was seven years ago. Personally, Mike Joy has grown on me over time, and is definitely in my top three commentators after the passing of Benny Parsons. Let it not be said that Mike Joy cannot be entertaining to watch. While he may not possess as much knowledge on the intricacies of the sport as his colleagues, Mike Joy can only better the viewing experience of a NASCAR broadcast on FOX.
Rating: 8
Larry McReynolds
Larry McReynolds is to FOX Sports what Benny Parsons was to NBC/TNT – the “professor†of the commentary team that would lend the perspective of a crew chief/car owner type. While no one will ever touch the level that BP was at, Larry McReynolds as found his niche as the insightful co-conspirator with Waltrip in the booth. McReynolds is much more excitable in the booth than Mike Joy is, though he falls short of Darrell Waltrip’s charisma, making for an interesting anchor between the two “poles of the boothâ€. Larry Mac made a name for himself as a crew chief for the late, great Dale Earnhardt, helping him to that elusive Daytona 500 victory in 1998. More often than not, Larry McReynolds functions as the “engineer†in the booth, describing technical terms and jargon while allowing Darrell Waltrip to focus more on the thought processes of the driver. Both men can swap these roles at any time, although Larry is most comfortable when dissecting pit strategies and car modifications.
McReynolds is far more “Southern†than Mike Joy is, and thus draws the ire of new fans who dislike the Southern image held by NASCAR. For most Southern-born fans, McReynolds is pretty popular, though he does have his share of critics (especially using humorous redneck jargon like “Git-R-Done!â€). Much like Mike Joy, the general split seems to be roughly 60-40% on McReynolds, with more people liking him than disliking him. Make no mistake, however: Larry McReynolds is far more insightful and talented on commentary than his more harsh critics are willing to admit.
Rating: 7.5
Darrell Waltrip
Darrell Waltrip is probably the most polarizing figure on the entire crew, thanks in part to his legacy in the sport. Will all due respect to Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett, there has never been a commentator in NASCAR with the racing pedigree as Darrell Waltrip. Compound this with the fact that Darrell was active as late as 2000, and you can easily see why the fan base would have varying degrees of love or dislike for him. To his credit, Darrell Waltrip is far more gentle speaker in the booth than he was in his driving days, when he fully represented the nickname bestowed upon him by Cale Yarborough: Jaws. Of all the folks employed by FOX to cover NASCAR, Darrell Waltrip is by far the most authentic holdover from the good ole days of the sport. Born in Kentucky, D.W. has an unmistakable drawl and witty disposition that you either love or hate. Half of the audience watching NASCAR on FOX dislikes the man, partially because of his easily excitable personality, partially because he spent so many years playing the villain of the sport (remember, he was the antithesis to everything that Dale Earnhardt represented in the 1970s and ’80s). I’ve always been a fan of Darrell Waltrip, so I’m already going to be biased towards him, but much of the criticism he receives (as is the case with Larry McReynolds) is unjustly received. Some critics have accused him of playing favorites in the booth, especially with his brother, Michael Waltrip (they refer to the 2001 Daytona 500, in which Michael Waltrip won the race after leading in the last few laps). This is nothing new to the sport, however – in the mid-1990s, Ned Jarrett (the father of current driver Dale Jarrett) was blatantly cheering against guys like Dale Earnhardt while Dale was running off multiple Daytona 500 victories. Waltrip, meanwhile, does a great job keeping his personal feelings out of the booth in my opinion. A good case to look at is the mini-feud that came about in 2004 between Tony Stewart and Darrell. At no point did that “rivalry†come to any type of negative disposition in the booth, and the two have since become friends again as a result.
Darrell Waltrip is everything that TNT’s Wally Dallenbach is not. While Dallenbach attempts to force humor on the audience for entertainment’s sake, Darrell has a natural charisma that blends in well with the Southern roots of the sport. This invariably chafes new fans the wrong way, but screw ’em – they have no business sticking their dirty Yankee noses in where they don’t belong. D.W. is both knowledgeable and witty, and the accent is a throwback to the days when stock cars ran at state fairs.
Rating: 8
Pit Reporters
Although 85% of the time sees (or hears, I guess) the Joy-McReynolds-Waltrip trio in the booth, an integral part of a racing broadcast on FOX or TNT is the use of pit reporters to give a heads up on the happenings of pit road, where strategies are formulated that determine the outcome of the race itself. When NASCAR shopped itself out to FOX and NBC/TNT in 2001, the networks began picking up various personalities to help cover the action on pit road during the race. Dick Berggren, Matt Yocum, and Steve Byrnes make up the primary core pit crew reporters for the FOX broadcasts. Dick Berggren is probably the second greatest pit reporter in NASCAR history, behind ABC’s Dr. Jerry Punch. Both Matt Yocum and Steve Byrnes are also well equipped with the clarity and knowledge to handle pit reporting duties. Most importantly, all three have been around long enough to develop various relationships with the drivers, helping make interviews with racing personalities go much more seamlessly than they otherwise would. FOX also has two good hosts in the form of Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond. Myers is well educated in the duties bestowed upon the host of a major sports preview show, stemming from his work with MLB on FOX and the like. Jeff Hammond, meanwhile is a less excitable version of Larry McReynolds, but he maintains the knowledge and dry humor that serves as a perfect compliment to D.W.’s excitable antics during the pre-race show. In 2007, Krista Voda will join the crew and replace Jeanne Zelasko, thus eliminating the one glaring weakness of FOX’s pit reporting crew.
Rating: 9
Insight
This is pretty much the nature of the beast with NASCAR’s popularity growth. A lot of new fans, or long-time casual fans are going to need explanations for the various terms and jargon thrown about by drivers and crew chiefs. This results in the need for continual explanations by the commentators and the pit reporters so that the average fan at home can keep up. In this regard, FOX and TNT are both very adept at going through the various terms during a broadcast. TNT’s major feature is the use of computer animated graphics that demonstrate literally what is going on. Benny Parsons was the master at this, helping attribute to his position as the sport’s best color commentator. FOX, meanwhile, uses computer models as well, though there major tool for explaining the nuances of the sport is a replica “cut-away†car, where Jeff Hammond can physically show the audience parts to the car whenever the need should arise to do so. Both methods are extremely well worked by both networks, although some people prefer one method over the other and vice versa. The only knock against the NASCAR on FOX crew is that their commentators are sometimes too well versed in the sport. Occasionally, Darrell or Larry McReynolds will get so involved in describing situations on the track, that they throw out various terms that compound the situation for an audience at home trying to learn about bump drafting or slipstreams. The TNT crew is not as bad about doing this as the FOX crew is, but it’s a minor quibble over a broadcast team that knows there stuff. Rarely will you not come to understand some of the things that the guys in the booth are talking about.
Rating: 9
Entertainment
In this area, FOX trumps just about any other racing broadcast around. The fun begins in the pre-race show from the “Hollywood Hotelâ€, as Jeff, Larry, D.W. and the others embark upon an often times affable quest to make bland drivers look funny. This is really the strongest suit for the FOX guys, as they all maintain a sense of humor until its time to be more serious. Unlike the TNT coverage, where audiences are bored to death by the deadpanning of Bill Weber and Wally Dallenbach, the FOX crew always has that ability to make a boring Sunday afternoon in California to be a little more bearable.
Rating: 10
