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April 10, 2009

New Faces, New Places

Yesterday started the beginning of a New Era in Indy Car Racing. There have been a plethora of driver changes, rule changes, as well as a new 10-year television contract with a network that actually wanted to sign a 10 year deal to grow the network right along with the series itself. All these together have been a HUGE change for IndyCar fans. Finally, it's a breath of fresh air for we the fans of IndyCar who have been clamoring for change for years.. I'm not sure that we'll know how to act with all this coverage that Versus has contracted to provide us.

Let's start off with Versus providing coverage of Indy Car Qualifying. Before now, we thought that was only reserved for the "N" word series. However, Versus thought that IndyCar racing deserved the same type of coverage, and offered it up to Tony George, et al.... After TG picked himself up off of the floor, they got down to the specifics of what not only the fans and the IRL wanted, but Versus as well. Bottom line is... this is a "win-win" for both entities. With all this coverage we're going to hopefully, have the "trickle down" effect for drivers without rides. All of a sudden, sponsors are starting to pay more attention to the league. The IRL has obtained many new faces on the sponsor front for 2009. It's too bad that once these sponsors started paying attention, the economy in America ran into the Bernie Madoff's of the world and bonuses paid to executives who ran away with millions. That in and of itself makes these corporations a little gun shy on the sponsor front. I also believe that this economy cost the Indy Racing League a "Title Sponsor" for 2009. But with all the coverage that Versus is giving the Indy Racing League, this author believes that at least a few more CEO's will find value in their sponsorship.

It seems very odd not seeing Buddy Rice, Tomas Scheckter, and AJ Foyt IV, on the grid. An Indy 500 Winner that can't find sponsorship? How about the same thing for drivers with the talent of Bruno Junqiera & Oriol Servia, who've shown that they're surely deserving of a ride somewhere. I'm not so naive' to think that when the music stops everyone is going to have a seat. There will be a few that deserve rides that won't get them. That doesn't stop them from working the paddock though, and that's at least good to see.

The production of the St. Pete race was clear, crisp, and downright refreshing to see. Loved the graphics! No more of the "monotone" work of Scott Goodyear in the booth. He was a good race car driver, but a horrendous voice in the play-by-play booth, although he was damn sure better than ANYTHING Rusty Wallace threw out there. Oh My God, was he bad, and I'm doing him justice by stopping at bad. No more of the comparisons of "...in "N" word, we call that Aero-puuush...", as well as dropping the ole "...I'd say they need to go down on the "Track-bar...". That was worse than listening to Goodyear drone on and on about nothing. For once we had booth announcers that actually fed off of one another, and didn't even interrupt each other. It's just too bad that the Mouse has contracted to produce as many races as they have. Bob Jenkins, Robby Buhl and Jon Beekhuis did a helluva job, especially for their first race together. The pit reporting left a bit to be desired. That however, is through no fault of their own. Somehow they're going to have to find microphones that can actually be heard above the whine of those engines. I DID enjoy the fact that we had Pit Reporters that would actually go right up to the "war wagons" of the teams and ask pertinent questions from the OWNERS as the race ran right on.

Not one time did we see a pit reporter run immediately up to a driver who had just been taken out of the race by a STUPID move, that someone shouldn't have made. Even Danica kept her cool and that's an achievement, the magnitude of an 8.5 Earthquake on the Richter scale! Did anyone else notice that Danica actually seemed calm and rational when Matos took her out? Also, when the two were walking back to the Paddock, Danica looked to have her arm around the shoulder of Matos and although mad enough to spit nails, kept her composure and seemed to be giving Rafa the what for in an civil tone. After she had time to cool off is when they stuck the microphone in her face. For the first time, she gave a sorta "...well that's racin" type of answer. Not one time did she throw out the verse she'd become accustomed to and call Matos an idiot, or break out the "...he has no business on the racetrack, and I'm going to have a talk with Brian about this, meow, meow, meow..."

After all of this wonderful coverage that Versus gave us, it's a damned shame that the racing didn't live up to the billing it received by Versus. They were given a real turd, to try to make exciting, but with only 12 Drivers still running at the end, I give them an atta-boy for making it somewhat interesting in a race between Ryan Hunter-Reay making an attempt (although futile) to catch Ryan Briscoe . Versus I say, thanks for the GREAT coverage. IRL......please give them a product they can work with.