Disclaimer: I doubt many of my readers are NASCAR fans, so I’ll try to keep this short.
Last night I watched the opening event of the NASCAR year, the Bud Shootout. It’s basically a short race (70 laps) with 20 of the series stars (drivers are eligible if they’ve won a pole position the previous year). It’s not for points, so it’s usually lots of fast, no-holds barred action. It was a good race last night, but what I absolutely cannot stand is NASCAR on FOX.
Last fall I watched a lot of NASCAR and I’d gotten used to NBC’s coverage. But FOX covers the first half of the season, so Darrell Waltrip and the other horrid announcers were back. I’ll admit that NASCAR has a southern hick image, but it’s quickly fading–though no thanks to folks like Waltrip, who when the green flag drops shouts “Boogety, boogety, boogety!” What the hell is that?! And it just got worse from there.
Maybe it was a bad night. After all, it was their first broadcast in seven months. But it couldn’t have been just rustiness. They were full of hick sayings, bad metaphors, inane comments and just plain poor coverage. NBC had cool graphics to explain how all these technical things worked–Waltrip just told old stories. If it continues like this, I’ll have to spend my Sunday afternoons doing something else.
All of which is sad for NASCAR, which makes an international debut of sorts this year when the Busch series heads to Mexico.
Outside of the NFL, Sunday afternoons are great for naps. That’s about it.
Welcome to Fox Sports where quality play-by-play harder to come by than a Republican in Masssachusetts.
I feel your pain. During the World Series the Red Sox games were covered by a play-by-play guy who was the son of the world famous announcer of other team and the color commentator played for the other team and beat the Red Sox in the world series back in the 60’s. That same guy also used to be the everyday broadcaster for the Yankees. So not only are they terrible broadcasters who tell you very little about what goes on but they are terribly biased to boot.
The play-by-play guy in the Super Bowl (same as before) hadn’t even seen the PAtriots play in person. How you can call the game like that I don’t know but I do know one thing. Next year I’m listening on the radio!
And then there is this!
Boogety, boogety, boogety? Whoa.
The only car races I’ll watch on TV have red shells and invincibility stars in them.