Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I ONLY pay for FloRacing to watch the IRA after moving out of state and being unable to go in person. One of my FAVORITE things about watching these guys on TV is actually being able to listen to Ray Underwood announce the series. I have yet to hear a better announcer. 
 

With that being said, I'm pretty sure I'm going to cancel my subscription if I have to continue to watch the race on mute. I cannot stand Chatty Maddy. Take a breath girlfriend, and for the love of god stop yelling in your microphone. It's a microphone, it amplifies your voice. 
 

#bringbackray

You may want to look around on Floracing before cancelling.     They have  been adding some great content lately that isn't just the races.      Check out all of the behind the scenes videos.       I liked the Kreitz Shop and Cisney/Port Royal videos they just added and they both provided a ton of information.            

Flo offers so many options and so much content I think I'd cancel Netflix before Flo.     Sorry kids we're watching racing...

You misunderstood my post. I have no problem with FloRacing. My issue is the IRA not using Ray as the announcer last night. Pretty sure my ears are still bleeding. 

chill out and enjoy your races on tv, the mute button and volume control are always a thumb or finger away

Well, you have Tony Bokhoven and Austin Lloyd with the call tonight. Two of the best in my opinion 

I watched Outagamie and thought that Chatty Maddy is doing a great job considering her age and experience level.  She will throttle back the enthusiasm as she learns the craft and I don't think enthusiasm is a bad thing.  I'm not going to complain about a young lady who I would guess is still high school aged and is living her dream.

I do admit throttling back the volume at times but there is no way I'm going cancel all this racing just because someone is serving their announcing apprenticeship on an IRA broadcast.  There are a lot worse things young people could be doing than tickling my ears while announcing a race once in a while.  I would be proud of Maddy if she was one of my daughters.

Stan Meissner

Man if that chatty maddy was the announcer that I heard at Port City last night, I understand your pain.  I'd rather hear no announcing than what I heard from Port City, I had to turn the sound off it was so annoying.

Madeline is 17 years old, and a senior in high school.  Yes, she has unending enthusiasm and I agree with your assessment of her.  As she gets more experience, she will tone it down a bit I am sure.  There are times her announcing gets ahead of her thoughts it sounds like, but that will come with experience.  I think she is a breath of fresh air. I understand that she is the regular announcer at Outagamie Speedway, and does sideline work for the IRA at some races.  If Ray is available, he obviously does the main announcing and Mady does the infield interviews and dash draws. To another poster about Ray, I almost certainly believe that he has a regular job that sometimes prevents him from being around so many people because of covid.  Maybe that is why he did not make the Northern Wisconsin trip.

She's 17 and seems like a nice kid. She's learning the ropes and has enthusiasm for what she's doing. But sure, let's be assholes about it. 

Almost same response I was gonn have.  Ill add this ...seen posts on here about no younger folks at the races.  So there is a young announcer and people are calling her out cause she is enthusiastic about what she is doing.  But hey Im sure these same people were perfect at their job from the get go.  

Having done some racing media work on the local level for seventeen years I think most fans don't realize what is involved in some of these racing "jobs".  To put it mildly, if anyone is planning on doing any kind of racing work locally it borders on volunteer work.  My "pay" was a pit pass so for spending the night running around taking photos, getting home and staying up until 3 or 4 am sending out photos and spending most of the day Sunday writing my next column I "made" $30 per race attended.  Doing the math on the pay vs hours came out to something like a buck an hour.  I didn't sell photos as a business and only took them to illustrate what I was writing about.

I know one of the more popular announcers who has done some of the touring Late Model and Modified announcing.  The times I had overheard him talking pay it was only like a couple hundred bucks a night and that was someone who would be considered a top tier announcer.  The ones I know all have day jobs and/or have their fingers into many other things as announcing does not amount to much.

So someone like this young lady is likely not what we would consider an employee.  Perhaps in some parts of the country racing annoucer is a more prestigious title but to my knowlege it's not too many steps beyond volunteer work here in the upper Midwest.  I'm certainly not going to bash a young lady who is setting a good example for other young people and obviously loves what she is doing.  My ears will survive any slight learning curve she has to go through and I understand how these things work behind the scenes.  If a person has a day job and is considering dirt track annoucing as a career I would strongly suggest that you not quit your day job.

Stan Meissner

I too hoping for a little toning it down with time and experience. You can tell she is learning alot from Ray using technic and phrases that he does and he is not short on energy either. I just figured by watching other flo races that a second team member was added to work the pits and do interviews and such. And we now got Chatty. Maybe This is her home track or Ray had a prior commitment. 

One thing about Ray is I enjoy seeing the jaw dropping reactions of fans that have never seen a crazy race announcer with a mohawk sing a very powerful National Anthem before.

I used to know a former IRA announcer Paul Pittman fairly well but had stepped away from this racing work by the time Ray was announcing.  He sang the Anthem at a USAC Midget week race I was watching and I found out that he had a pretty good voice.  I used to know another photographer who would come up here for a big Late Model race and sing the Canadian anthem.  There is some hidden talent among racers.  Speaking of hidden talent and the IRA Bill Balog owns some nice electric guitars so who knows, maybe he will accompany Ray some day. 

Stan Meissner

See more racing videos at
http://www.youtube.com/user/dagunner

You are correct, Jeff.  She has the enthusiasm needed and it will only get better in time.  She is a breath of fresh air.  She is also a hard worker, walking around the pits doing interviews, then announcing some, doing the dash draws and interviews after the feature.  She is very motivated, and she obviously loves what she is doing

     I tried to find some audio or video of her online with no luck. Can you provide a link to something?

See more racing videos at
http://www.youtube.com/user/dagunner