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

When he says " we got the grandstands packed" when the drone camera shows the grandstand is only about 1/2 full!!!!!!

It's kind of like Johnny saying "you want the best" but they're not there.

I cringe every time Chase spits out his made up phrase.  I kind of get why they think they need to hype things up at that point.  Every one of them do it.  But man that line just sounds corney to me. 

WE  ARE.........................................................................................................green

HL has a great race on national tv and that's what you take from it? wow....

i like both HL and WOO and it is pretty sad seeing people going out of their way just to trash either product. Granted this is just my opinion...

Honestly there is only 1 four wide lap that generates a buzz on its own. That's knoxville nationals a main on Saturday. All the rest are just another lap of burning fuel. No amount of announcer hype is going to change that.

Not easy announcing. Chase tries and last nights race was good from 2nd back. The 4 wide was started many years ago and is fine. Some dont care for Johnny and many think He is the best. Hard to find a word that would take place of packed as week day shows can only survive with streaming . I am just glad to see more sprint car racing even if the series is divided.With Larsen Sweet Jmac and Day absent makes it a little easier for the  commited members be it WOO or HL. Rico had an uncharistic below average performance.

Chase does a good job, but yes, the "grandstands packed" thing is tough to hear when it's near empty.  He stopped saying it for a while last summer---did anyone else notice that?  Now it's back no matter the crowd size.  Great show last night.  Timms was flying.  Logan Seavey is starting to figure out the wing.  Reutzel continues to be the guy to beat in my opinion.  

Please watch Justin Fiedler's latest Dirtrackr podcast and he gives the stats on why the Oultaws are still the best top to bottom of the 2 series.  The HL shows have been very entertaining this year, but with Sweet retiring, and Larson and Day not a part of the HL series, when they are not there, it is nowhere near the quality of cars.  I'm glad Justin also put the numbers to it, and the numbers don't lie.  The top 3 cars in the country reside on the Outlaw tour.  Gravel, Buddy, and Macedo.  Not an opinion, but hard numbers.  Number 4 might actually be Macri.  (didn't see the rest of his list) And, in my book right now, number 5 is A-aron.  That's right, blasphamy---I don't have Rico in the top 5 right now.  Don't worry though--he'll win plenty of races and be in the fight for the title this year of course.   

I am just happy to be able to watch mid-week and multiple weekend Sprint Car races. I don't stress over  picking one series vs the other,, how the announcing is conducted, etc., I am just glad to have the option of tuning it to something other than NASCAR, Indy car or Formula one. Sprint Car racing is much more enjoyable, and usually not boring.

Is it possible that if you were sitting in the grandstands they'd look full, but the angle of the drone provides a different perspective. 

You must be bored. 

Keep It Real

I'm looking to start another one of those fun "Tastes great / less filling" hissing matches that bring out the best in fans. I just need to find something petty to bitch about to get the thing started. Any suggestions?

It is true the grandstands look far more packed in person and TV has a way of diminishing the crowd size.  I've been to Knoxville's non-Nationals Outlaw shows and they draw very, very well.  Yet, I'll see comments about the lack of crowd.  That place is so huge, there could be 5000 or 6000 people there and it looks empty.  

Last night, the crowd looked bad.  The stands are small, and they were not very full.  However, I did see someone post on Facebook that they were there, and it felt very busy and "packed" sitting there in person vs. the camera shots they saw of the crowd later.  I think we've all been there.  

Touring announcers haven't updated their schtick for streaming. Back in the day the tour would come around once or twice a year and the slogans were fun. You hear them more than that it gets old. But that's only to the diehards who watch a lot, it's probably still fun for casual fans. 

Im not a huge Raudman fan but think he's gotten better. It's a tough job. 

Maybe I can offer a different perspective, as my guess is there are few if any people commenting on this forum that have ever announced. A bit of back-story first, leading up to my point: 

The first time I did, it was when I was 15 at Jackson Speedway when Tom Savage's voice went out right when the A-feature was rolling out and he just shoved the mic in my hand and said 'you're announcing this race, you know all the drivers so just do it.' 

I didn't have time to get nervous, as I'm sure I would have been otherwise. But I think that was a good initiation. And it actually happened the same way up there several times before I moved away from the area (college). Tom was awesome to be around and work with at the track. 

Fast forwarding a decade, I ended up doing it a fair amount for the sprint division at Cowtown when Bo and I were co-promoting the track. Not by choice really, but we were really working on building the division and no one else wanted to do it. 

Then it turned into where I'd show up at LoneStar, 67 Texarkana and 82 Speedway and either the announcer didn't show up or similar and I was asked to do it from the standpoint of: "it's either you or nothing sweetheart." Then when our series announcer couldn't do the traveling any more I took that over as well for about 5 years. 

I never claimed to be an announcer, or wanted to be one, but I figured if I had to do it, I'd try the best I could to give fans what they wanted. 

And what I felt fans wanted on a nightly basis was a combination of simple to digest info, such as: here's the format, how points and lineup works, brief interesting tidbits about each driver (such as their age, nickname -several of which I made up, and ended up sticking), and between restarts alert the fans of drivers in the raced that had advanced the most positions, any points battles, where the series was headed next (or when they'd be back at the same track) and some specifics about the rules/cars, how to follow along with their mobile devices with behind-the-scenes pics and videos on FB or how to access MRP. 

All of this was an effort to make the event more interactive with the fahs. My goal was to get them invested in caring about what was going on so they'd want to come back. Same reason we all took the time to have pre-race Fan Fests at those events. 

But I never thought it was important to make some sort of schtick out of it, because to me, it was about fulfilling those fan objectives.  

I really don't have an opinion one way or the other on if the series announcers today want to have some sort of 'tagline' they use nightly. My guess is most fans don't think much about it either. 

But the one thing I can tell you, is it is a total grind and beatdown to be involved with a series, whether you're a crewmember, family member, series official (in any capacity) and be one the road and away from home so much. 

That is the biggest sacrifice these people make - yet most of them never get that level of acknowledgment from fans - unless it's a criticism.  

Myself, I'm just thankful to those that, in many cases, those people have dedicated the best years of their lives being a part of the sport, when they could probably use their skills in other traditional ways – and probably making a lot better living too. 

The American race announcer is the aristocrat of the working class, typically more educated and cultured than drivers & crew guys. Sophisticated, confident, well traveled, well spoken, well dressed and well-to-do. The north American pit lizard naturally gravitates to announcers. 

Rambling from town to town, drinking & carousing, laying with unclean women, they leave a trail of destruction in their wake. 

I weep not for the race announcer. 

As stupid as the guy who can't spell his name. 

where do i sign up for that job ... Rambling from town to town, drinking & carousing with unclean women and leave a trail of destruction....my kind of life .....hahahaha

Wow, I look at raudman and gibson differently after reading that job description. Who knew, lol.

I always thought that phrase was corny and the hype is unneeded, the racing is great.  But mainly I'm happy I got to see quality racing on a Tuesday night which is a much bigger deal with me than what the announcer said or didn't say.

But I suppose "We've got 'em racked, we've got 'em stacked and we've got the grandstands reasonably full for a Tuesday night in El Paso, Texas!" doesn't quite have the same ring to it