Over the last ten years, I have spent entirely too considerable an amount of time in front of my TV watching Australian Rules Football, jai-lai and Tough Man Competitions. I have spent far more time doing that than reading classic works of American literature, learning a second language or discussing the philosophies of Richard Rorty and bell hooks with others. If this has prepared me for anything, it’s being in a position to judge the announcing abilities of the two man broadcasting team for what networks would call fringe sports.
Normally, this would be a strange topic to write about on the TDA website, but this month is not normal. The big news afoot is that Third Night’s races are going to be televised on The Speed Channel.
This is an enormous get for TDA owner, Sherri Heckenast, the league and the sport itself. It is an opportunity to gain both sizable chunks of revenue and new fans without doing any extra work. To the fans in the stands, the races will appear exactly the same as they always have, precisely because nothing about them will have changed. There might be a camera truck on the sidelines, an extra camera in the press box or a generator truck in the parking lot, but nothing more.
The TDA races have been broadcast before on The Speed Channel, but nothing over the course of the last few years. As a result of this, I have never had an opportunity to view any of the broadcasts. I started thinking about this though, after realizing that my only exposure to the TDA races on TV being the DVDs of the individual race nights that Jason Twite has created (that are available for sale here on the teamdemos.com website).
My first thought was that the broadcast would be somewhat similar to Twite’s DVD, minus the heavy metal music. I then realized that there would one other major difference: the television broadcasts would have to have announcers. And, if the sports broadcasting world held true to form, this would be a tandem featuring a play-by-play announcer and a color man who would attempt to make sense of things for the viewer. And that’s when my mind started really pondering things.
For starters, I have no knowledge of who will be broadcasting the races or even whether announcers will be at the Route 66 Raceway on the 23rd (Sometimes sports events are taped and then announced; if you’re not broadcasting live, it allows for greater precision and control). Whatever the case though, I think the announcing team for Third Night’s TDA races is going to have one of the hardest and most challenging jobs of any sports announcers in the country.
Announcers are generally present to give the home viewer context to the events they are watching on-screen. They are there to give audiences a story that they can become enmeshed in; if they do their jobs well, each event is another chapter in a constantly unfolding drama. The announcers create this story by explaining backstory, rules and strategy.
What makes this tough in regards to the TDA is that there aren’t many rules (go around the tires and don’t driver’s door opponents) and, as I have been repeatedly told, all strategic plans instantly go out the window when the green flag is dropped. Yes, runners tend to stick to running and crushers tend to stick to crushing, but there isn’t much beyond that.
The reason for this is that the team demos are one sport where no one is ever on the same page. In football, at the snap of the ball, every player on the offensive side of the ball knows exactly what he is supposed to do and what every other player on the team is going to be doing. In TDA action, drivers routinely have no clue what their teammates are doing. Several drivers have confessed to me that the only way they can tell when their teammates are doing poorly is that they won’t recall seeing them during the course of the race. It isn’t until after the races have ended that the drivers can go back to their pit areas and discuss what just happened on the track. Strange as it may seem, there are instances where drivers will have no idea who hit them, particularly if the hit comes from behind.
And for an announcing team to make sense of something that the participants are occasionally confused by seems somewhat daunting… especially given that the announcers will have no idea what mechanical problems the drivers may or may not be suffering from on field. A blown radiator is easy to spot. A broken distributor cap or an engine seizing is a much different story.
As such, I have one hope for the broadcasting team doing the Third Night’s announcing: they keep it simple. This much I have gleaned from my copious amounts of watching ESPN7 at 4 in the morning. Keep it very simple.
No matter how you look at it, it seems ridiculous to have a color man explaining the “Thor Magnusson technique” that someone is using in the Tough Man Competition, especially when they are discussing men throwing empty beer kegs over a wall. For this reason, I sincerely hope that the TDA announcers steer away from topics like rear differentials and whether someone is driving a 460 or a 503 engine and instead focus on the more mainstream WTF items like the fact that a fair amount of the drivers don’t run brakes and many have participated in a race or two without wearing any kind of seatbelt or other restraining device.
Getting The Speed Channel to broadcast the TDA races is a fantastic step forward for the league. My fingers are crossed that the broadcast gets the subtle and nuanced type of announcing that is so rightly deserves.
Good Feel Good Stories
One of the true feel-good stories of the 2010 TDA season was that Orange Crush’s Ron Tyrakowski won his first championship after more than 20 years of racing. Tyrakowski long had been the backbone and owner of Orange Crush. Seeing the man hoist the trophy after experiencing heartbreak in previous years, especially the 2005 season, was a warm spot for fans of both Orange Crush and the TDA. It’s always good to see athletes who chose to remain with one team long term—the Tony Gwynns, the Dirk Nowitskis and the Hines Wards—win their first championship with that team. And Tyrakowski was no different.
But that was last year.
With Tyrakowski finally putting some hardware on his mantle, I realized that there are two drivers out there who I am rooting for who are long time stalwarts of the TDA, who have yet to win the season title: Greg Mesich and Dave “Repo” Swan.
Mesich has owned and been racing for Seek-N-Destroy for the last three years. His teams have come in 2nd and 3rdplace the last few years and in 2009, he assembled a team consisting of numerous surefire Hall of Famers: the Seek-N-Destroy lineup featured himself as well as Rob Stahulak, “Crazy” Art Scarbro, and Ron Johnston.
While there are athletes who can easily promote hatred from fans (ahem, Lebron James), Mesich is the anti-villain. He is a friendly, soft-spoken man who not only loves the sport but is a true ambassador to it.
Swan has owned and been racing for Damage, Inc for as long as there has been racing at Route 66. He is tall, wiry and has a gravelly voice and laughter that you won’t mistake for anyone else. Swan has an almost committable love for the demos. Prior to Mel Noble Jr. pulling a head on collision with a Mean Green Machine car without a helmet on, Swan was the poster child in my book for the ‘crazy’.
Last year, Swan broke his wrist, necessitating a cast to help it heal. Since the TDA has a rule forbidding drivers from racing with casts, Swan did the only thing he could think of in order to keep racing: he cut his cast off and drove Fifth Night in 2010 with a broken wrist.
So on the 23rd, pay attention to Seek-N-Destroy’s Mesich and Damage, Inc’s Swan. They are the TDA’s next feel-good stories in the making.
5 Things I want to See…
…Orange Man
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day pioneered the glorious character of Green Man in 2007. Green Man is simply Day wearing an all green spandex suit. I’m not sure why it’s funny or why it works, but it does.
The true beauty of Green Man is that, since the green spandex also covers the wearer’s face, anyone can be Green Man… including these two guys seated near the penalty box in Vancouver’s stadium.
I think it is high time that this concept is brought to the TDA. Since it’s the demos though, I think it also deserves its own little twist: why do Green Man (again) when there’s the possibility of Orange Man?
Orange Crush has a legion of devoted fans… I put it to one of them (or four of them): go to a web site, any web site, like this one, buy an orange body suit and wear it to the races. Not only will you be able to lead all kinds of people in cheers, but I will profile you in the next TrackSide and get you a couple beers if you do.
Orange Man! C’mon!
…Individual Drivers getting some Fan Bases
Whenever I talk to casual fans of the demo, I am always somewhat amazed at how little they seem to know about the individual drivers and teams. This is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is that fans who feel an affinity towards one driver or another will be that much more likely to return the next month and participate in the culture and community surrounding the demos.
However, there’s one slight stumbling block in the this respect: there is almost no way for the fans in the stands to differentiate between the drivers outside of by their names or numbers. Even this is sometimes troublesome because the drivers don’t wear any kind of identifying uniforms. There are also no programs, there are no pictures and there are no bios where you can learn interesting bits of information about the drivers that would capture your imagination. For example, one driver played professional football, another is a martial arts instructor and still another will only drink alcoholic beverages that are pink. These are interesting tidbits of information that not only helps inform a fan base, but makes it grow.
I am a big fan of Bad Company and, especially, of Kyle Shearer. Shearer’s on-track driving is over-the-top, crazy and hard-hitting, but what really got me in his corner was his in-the-pits demeanor. He’s a happy-go-lucky guy who seems amused at what he’s doing. He looks like he’s having a good time and that is contagious.
After Shearer obliterated Reckoning’s Brian Anderson against the front wall, he came off the track with a sparkle in his eye, much the way the Bears’ Brian Urlacher will come up smiling after a monster hit. Shearer, obviously, would have liked to won the race, but his excitement about the hit he put on Anderson was contagious.
But I know this because I was in the pits during the races, standing next to Shearer. If I was in the stands, I’m not sure I’d have seen anything other than a blue car smashing the hell out of a black one.
This needs to change… and will in future TrackSides.
…A little bit of British pop music piped in
Listen, I like Guns N Roses, Poison and Van Halen as much as the next guy. “Welcome to the Jungle” is a fantastic song… but I’d love to see a little British music thrown into the mix. Start out normally with some Bon Jovi, then work in some of The Vaccines, OMD or Muse and then go back to Whitesnake and Firehouse.
…Better Track Conditions
This is a no brainer. Second Night featured some abysmal track conditions for racing that, somehow, managed to get worse as the night progressed. With Speed Channel on site to televise Third Night’s races, the TDA should do everything in its power (and so far has been) to get the track conditions similar to the way they were First Night.
…Halftime Fan Races
You know how at other professional sporting events they pull fans out of the crowd to participate in some human bowling game or riding around on tiny tricycles? I think the TDA has the ultimate trump card: halftime fan races. Supply three lucky, random fans with some almost-stock cars and have them do five laps.
Better yet, make it a raffle. Pay $5 for a ticket and three fans will win. It sure would beat cheering for a coffee cup, a donut and a bagel running around a jumbotron.