Top Row Seat - Homestead
Dateline: 11/15/99This weekend the Winston Cup teams made their Inaugural journey to south Florida to race at the Homestead Motorsports Complex near Miami. It was a weekend to glimpse the future of NASCAR as one of the shining new tracks on the circuit was covered by the future television network of NASCAR. Unfortunately, the future is a scary place for die-hard NASCAR fans.
The racetrack in Homestead is a monument to human achievement in the wake of a tragedy. Built right after Hurricane Andrew devastated the area, the Homestead Motorsports Complex opened in 1995 and each year brings more than 300,000 race fans into the area with an estimated economic impact of over $100 million.
That's all wonderful news for south Florida. Unfortunately, Homestead is a very narrow racetrack that does not allow drivers to race each other side-by-side. This means that now race fans are forced to sit through another "follow the leader" race. NASCAR - Napping in the new millennium.
One of the other big NASCAR stories from this week was the new television deal which gives the rights to FOX and NBC/TBS for eight years beginning with the 2001 season. We got our first glimpse of the future of television coverage this weekend as NBC covered it's very first Winston Cup race.
Now before anyone panics, this weekend was NBC's very first crack at covering racing. And I thought that Alan Bestwick did an excellent job making the transition from the MRN booth to television. However, Brian Williams as the host? Somehow the polished NBC News personality just does not say NASCAR to me. Brian just did not seem comfortable talking NASCAR and I thought that he really seemed out of place.
The Dream Team
But there is plenty of time for NBC/TBS and FOX to get their broadcast teams together. I'd like to suggest leaving Alan Bestwick to do the play-by-play and bring in Ned Jarrett and Darrell Waltrip to do the color. Those three together in the booth every week would be amazing! And while I'm at it we need "the Doctor" Jerry Punch, Amy East and Winston Kelley covering pit road. Put Dave Despain back out front to host the pre-race show and I will be in heaven.
The way it is now, race fans are afraid that NASCAR's new television package leaves them out in the cold. ESPN and TNN have been good to this sport and to the fans. Let's just hope that some of the "growing pains" that we saw in Sunday's coverage will be ironed out by Daytona 2001.
Now, can we talk about commercial free pay-per-view NASCAR?
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