With all of the technological advances in television, you can view the race from a multitude of camera angles - down the straightaways, through the turns, along pit road and even inside the race cars themselves - all in high definition. Fox Sports debuted its newest innovation - the “gopher cam” - that gives viewers a close-up look at the cars as they streak by in the turn (I can do without the cartoon character that pops up in the corner of the TV screen).
Fox Sports and ESPN each have cutaway versions of the race cars so they can give viewers a close-up look at something that might be causing a problem for a driver during the race.
Reporters are stationed throughout the pits and the garage area to update us on the latest happenings with each car - how many tires were changed during a pit stop, how many pounds of air were added or let out of each tire and how many rounds the track bar was adjusted. And if any “wedge” was added or taken away from the car, we find that out, too.
NASCAR can trace its explosion in popularity back to the 1979 Daytona 500, the first time the race was broadcast live from start to finish on CBS Sports. Millions of people were watching as Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison tangled with each other in a last-lap crash while battling for the lead, got out of their wrecked race cars and began throwing punches.
Before long, ESPN was broadcasting every race, making household names out of people like Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt.
My how times have changed ...
Back in the day (my son's favorite expression), NASCAR races weren't televised live. If you were lucky, ABC's Wide World of Sports would broadcast highlights of the major races like Daytona, Darlington, Charlotte and Atlanta on Saturday afternoons - two weeks after the race took place - usually between highlights of other popular sporting events like the Harlem Globetrotters, alpine skiing or track and field.
Chris Economacki - “editor of National Speed Sports News” - was in the pits at every race, reporting the exciting action in glorious black and white.
Wide World of Sports usually showed viewers the beginning of the race, staying with the action for several laps before cutting away for a commercial. When it came back on the air, instead of the race you might see the Globetrotters performing on the deck of an aircraft carrier or some Eastern European whose name you couldn't pronounce sailing through the air on skis.
Later, they'd switch back to the race, show a wreck or two and then go to another commercial. This would continue for an hour or so before you'd get to see the final laps of the race and the eventual winner getting a kiss in victory lane from Miss Hurst Golden Shifter or some other beauty queen.
If that wasn't enough to quench a racing fan's thirst, there was “Race to Riches,” a weekly game that showed highlights of a race and viewers would try to match the winning car numbers with scratch-off cards they received at the local Kroger store.
However, for those race fans who couldn't make it to Daytona for the 500, the next best thing was closed-circuit TV.
Forty years ago, my uncle took me to Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem to watch the race on the big screen. We bought our tickets and walked downstairs to the floor of the coliseum, which was filled with folding metal chairs. At one end of the building was a huge, white screen.
We took our seats, the lights dimmed and through the magic of satellite broadcasting watched the 1968 Daytona 500 - in black and white, of course.
Cale Yarborough, driving the #21 Mercury for the Wood Brothers, battled back and forth for the lead with Lee Roy Yarbrough, who was driving the #29 Mercury for Junior Johnson. On the last lap, Cale used a slingshot move to sail past Lee Roy for the victory.
The lights came on, we left the coliseum and drove home.
Who needs a “gopher cam,” anyway?
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