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3/12/04
What's on your mind?
Add your opinion to the mix. Send your email
for publication to response@dragracingonline.com.
Unsigned letters will not be published.
TV OR NOT TV?
They say great minds think
alike. It must be true, because Jok Nicholson
and Darr Hawthorne each independently wrote
columns this month about the ESPN coverage of
the NHRA POWERade drag racing series. Editor
Jeff Burk decided that both columns were worth
running. We have already gotten so many letters
that we decided to run them in a special letters
section devoted entirely to one subject. We're
sure to get more correspondence, so check back.
Here you go. . .
I just read the story
on DRO, and COULD NOT AGREE MORE! I,
like you, am so tired of the fluff, and announcers,
and constant ads, I'm almost losing my desire
to make sure I watch. Sportsman racing gets
almost no coverage at all, and watching some
wheelstanding action in the sportsman's is far
more exciting for me than hearing some personal
interview about how some Top Fuel crew went
playing golf in the off hours...I DON'T CARE
about that. I want to see racing, and not just
the pro's. What's wrong with showing the finals
of Super Street, etc.?
If you get some other folks that think as I do, I hope you'll fire them to whoever at ESPN can make a difference. I enjoy the 30 minutes of drag racing news on Sunday morning almost as much or more, as putting up with 2 hrs of BS during the entire
broadcast event. Thanks for letting me vent and I agree with your opinion.
Jim Dos
Sportsman racer
(Darr Hawthorne's)
column on the state of drag racing's
television (and daily print media) coverage
of the sport was right on the money. Can't see
it changing though. In the 30-plus years I have
written about racing and been a Sportsman racer
and car owner, it has only gotten worse, not
better. Problem is, drag racing has become entertainment,
not a sport.
Keep up the good work. I enjoy it.
Brian Cour
Darr, Great article.
My fellow racers and I have been saying the
same things for a long time. You hit all the
nails right on their heads. It's gotten so that
we don't care if we watch it or not. And the
sportsman shows are just as bad, focusing on
all alcohol. They can't even take a few seconds
to scan the other sportsman finalists on the
starting line to showcase closer the diversity
of the cars/drivers and their sponsors etc.
I'm sure this would have a greater effect on getting someone new,
identifying with cars they can or may have, going to a race track to
explore for themselves drag racing. As for the announcers, for whatever
reason I see this stuff in big business all the time. The idiot at the
helm is stupid and tries to baffle them with bull, but every time they
need info, they go to the knowledgeable guys in the trenches whose
knowledge make the idiot look good. Kind of a form of plagiarism.
Bill Stephen's is so cold it's a wonder his lips don't freeze together.
He/They have taken NHRA2Day to a lower level as you point out. Lastly, I
can't believe that with all the technology out there they can't capture
the noise at a level that will give us the ferocity of the cars and
speed without the distortion.
Just some of my quick 2 cents.
Thanks,
Sam Murray
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