ESPN's NASCAR Coverage: What?!

When football season starts, I have to admit that my interest in NASCAR begins to wane.

This year, it might start waning a little sooner…

Sunday, ESPN/ABC took over the NASCAR broadcasts for the rest of the season. As you know, I was impressed with TNT’s coverage and I was said to see it end. That sadness is even more profound now…

The trouble started with one of the cheesiest intros I have ever heard. Since the race was at “The Brickyard,” ESPN chose to do an intro focusing on bricks…

“The brick. The building block of civilization. A demonstration of man’s will over nature.”

What?!

Apparently ESPN was so proud of the intro, they showed it twice—once to intro the pre-race show and once to intro the race itself.

And unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing they chose to repeat. We heard FIVE TIMES in an hour how it was Dale Jarrett’s crew chief, Todd Parrott, who came up with the idea for the winner to kiss the bricks. In fact, the pre-race show was completely obsessed with kissing the bricks, showing clip after clip after clip that finally made me yell at the TV: “The winner kisses the bricks! We get it! Enough already!”

Maybe since ESPN has been out of the NASCAR business for a while, they forgot how long the races were and that they would need to have lots of DIFFERENT things to show throughout the race. Instead, we got the same winning moments and interviews we saw during the pre-race show…

And maybe their long absence from the sport is why they felt the need to have Aerosmith sing that cheesy “Back In the Saddle Again” song. I hope they got paid well for doing that because if I was Steven Tyler, I would have been embarrassed to be singing those cheesy lyrics in that dumb firesuit. “I’m drivin’ in a fast car…”

What?!

In all honesty, I’m not even sure what the purpose of the pre-race show was since it conveyed absolutely no information whatsoever. In fact, it was Jeff Gordon who told us that there would be a competition caution. None of the dozens of ESPN reporters even mentioned that important point…

But the two words that nearly made me change the channel after five minutes? Suzy Kolber. She drives me crazy!!!

If you’re not familiar with Suzy, she is one of the sideline reporters for “Monday Night Football” and is apparently now the host of “NASCAR Countdown.” I liked her when she started out on FOX, but then apparently someone told her she was the most talented broadcaster on the planet and it went to her head. She knows everything about everything and instead of letting the experts tell her what’s happening, she has to inject her knowledge with every question.

Now, in her defense, her supporting cast was not exactly exceptional. Dale Jarrett came off terribly stiff, probably because he didn’t want to be there (He planned on racing, but failed to qualify.). Rusty Wallace is, well, Rusty Wallace—and that’s not a compliment. And Brad Daugherty? I was a big fan when he played for the Cavs, but he's just hasn't found his NASCAR stride yet. I know he knows the sport (He's an owner, among other things.). It just doesn’t always come out that way. And with what FOX has done with their broadcasts, the old days of one guy looks into the camera and talks, then another and then another just doesn’t work anymore…

I was a little more optimistic when the race was getting ready to start since I’m a fan of Dr. Jerry Punch and I knew he would do a good job. But then the engines started and the picture went to the most pathetic “24” split-screen I have ever seen. One box showed half a steering wheel. One box showed pavement and another showed the water tower next to the speedway.

What?!

There were a few bright spots throughout the coverage, though. The game show bit with Kevin Harvick to find out whether his crew chief or wife knew him better was cute (His crew chief crushed his wife.). And the in-race reports from Dale Jr. and his crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., worked well (until Jr. blew an engine, but that wasn’t their fault). And Jerry Punch did do a good job, for the most part.

The high-tech garage they had to illustrate the cars was cool, but it would’ve been nice if they’d put someone in there who could talk like a normal person. I’ve been a NASCAR fan most of my life, but I had no idea what Tim Brewer was talking about most of the time. And hearing Jerry Punch tell us what “perfect” explanations he was giving us got a little annoying—especially since it wasn’t true.

I should thank ESPN, though, because they’ve now freed up an hour of my Sundays that I would normally reserve for watching the pre-race show. Now, I can use that hour to watch whatever re-runs Bravo is showing.

Even “Hey Paula” would be better than watching Suzy Kolber…