Television has played a major role in the rapid growth of NASCAR, beginning with CBS’s live flag-to-flag coverage of the 1979 Daytona 500. But before that, ABC had televised NASCAR races as part of its “Wide World of Sports” program since 1961.
It wasn’t until the advent of a 24-hours-a-day, all-sports cable network called ESPN that NASCAR races were televised on a regular basis.
In 1981, ESPN televised its first NASCAR race at Rockingham, N.C., with Bob Jenkins and Eli Gold in the booth. Its first live Cup telecast was later that year at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
NASCAR and ESPN became synonymous through the 2000 season when ESPN lost out on the network contract, which put NASCAR on Fox and NBC. But when NBC did not renew its contract after last season, NASCAR came back to its television home at ESPN.
The network’s first Nextel Cup race will be Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. ESPN and ABC will air the final 17 races of the season, with all the races in The Chase on ABC.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and ESPN have enjoyed a long relationship, with ABC’s 43 years of coverage of the Indy 500.
In order to give ESPN a premier race for its return to the sport, the Brickyard, which was traditionally held the first weekend in August, was moved up one week to accommodate ESPN.
ESPN will televise all NASCAR races in High-Definition, with 60-75 cameras at each race. It is also the first to use HD for its in-car cameras.
“In-car cameras are probably the most dynamic facet of motorsports coverage, and taking that into the high-def world is huge,” said Rich Feinberg, senior coordinating producer for NASCAR on ESPN. The camera systems had to be re-engineered for HD, as did the camera power and transmission systems within the race cars, all while maintaining a delicate balance to not add weight to the cars and possibly affect their performance.
ESPN’s NASCAR coverage also includes HD cameras providing other interesting points of view, including grass cams, wall cams, crew cams, pit overhead cams, blimps and multiple robotic cameras at various points around the tracks starting at Indianapolis.
The technology will make the Brickyard look better than ever to TV viewers.