Amid all that rain and all those yellow caution flags that delayed the Daytona 500, a CBS star was born, and, rest assured, this promising newcomer won't pull a temper tantrum or petulantly demand air time.
However, FlyCam, a small camera mounted on a radio-controlled helicopter, which flew above the Daytona International Speedway yesterday, made an interesting enough debut that it may actually command more time in a number of CBS racing telecasts.
The four-foot-long, 30-pound camera, which cost $400,000, hovered about 30 feet above the course, providing perspectives from Pit Road and other vantage points.
CBS only received permission from NASCAR officials on Friday to use the camera. They experimented with it on an empty track before trying it out while racers were practicing, with two men -- a cameraman and a ground pilot -- operating the machinery. The shots from FlyCam weren't always great, but with some practice, they will be.
Save for the 1-hour, 44-minute rain delay, the telecast went smoothly, although the network was precluded from using its five on-board cameras for the first half of the race, because of Federal Aviation Administration regulations that kept a support helicopter from taking off.
The pictures, courtesy of producer Eric Mann, director Bob Fishman and 26 cameras, were mostly interesting, especially the low-angle cameras near the turns that gave the sensation of the speed of the action.
Lead announcer Ken Squier was particularly effective at getting concise and clear information out of broadcasting newcomer Richard Petty while calling a solid race. Ned Jarrett seemed overly hyped to start but settled down a bit after the rain delay. The threesome was sharp in the final 10 laps, letting the viewer know that Dale Earnhardt would make a charge at leader Sterling Marlin, who gamely held off Earnhardt for his second straight Daytona win.
The delay gave CBS and its capable pit reporters a chance to humanize the racers by getting inside their helmets. Mike Joy was the best of the pit guys, though David Hobbs and Dick Berggren were solid.
And you had to like the appearance of America's favorite gift-shop salesmen, Mujibur and Sirajul from "The Late Show with David Letterman" fame. Little-known fact: The two Bangladesh natives worked in Petty's pit crew when the King won in 1979.
Just kidding.
Love that Bob
That Bob Costas has got a real solid future in this here business.
As "NBA Showtime" was ending yesterday, Costas, the consummate sports broadcaster of his day, dropped in what appeared to be an insignificant factoid: Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon, a devout Muslim, had to get up at 5:30 yesterday morning to eat breakfast and would not be able to consume anything, including water or Gatorade, during the game because of his observance of the festival of Ramadan, a high holy period of his faith.
Bill Walton appeared to chuckle at Costas' observation, but Olajuwon shot 4-for-13 in the first half of the Rockets' loss to the New York Knicks, though he did shoot 6-for-8 in the second half after resting. In a nutshell, there's the reason Costas has won five National Sportscaster of the Year awards in voting conducted among his peers: He provides timely and pertinent information in an entertaining fashion.
Brown? Out!
We'll concede that every sportscaster needs a schtick, if you will, to be different in a crowd, but it would help if ESPN Radio's Peter Brown would add some substance to his act.
Brown, who appears most weekends with Chuck Wilson and Tony Bruno, has displayed, in the past two weeks, an ugly tendency toward speaking before thinking.
For instance, last Saturday, Brown said that because a woman scored eight points in one possession in a game, the achievement wasn't noteworthy. He is certainly entitled not to like women's basketball, but because the free-throw and three-point distances are the same in all of college basketball, Brown should be open-minded enough to recognize that an eight-point possession, regardless of the gender of the player, is something special.
Saturday night, Brown was forced to retreat on his curious statement that the media have "brainwashed" the public into thinking that games involving replacement baseball players would be substandard, when he admitted that ticket prices and broadcast rights fees for replacement games would have to be scaled down because of the inferior quality of the product.