ABC’s Indianapolis 500 Telecast: Say It Again, Sam

The worst part of the television coverage of Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 was that it didn’t end until midnight, about 12 hours after the race ended.

But you can’t blame ABC for the tape-delayed telecast. That’s the way the Indy people want it done.

ABC, for its part, put on a pretty good show, highlighted by Danny Sullivan’s spinout and recovery on lap 120.

There were some low points, too, mainly involving commentator Sam (Dead Wrong) Posey. In trying to explain what caused Sullivan to spin, Posey rambled on for a moment, then said, “No, I was dead wrong.”

It wasn’t the only time. Moments later, when Rich Volger crashed, Posey didn’t have a clue of what had happened or who had crashed. At first, he said it was Emerson Fittipaldi. It took Posey a while for him to figure things out. Meanwhile, throwing caution to the wind, he spewed a lot out erroneous information. ABC should have given Posey a yellow caution flag.

Another irritating thing about Posey is his penchant for using big words, such as “discabobulated,” or something like that.

Also, Posey is too hyper, like skiing commentator Bob Beattie, who handled volleyball for ABC during last summer’s Olympics. Only Posey may be more irritating. He smothered poor Jim McKay. Posey just never shut up.

Bring back Jackie Stewart, who isn’t exactly Mr. Cool, but is generally more composed than Posey was Sunday.

Something new about ABC’s coverage this year was having some drivers wear microphones. During yellow caution flags, Posey was able to talk directly with drivers such as Sullivan and, early in the race, Bobby Rahal.

One thing viewers learned was that just before Sullivan spun out he thought it was close to the end of the race, and therefore he was pushing it and trying to get around Mario Andretti.

Sullivan later said he was confused because he misunderstood what a crew member had said over the radio. He thought there was only about 12 laps left in the race.

ABC’s many up-close-and-personals were generally good, and added to the enjoyment of the race, especially for viewers not familiar with auto racing. But some of the pieces were ill-timed.

One on Al Unser Jr. was shown just before he dropped out. Rahal dropped out at about the same time, and ABC chose that moment to show a profile on Rahal’s wife, Debi.

In the piece, Debi talked about how important winning Indy is. “I want to feel what it is like,” she said.

Jim McKay smoothly pulled ABC out of that one. “Yet another dream that will have to wait another year,” he said.

As if there weren’t enough promos during the many, many commercial breaks, ABC got an additional one during the Unser profile.

Talking about how he wants to make a lot of money, Unser said: “I watch ‘Dynasty’ every Wednesday night.”