INDIANAPOLIS 500 : TV Review / Larry Stewart : ABC Cameras Are in Gear in Capturing All the Action

Television coverage of Sunday’s Indy 500 was as good as the race, and that’s pretty darn good.

A highlight was the way ABC captured the emotions of the wives of Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi as the two battled during the final laps. Such situations often are overdone, but in this case, it was great television.

Overall, the camera work was superb, although ABC got a little lucky. For one thing, it had an in-car camera on board with Unser, which provided viewers with an up-close-and-personal look of Unser hitting the wall on lap 199. An incredible shot.

ABC seemed to be switching cameras when Unser and Fittipaldi first made contact, so the live shot wasn’t completely clear. But the many replays more than compensated for that. ABC had covered the crash from all angles.

And commentator Bobby Unser, who showed his bias when Al Jr., his nephew, and Mario Andretti tangled during this year’s Long Beach Grand Prix, was more objective Sunday.

He could have blamed Fittipaldi for knocking his nephew out of the race, but he didn’t. He simply said Fittipaldi, running on the inside, ran out of room and had to come out.

An even more spectacular crash occurred on lap 3 when Kevin Cogan’s car hit the wall and disintegrated, spraying parts across the track.

Although it looked bad, Cogan was not hurt except for some neck pains.

Here, too, ABC got a little lucky, because the damaged car came sliding right at a ground-level camera and crashed again into a pit-wall barrier. Actually, the camera operator really was the fortunate one. He escaped, but his camera was shattered.

The replay showed the car coming right at the camera and then, blip, the screen went dark.

The pre-race coverage was very good as well, especially the piece on the Bettenhausen family. Tony Bettenhausen was killed at Indy in 1961 and son Gary competed in Sunday’s race.

ABC’s Jack Arute generally did good work in the pits, but he should have been less aggressive in interviewing Fittipaldi on Victory Lane.

First, he complained about how long it took Fittipaldi to take off his helmet.

Furthermore, Arute pushed a microphone in front of the winner’s mouth when Fittipaldi broke down and cried in joy. It came across as an intrusion on a private moment.

But Arute’s overzealousness was a minor flaw in a telecast that was otherwise outstanding.

Producer Bob Goodrich, director Don Ohlmeyer and the others involved did themselves proud.