Homecoming at the Brickyard

When Bill Weber, a native of Middletown, N.J., was a student at Indianapolis’ Butler University in the late 1970s, he spent one summer working on a construction crew at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“It was the kind of job that made you work harder in school so you wouldn’t have to do these kinds of jobs,” Weber said on the phone from Indianapolis on Thursday, recalling such tasks as loading caulking guns.

This weekend Weber will be back working at the legendary speedway, site of Sunday’s Brickyard 400 stock car race. Only these days he has a slightly better job.

Weber is the pre-race host and lead pit reporter for NASCAR telecasts on NBC, which will televise Sunday’s race.

Weber and the rest of NBC’s NASCAR crew also work the TNT telecasts, which this weekend include Saturday’s 5 p.m. Busch Grand National race at nearby Indianapolis Raceway Park. A guest analyst for TNT will be current Winston Cup driver Elliott Sadler.

NASCAR came to Indy in 1994, and this will be the third year NBC has televised the Brickyard 400.

“I couldn’t wait to get here,” Weber said. “It’s like a personal homecoming for me. The first thing I did was visit the Butler campus, which is only 10 minutes away from the speedway.”

Weber recalled that during his college days he would study for finals in the Indy parking lot before attending an Indianapolis 500 practice or qualifying session. That’s when he was first attracted to auto racing.

Weber, who majored in radio and television and minored in journalism at Butler, was a TV sports reporter in Terre Haute, Ind., and Evansville, Ind., through most of the 1980s. He also worked in Milwaukee as a media relations consultant for Miller Brewing Co.

In 1990, Weber moved to Charlotte, N.C., where he was a producer and reporter for a production company that specialized in NASCAR programming, which mostly aired on TNN. After four years, that job led to work at ESPN, where he served as a pit reporter on NASCAR races and also reported for “RPM2Night” on ESPN2.

Weber has been with NBC since 2001, when NBC, TNT and Fox acquired the NASCAR package.

Weber might be a little biased, but he believes the Brickyard 400 is the second-most important race on the circuit.

“I’d say the Daytona 500 is No. 1, and the Brickyard 400 is 1-A,” he said. “The Brickyard brought fans to NASCAR racing, simply by the name Indianapolis and the history associated with this track.

“Usually it’s about the race, but this weekend it’s about the place.”

NBC analyst Wally Dallenbach said, “For a lot of people, Daytona is the biggest race, but you’d be surprised at the number of drivers who would tell you the Brickyard 400 is the biggest prize.”

NBC will use 79 cameras to cover the race, including a “squash cam,” “wall cams” and the “eye-full tower cam.” The squash cam is a lipstick-size camera buried in the infield just inside Turn 1, and the wall cams are embedded in the outside wall of Turn 2 and Turn 4.

The eye-full tower cam, so named by Weber, is a robotic camera placed atop the scoring pylon 92 feet in the air to show the canyon of fans. About 300,000 fans are expected Sunday.

Last year’s telecast on NBC drew a record 6.3 national Nielsen rating, up from a 6.2 the year before. The previous high was a 5.7 for the inaugural Brickyard 400 on ABC in 1994.

Weber believes this is an ideal time for a major NASCAR race -- before the baseball pennant races heat up and before the start of the football season.

“It’s the perfect time for the sport to take the stage, and Indianapolis is the perfect stage for the sport,” he said.

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Motoring Along

Kenny Sargent of Van Nuys, a sports anchor and motor sports reporter for Channel 13 from 1996-2000, says he was “bored to Texas tears” by the way auto racing was being covered by the broadcast media and wanted to do something about it.

So he created “SpeedFreaks,” which became a nationally syndicated radio show that is heard on KSPN (710) Sundays from 9 to 11 p.m. in Los Angeles and about 80 other stations in the U.S., including a new affiliate in Indianapolis. The show, which takes an in-your-face approach, celebrated its third anniversary June 25.

The show’s supporting cast, which bills itself as “The Mod Squad of Motor Sports,” includes Statt Mann Caruthers, played by former Channel 13 producer Bill Wood, Lugg Nuttz, played by Sargent’s longtime friend Gordon Stewart, and Crash Gladys, played by Christy Clutter, a former racing communications specialist from Indianapolis who beat out about 200 applicants for the job.

If you’re an auto racing fan, the show is definitely worth a listen. The guest lineup is always a good one.

Another quality auto racing show, although a little tamer, is “Hammerdown!” This one-hour show, which airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on KMPC (1540), was created by Al Gottfried and his 23-year-old son, Adam, who own Fourteenth Colony Productions. The host of “Hammerdown!” is Jim Allen, with tech wizard “Fast” Eddie Dome serving as his sidekick.

Another Fourteenth Colony production is “Tee It Up,” a golf and travel show that airs on KSPN Sundays at 7 a.m.

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A New Profession

Reggie Theus, a 13-year NBA veteran who has been involved in sports broadcasting since retiring from basketball in 1992, is apparently serious about coaching. Theus, who starred at Inglewood High and Nevada Las Vegas, has accepted a position as assistant coach on Rick Pitino’s staff at Louisville.

Theus, who coached the Las Vegas Slam of the ABA in the spring of 2002 and was a volunteer assistant at Cal State Los Angeles last season, has worked for Turner Sports, ESPN and most recently Fox Sports Net.

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Short Waves

Finally, some football: You might miss the first NFL exhibition game of the season. ESPN2 will show the New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers from Tokyo at 2 a.m. Saturday. ESPN is billing the game as “Breakfast in Tokyo,” since it airs at 5 a.m. in the East. Here, it should be “Nightcap in Tokyo.” ESPN will replay the game Saturday at 5 p.m. ... ABC will televise the 41st Hall of Fame game, this one involving the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs, Monday at 5 p.m. The game marks the ABC debut of sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero.... Sportscaster Don Criqui is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio and Television award. He and Dick Enberg will serve as co-grand marshals of Saturday’s parade.

ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown,” with Stuart Scott, Tom Jackson, Ron Jaworski and newcomer Michael Irvin, makes its debut Monday at 4 p.m.... “NFL Live”, featuring newcomer Bryan Cox, made its debut on ESPN Thursday night. Its regular slot will be Tuesday through Saturday at 4 p.m. on ESPN2.

Petros Papadakis, providing color as only he can, will preview the USC football team in a special Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on Fox Sports Net and Tuesday at 6 p.m. on Fox Sports Net 2. Papadakis’ guests include Coach Pete Carroll and senior associate athletic director Darryl Gross.... SlamBall, the game of hoops played on trampolines, returns for a second season Monday at 8 p.m. on Spike TV, formerly TNN.... Joe Cohen, longtime television executive who has been the president of New York’s MSG Network and the owner of L.A.’s Z Channel, recently acquired Hughes Television Network for a third time. HTN, which started out in 1956 as a major sports carrier, is now a provider of transmission services to sports team and networks.

Hype didn’t help: Considering all the publicity Lance Armstrong received, the national rating of 2.2 for the Tour de France finale was a bit disappointing. But it was up from last year’s 1.5.... Sunday’s CART race at Elkhart Lake, Wis., is being televised on HDNet, Mark Cuban’s high-definition channel available only on DirecTV. But there will be public showings throughout the county, and the Long Beach Grand Prix people have organized a showing at Legend’s in Long Beach. The race starts at 9 a.m.... Tony Stewart is scheduled to teach host Matt Lauer how to drive the Indy oval on NBC’s “Today” show this morning. “All the NASCAR people keep telling me how many horsepower this car has and what speed it can reach,” Lauer said. “All I want to know is what kind of brakes it has and how quickly it can stop.”

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In Closing

Maybe it appealed to some viewers, but the feeling here is that ESPN’s self-serving, behind-the-scenes look at “SportsCenter” didn’t work. Tuesday’s two-hour show was about as boring as any show would be about a workplace, including a look at how The Times sports section is put together.