Race Still Comes With a Bang

What’s in a name? Sometimes a lot.

The names of this country’s major sporting events are familiar to just about everybody.

Watching the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend is an American tradition. So is watching the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May, or the Daytona 500, which opens the NASCAR season.

NASCAR is back at Daytona, Fla., this Fourth of July weekend. With stock-car racing entrenched as the second-most popular television sport behind pro football, this weekend’s race should rank up there among the elite sporting events.

If it were still called the Firecracker 400, it probably would. But the race’s sponsor won out on this one. The race became the Pepsi Firecracker 400 in 1983, which was OK. But then Firecracker was dropped from the title altogether in 1989, and it became simply the Pepsi 400. With that title, it is just another race on the NASCAR schedule, although it became a little special when it was made a Saturday night event in 1999.

However, among NASCAR people, it is still the Firecracker 400.

NBC’s Bill Weber, the pre-race host and lead pit reporter, said, “I think it will be interesting to see how many people call it the Firecracker 400 -- the drivers, the crew chiefs.”

Weber, cognizant of the importance of mentioning the sponsor, added, “With all due respect to Pepsi, we may make that slip too. When you’re kicking it around, it’s still the Firecracker 400, even with the great sponsorship from Pepsi.”

NBC’s Allen Bestwick, who will call the race along with analysts Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach, sees it this way: “Make no mistake about it, if it’s a Winston Cup race at Daytona, it’s a big deal.”

NASCAR Notes

The consensus seems to be that moving the race off July 4 to Saturday night of the Fourth of July weekend was a good thing.

Said Dallenbach, “Everyone was at the beach on July 4. And running the race in the daytime made it a tough race, heat-wise. It’s better for everyone to run this at night.”

NBC’s coverage begins at 4 p.m. Saturday, with the race scheduled to begin at 4:30. There’s also a one-hour preview at noon.... The Busch race will be on TNT today at 5 p.m.

Among the new toys NBC will be trying out on Saturday night’s race is a virtual line on the track, similar to the yellow first-and-10 line in football, to show where the restart is after a caution flag. Also, there will be a virtual line to show what car is headed for what pit. These innovations are provided by Sportvision of Mountain View, Calif.

Besides Weber, NBC’s pit reporters are Dave Burns, Marty Snider and Matt Yocum. Yocum is the only member of the NBC crew who also works NASCAR for Fox and FX.

NASCAR Ratings

Fox, which completed its NASCAR half-season two weeks ago, averaged a 5.8 Nielsen rating for its Winston Cup races. That’s even with last year, which isn’t bad, considering the war in Iraq contributed to a drop in most sports ratings. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament on CBS was down 23%, the NHL regular season on ABC was down 21%, the NBA regular season on ABC was down 10%.

This was the third year that Fox televised the first half of the season -- NBC and TNT are doing the second. (The Daytona 500 and Pepsi 400 alternate networks separately.) Ratings for the Fox races were up 29% the first year and were even the second, and ratings for the NBC races were up 34% the first year and 13% the second.

Fox averages 15.2 million viewers for an NFL regular-season telecast, the best in sports. Second best for regular-season events is 9.4 million viewers for a NASCAR race (a record 35 million watched this year’s Daytona 500). Last year, PGA tournaments drew an average of 4.8 million viewers, regular-season NBA games 4.1 million and regular-season baseball games 3.4 million.

Of NASCAR’s growing popularity, Bestwick said, “We really have had good ratings the last few years, and we’re packaging it better, and I think both of those things together help bring the sport forward to more people.”

Said Fox Sports President Ed Goren, “NASCAR continues to be an amazing television phenomenon.”

However, Los Angeles is lagging. Fox averaged a 2.6 in L.A. this year, down from a 3.0 last year. But NASCAR was averaging only a 1.9 in L.A. in 2000. The addition of a second race at California Speedway in Fontana -- a Labor Day weekend Sunday night race beginning in 2004 -- should increase interest here.

Baseball Notes

Tracking the Dodgers and Angels: The Dodgers, playing the Arizona Diamondbacks in three games, will be on Channel 13 tonight, Channel 11 Saturday and ESPN Sunday evening. Tonight’s game starts at 6 because of postgame fireworks. The Fox announcers Saturday will be Josh Lewin and Steve Lyons. The ESPN announcers Sunday will be Jon Miller and Joe Morgan.... The Angels, who are at Oakland for three, will be televised by Channel 9 Saturday and Sunday.

Good PR move: The Angels, making amends for a weak television schedule, agreed to waive their rights fee of about $180,000 a game so that eight games could be added to the Fox Sports Net schedule in August and September.... The interleague games on Fox the last three weeks averaged a 2.9 rating, 21% better than intra-league games.

It was good seeing Keith Jackson announce baseball on ESPN on Wednesday night. ESPN is bringing back old-timers for Wednesday night games. It’s a great idea.... For the second year, ESPN will televise the All-Star selection show Sunday at 4 p.m.

Short Waves

ESPN finally announced that it has hired Steve Lavin as a college basketball game and studio analyst. Lavin will work 40 nights in the studio and 30 games as a commentator.

“Steve brings enormous energy and a contemporary knowledge of the game,” said Mark Shapiro, ESPN executive vice president.

More old news: ESPN also announced the hiring of Michael Irvin for “NFL Sunday Countdown.” He replaces Sterling Sharpe.

Could the Galaxy finally be catching on? Last Saturday’s game with Dallas on Channel 9 got a 1.3 rating, the highest for a Galaxy game in three years. Today’s 7 p.m. home game against New England on Channel 9 is expected to do well too. It’s a rare weeknight telecast. Channel 9 usually shows the Galaxy only on Saturdays and Sundays.

TVG’s “Trackside Live” Saturday at 3 p.m. on Fox Sports Net 2 features the $300,000 Triple Bend Breeders’ Cup Invitational Handicap at Hollywood Park. It’s the first of three races from Hollywood Park and seven from Del Mar that make up the 10-race California series that is part of the “NTRA Road to the World Thoroughbred Championships.” Races from all eight Breeders’ Cup divisions will be featured in the series.... “Seabiscuit -- the Making of the Movie,” first shown on ESPN Classic on Wednesday, will next be shown Sunday at 4 p.m.

The Summer Pro League at Long Beach State’s Pyramid opens Monday, and for three days beginning Wednesday, NBA TV, available on DirecTV’s channel 610, will televise eight games. The first game starts at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday. The Lakers, featuring draft picks Brian Cook and Luke Walton, play the Golden State Warriors. NBA TV will televise Summer Pro League games from Boston and Salt Lake City later in the month.

Attention high definition buffs: DirecTV began offering ESPN HD as part of a $10.99 package this week.... Budding sportscaster: Olympic gold-medal winning swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg is among those who have signed up for Roy Englebrecht’s Sportscasters Camps of America, to be held July 11-15 in Long Beach.

“Beg, Borrow & Deal,” a reality game show in which two four-person teams make their way across the country with no money or credit cards while attempting off-beat, sports-related tasks, returns to ESPN on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The show, in its second year, has a new host, Summer Sanders, new rules and a new route, Miami to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

In Closing

ESPN is spending $80,000 a month for the signage on the Hotel Figueroa across from Staples Center to promote its ESPY Awards show, to be held July 16 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. The time for the show is listed as 9 p.m. ET. Someone ought to clue in the folks at ESPN that we go by Pacific time in these parts.