Today’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series fan can look forward to a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon viewing the action. Possibly wearing their favorite driver’s apparel hunkered down in a room dedicated to that same guy. Surrounded by photos, souvenirs, and wall posters a fan can tune in for hours of racing coverage.

Some early morning NASCAR information can be viewed on ESPN. Usually near midday, Speed Channel then airs their two hour NASCAR program which will mate up to the start time of the broadcast network’s pre-race show. That portion can stretch from thirty to sixty minutes before opening ceremonies actually start.

When the race finally takes the green flag, sometimes over three hours of television have already been shown.  A majority of the Sprint Cup schedule is broadcast live over a major network satellite signal, often to its conclusion even if there is a delay into prime time programming.

Back on Speed Channel, a three hour block of post-race and Sunday evening race weekend wrap up shows air to fulfill a race fan’s appetite.  Totaled up, a fan can enjoy upwards of ten hours of related NASCAR and various motorsports television in one day.

How times have changed.

As a young fan I was introduced to the sport in the 1970s. Most of my race experiences began not knowing who the star Grand National drivers were, but who my local grassroots Saturday night were.
I soon discovered auto racing’s major leagues and appreciated the scope and talent of a Buddy Baker or a David Pearson. But my knowledge came from weekly racing trade papers. I was raised in New England and media coverage for auto racing was limited at best. I studied sentence after sentence from my issues of Stock Car Racing Magazine and Speedway Scene.

Local papers, TV news, and radio sports reports contained very minimal auto racing mentions but plenty of the stick and ball sports coverage. Radio broadcasts of anything NASCAR were still close to twenty years away.

The television coverage of the time was something some newer fans may have a difficult time picturing.
A Daytona 500 that did not begin the season was still the marquee event. Following the first points race on the road course in Riverside, California, the Winston Cup tour headed to the annual speedweeks in Florida. Culminating with the 500, ABC started coverage of the contest after the race had started and aired only the final two hours live. But it was auto racing being televised so that was a big deal.
Any other races that captured a TV audience were treated with even further disregard.

For a race from NASCAR’s top series to be broadcast, it seemed it needed to originate from a well known southern facility. Atlanta and Darlington often fit the bill.

Then the meet was taped and edited down to fill a segment on Wide World of Sports a week or two later. I actually would look forward to the late Saturday afternoon shows.

Marketing and ratings executives at the network tried to pull in multiple audience demographic viewers by scheduling contests in the same program that would not draw the same fan. My much anticipated stock car race shared the show with sports like gymnastics, sumo wrestling, and cliff diving. I sat through my fair share of figure skating too.

No event was shown at once. During a ninety minute show, the audience went back and forth to each sport two or three times. So one had to stay tuned, because you never quite knew when the race would come back on. “…and now we leave the Honolulu Diving Championships and return you to Darlington, South Carolina for more of the Southern 500.”

Can you imagine a four hour event from the legendary oval being aired fourteen days later and fit into its thirty minute allotted time frame plus commercials? That was how it was.

And to be honest with barely any racing to view at all, I would look in the TV guide every week to see if a stock car race would be covered. When Wide World of Sports listed in the description “Atlanta 500”, I would count down the days like I would Christmas. Putting up with some downhill slalom ski race wasn’t all that bad at the time. I would have done anything for a glimpse of the Allison Brothers or Richard Petty.

Today, I too offer criticism of Sprint Cup broadcasts on Fox, TNT and the others. But as I look at every single event being aired, at hours on end of pre- and post-race coverage on satellite and cable, at racing machines equipped with GPS, and at a plethora of camera angles, I also appreciate what we have.

We have come along way.

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