Angling for promotion
Drivers put in literal spotlight
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Itwas the perfect mixed marriage of 70NASCAR drivers, 60 TV people, 130 light fixtures and 14 cameras squeezed into seven rooms in a remote airplane hangar.
While other journalists scrambled for pole position in the assorted scrums of NASCAR media day, the broadcast partners at Fox Sports had their own deal going on Tuesday about a mile fromDaytona International Speedway.
It’s where all the cool kidswere hanging out.
From 8 a.m. until 6 p.m., drivers from the Sprint Cup, Xfinity and Trucks series darted in and out of those seven production rooms, shooting promos, posing in front of a huge American flag, standing alongside a luminescent shell of a car that looked like itwas fromthemovie “Tron” and having confetti thrown over their heads.
Hey, it’s a party, though itwasn’t. Some people call itwork.
“Every year it’s something crazy,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “This year the thing is the virtual car. It’s incredible. The coolest thing ever. Tron car.”
I concur. The behindthe-scenes peekwas like stepping into the Land of Oz.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” theGreat Oz says when the jig is up.
That’s exactly what Fox is all about: special effects and a flair for the dramatic, set against a backdrop of seven black curtains separating each set.
Fox has been doing this since 2001, its first year as a broadcast partner with NASCAR.
“Wewere sort ofwalking into an expedition in a way, sowe tried to celebrate it as much aswe could,” said EddieMotl, a spokesman for Fox Sports. “This type of event reflects the biggest race of the season, celebration, hope.”
NASCAR is very different than the ball-and-stick sports. Where elsewould you be able to get every athlete from a sport together for a photo and video shoot in a single day? The logistics of Speedweeks— in preparation for theDaytona 500 on Sunday— allowfor a collective and captive group.
“The special thing about this is thatwe get everything. Stuff thatwe get here todaywe can use at any time during the season,” said Jen Pransky, Fox’s coordinating producer for features. “You don’t get football players like this. You don’t get soccer players like this. It happens because of Speedweeks.”
Modern marvels allow for concepts such as the Tron car, which allows producers to superimpose images that include fire, thunderstorms and individual car numbers or use a “phantom camera” that essentially freezes time while shooting at 1,000 frames per second.
Last year, thewowfactorwas a room in which real flames shot up behind the driver. Fortunately, no one had a “Michael Jackson moment,” as one driver’s PR representative noted.
“They do a great job and in someway turn us into gladiators— something more thanwe actually are,” Brian Vickers said. “Butwe have fun with it. ... It’s a lot. You go fromshoot to shoot, booth to booth, camera to camera.
“It’s cool. It’s a long day, but it’swellworth it.”