[OpenwheelRob]

Please don't shoot the messenger but I was just wondering. Nobody commented on this yet that I noticed. Yesterday, Father's Day I noticed that The Lucas Oil Late Model series was on CBS of all things. I was happy to see dirt racing on network television and I thought the broadcast was great, but I wondered how did they accomplish this feat? I really don't want to start a big war more just how did they do it and why can't sprints do the same. Did anyone else see this? What's the deal? Those tin-tops are kicking our butts when it comes to popularity, payouts and crowd sizes.

[Mud Packer]

I have seen some of their shows on TV and they are normally an hour program that is a tape delay telecast on Versus, Speed or Mav TV (whatever that is?). I noticed on their schedule that this race was from Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, MO from Memorial Day weekend.

What I have seen has been really good production and they normally show only parts of the race not the entire feature. This series is one of the top, if not the top late model series in the country. How they made this to CBS is beyond me.

Were you able to watch it? Give us a little insight into what your thoughts were. I know I will get slammed for asking, but I still enjoy the tin tops once in a while.

[apexonephoto]

It's all that room on the hood and down the sides for sponsors...

I unfortunately missed it, as I was out for dinner with my family. I'll post if I see it is being replayed. I am fairly certain that Lucas Oil has their own studio to produce this race and the race was at Lucas Oil Speedway.

I read a few comments on facebook about it trying to hard to one up Nascar. I'd like to hear what anyone who watched it thinks.

wasn't bad, they spent alot of time highlighting Steve Casebolt who comes from near me, in fact the only reason I knew about it was the big county seat sunday paper had an article about Steve/show. Is the first time they have shown LM's on a network channel and I would say they'll do it again. Too bad they don't show sprints like they use to way back when on ABC's Wide World of Sports.... of course back then you had to wait for them to show they 15 mins somewhere between ping pong and surfing.....

[OpenwheelRob]

I did watch it, actually I knew that I would be spending the day at my old man's house and they don't do cable or satellite so it was kinda perfect for me my brother and I kinda planned to watch it with Dad. I'm one of those who enjoy all forms of racing so I thought it was good coverage, they only showed the feature and not how someone would make it too the feature. It was similar to nascar coverage, driver interviews pre and post race even had aerial coverage. The racing was good too Jimmy Owens won it and they showed some of the shops the drivers raced out of and everything. They had a cut away car and walked your through the mechanics kind of to show what was underneath the cars such as suspension, shocks things like that.

Pretty informative for the casual fan I thought, they talked about Bloomer, showed the viewer Jimmy Owens old shop when he ran modifieds and then his new shop. It was good I thought. I really was just in Shock that it was on CBS and you can't see sprints hardly at all let alone something like that.

[Spi-nex]

I watched the broadcast.

- The track was dust free (and I was very fearful of showing a dusty track on National TV)
- Everything was right to the point (no hour long prerace show, thankfully)
- They really promoted the drivers. I expected to see LUCAS, LUCAS, LUCAS, but did not, they really focused on the drivers by plugging the nick names (ie. "Real Deal" Don O'neal), doing brief interviews with the drivers showing their shops & family, and the sponsors.
- In victory lane the winner says "NASCAR ain't got nothin' on this!"

Overall a very good positive portrayal of dirt racing. Only thing I can think of that they really needed to do for the layman race fan tuning into dirt racing for the first time was explain how the drivers got into the show (heats, B's, etc), but I think this was left out due to time constraints.

On a technical side of the broadcast,
Wish they would have worked on the ambient sounds more. You really couldn't crank up the volume and hear the cars without getting your ears blown out by the announcers (and that's a pretty petty complaint to have IMO).

[Jerry Shaw]

It was a pretty good race, actually. But, most of the super late model races I've seen, have been. It came down to Bloomquist getting a chance to make a run at Owens, on the last turn of the last lap. Only to come up short. They did a real good job of profiling some of the drivers and even interviewed Tyler Reddick, who Bloomington fans remember running a sprinter down there, a couple of years ago. Even though he's only 15 now!! This was just another example Forrest Lucas putting big bucks into racing.

Jerry

[Beer Goggles]

Watched parts of it while flipping back and forth to the Indy race at Milwaukee.

From what I saw, they had super quality production values, great camera work of the race, and very interesting "behind the scenes,getting to know the drivers", feature reports.

Track and surroundings were striking on camera.

[Dave Rudisell]

Dealing with the Lucas Oil Late Models Series myself, i have got to say, they have thier act together, very professional!! when they come to Lawrenceburg they are very serious about what they do. Our show at Lawrenceburg is on tv also, but on the SPEED Channel. They are the real deal, and a pleasure to work with.

---------- Post added at 09:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Dave Rudisell Dealing with the Lucas Oil Late Models Series myself, i have got to say, they have thier act together, very professional!! when they come to Lawrenceburg they are very serious about what they do. Our show at Lawrenceburg is on tv also, but on the SPEED Channel. They are the real deal, and a pleasure to work with.

The best part is seeing Dave Argabright!! (sp)

[OpenwheelRob]

Is it really just because there is more room on the car to advertise? Is it that Mr. Lucas just favors that brand of racing more so he invests more money with them to get them exposure? Is the Lucas Oil Series any more 'professional' than USAC? It's just puzzling as to why I see more late model action televised vs. sprints. I've seen quite a few LM races on the tube and I believe a few WOO wing shows, but non-wing's...rarely. Seems to me all I hear about non-wings on TV was 'back in the day'. I know one thing my family discussed was the fact that they said in the broadcast most of their drivers have been running for almost 20 year's and they appear to have more older drivers vs. young