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GURSS: A Well-Planned Improvisation
Written by: Jade Gurss   
08/05/2008
Charlotte, N.C.
 
Faster. Louder. The weekly column on SPEEDtv.com by Jade Gurss. (Harold Hinson Photo) ยป More Photos

If you think a Formula One pit stop is orchestrated chaos, you should see behind the curtain of a live F1 telecast.

Auto racing is immensely difficult to cover on television. No timeouts. No halftime. No predictable breaks in the action to take a commercial break. Add in the massive size of most venues and the speed of the action. But imagine producing a live SPEED telecast of the Hungarian Grand Prix from 4,900 miles away.

If it seems only Peter Windsor is getting a darker tan as the Formula One season evolves, it’s because Windsor is at each track while the rest of the SPEED crew are working 16-hour days within the windowless bowels of a non-descript studio in Charlotte, NC.

Announcers Bob Varsha, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett (plus Windsor) are the best in American motorsports with their collectively smooth blend of wit, humor and intelligence. What makes their performance even more impressive is they do it thousands of miles away from the action, relying upon banks of flat-screen video and scoring monitors.

Formula One provides a video feed to broadcasters in approximately 90 countries, arriving via satellite or fiber-optics. The SPEED crew weave-in their own graphics, stats and commentary to the feed before it’s launched to master control in California, then back to another satellite (or two) before reaching your television.

The pre-race segment seems most precarious as Windsor trundles through the crowded grid, hoping to grab unwilling drivers or team principals for live interviews. Sometimes he chats-up celebrities: this week, it’s Placido Domingo, though in pre-production it was suggested Pavarotti was in the house until it was pointed out that he is, in fact, quite dead.

The world feed might seem a luxury, yet the crew here have no control of the video choices and no idea what is coming next, which means everyone must work in a constant state of flux and improvisation. The announcers rely upon reams of data
from statistician Sean Kelly, who provides predictive analysis and stats to SPEED and other networks around the globe in real-time via the internet.

The team behind the announcers, led by producer Dan Shutte, has an easy-going manner from years of working together. The control room contains 12 people, from producers and directors to graphics and audio operators. As an outsider, they reminded me of a jazz band: as if everyone was talking and honking at once, but the cacophony blends together into a melodic final product.

The race – expected to be a snoozer – turned into a roller-coaster ride starting with Felipe Massa’s brilliant launch from third to first in the initial corner. A series of pit lane fires were a mystery, followed by a tire which flattened Lewis Hamilton’s hopes. Massa had control until a blown engine with three laps remaining handed McLaren-Mercedes’ Heikki Kovalainen his maiden F1 victory, followed by Toyota’s Timo Glock, who was the speedy surprise of the weekend.

I enjoyed my glimpse behind the scenes of an F1 telecast, and will watch with far more respect when I flop onto the couch to watch a race.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at: http://fingerprint.typepad.com
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