Rusty Wallace

[Napoleon]

I was surprised to see Rusty Wallace on the IRL announcing crew. I only watched maybe 30 to 45 minutes of the race, but he seemed to be doing a good job. What does everyone here think?

For whatever it is worth he was always one of my favorites in the cabs.

[Andrew Longman]

I only caught the first 20 laps or so, but I thought he did a very good job.

In that I mean I didn't really notice him, which is how any announcer should be. Should not be a distraction to the event itself.

Never been much of a Rusty fan or a rusty hater, but he's always been very polished and media savvy, so I thought we would likely do well.

Again I did not see the much of the race but he also seemed to be viewing the sport from an informed OW point of view, not simply using a NASCAR filter.

[racer2c]

They seemed to keep him pretty restricted on what he could say. Goodyear tried in a very scripted way to integrate the formula terminology with the cab terms i.e. pushing/understeer etc.; making a big deal about the speeds, how much a driver is doing in the cockpit. I did find it very scripted. Even at the end when Wallace said "and this HUGE crowd is on it's feet." He said it like he had to say it.

If there happened to be any NASCAR fans watching they probably liked him and it probably helped bridge the series and make it more comfortable to watch, but as a formula car guy I could have done without. I was thinking as I was watching "man I hope Wallace and Goodyear aren't part of the merger."

I want to mention that aside from the tragedy, I thought the product was abysmal. You can really see why Tony is considering merging. They’ve hit rock bottom.

[JoeBob]

Rusty is there to get some practice before ABC/ESPN takes over NASCAR next year.

I suspect he's not the only one - and you'll see huge improvements in IRL Broadcasts this year as a result.

They haven't done NASCAR in a while, so they'll use the IRL to work out the kinks. Then, next year almost the entire behind the scenes crew (plus Rusty and anyone else from the on-air team that does really well) will move to NASCAR.

[TKGAngel]

Rusty did do a pretty good job during the broadcast. I agree that his talking points were pretty scripted and limited, especially since he was the only one that was allowed to talk to the drivers over the car/booth radio hookup.

If an IRL broadcast drinking game exists, I want to add an item: drink everytime Rusty says "hot-rod or cats" in reference to the cars and/or drivers.

[Andrew Longman]

Rusty is there to get some practice before ABC/ESPN takes over NASCAR next year.

I suspect he's not the only one - and you'll see huge improvements in IRL Broadcasts this year as a result.

They haven't done NASCAR in a while, so they'll use the IRL to work out the kinks. Then, next year almost the entire behind the scenes crew (plus Rusty and anyone else from the on-air team that does really well) will move to NASCAR.

I hadn't thought about it but you're probably right. This is off Broadway for Rusty and fills a year between his retirement and ESPN getting NASCAR. The jobs are all full at Fox and NBC anyway.