Just as I sat down to critique the relative merits of NBC/Peacock’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring coverage versus IMSA’s world feed via VPN, the mysterious videographer known as Lanky Turtle posted the above 9:44 clip that better captures the sights and sounds than any “professional” effort from yesterday. Especially the sound quality. Good speakers or headphones required.
Now then, as I was about to say, for the first time since I moved to Florida I didn’t attend the race this year. My duration at the event has varied, from a few hours in 2016 to five days in 2023. Given the less than ninety minute drive from Floral City to St. Pete and the loss of IMSA/WEC Super Sebring I decided to concentrate on the IndyCar season opener, leaving my Hendricks Field go/no go decision to the last minute. By 5:00 pm Friday I had my Nord VPN iMac and Roku/Peacock dumb TV all set up to do a real-time comparison between the vaunted Radio Show Ltd. production and the despised NBC version. From my scrawled notes:
Obviously, the first consideration is commercial interruptions, or lack thereof, which was my main impetus for seeking an alternative to the bird. Automobile racing simply doesn’t lend itself to timeouts. Score one for RS’s Radio Le Mans commercial-free flow. The downside is founder and host John Hindhaugh and co-host Jeremy Shaw. By way of background, in 2010 a co-worker at Apple Retail reinvigorated my enthusiasm for Formula One by hosting watch parties at his home – but never live, instead waiting to download the Sky Sports version a couple of days later. Why? Because ESPN’s coverage offended him; hearing an American accent on the broadcast team “ruined” his experience of the sport. I guess that makes me a reverse snob because I don’t get the appeal of Hindhaugh and Shaw when it comes to sports car racing. Their accents are far more annoying than Leigh Diffey’s and often unintelligible as well. If they offered piercing insights it would be a different story. Hell, if they simply watched their monitors to report on-track activity it would be an improvement. I lost count of how many incidents they missed that Peacock picked up on immediately. Instead, the two were busy looking up arcane factoids or bickering, Sam and Uncle Bobby style.
I’ve often joked that I’m that rare graphic designer who can both read AND write. In my ad agency art director heyday I implored designers to consider legibility in their layouts and was largely ignored. In my dotage I still consider visual presentation to be paramount in conveying a message and on this score NBC has it all over RS. For example, when a particular race car is on screen it would be helpful to know exactly what car we’re looking at. Throughout the race NBC would post an Andy Blackmore livery illustration at the bottom right of the screen, leaving no doubt who you’re looking at. This is particularly helpful early in the season, if only to learn what brand of prototype Mustang Sampling is running this year. The running order and other infographics were also far superior on NBC, both in terms of readability and relevance, to say nothing of taking up less real estate on screen.
Video and audio synching on Radio Le Mans was hit or miss. Sometimes it was perfect, other times John or Jeremy would be speaking over an in-car shot with in-car sound and suddenly no more vroom-vroom, just narration. This never happened on Peacock.
Speaking of which, when RLM would interview a driver fresh from the cockpit it was audio only, although for some reason towards the end (three or so hours to go) they started doing “bespoke” interviews, albeit sparingly. By contrast, NBC did a live video interview with seven-time Sebring winner Tom Kristensen from his man cave in Denmark! How can you beat that?
Coverage of American teams and drivers was nearly nonexistent on Radio Le Mans, at least until the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti’s team of Louis Deletraz, Colton Herta and Jordan Taylor looked as though Sebring was theirs for the taking in the final minutes. In the lead up to and aftermath of this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona I remember reading complaints from the commentariat on racer.com about the American-centric NBC coverage, again a sentiment I simply don’t understand (see above). While Sebring, unlike Daytona, didn’t feature half the roster of full-time NTT IndyCar Series drivers among those participating you can bet your ass I was rooting for the ones who did.
So I guess my ideal would be the best of both worlds, a combination of Euro-style uninterrupted coverage with American broadcast sophistication. But in the words of WBCN’s Duane Ingalls Glasscock, “How does it feel to want?”
As a big fan of 12 O’Clock High, both the Gregory Peck movie (1949) and the Robert Lansing/PaulBurke TV show (1964), and having built several B-17 models as a kid, I’ve always been fascinated by Sebring International Raceway’s origins as Hendricks Army Airfield, a World War II training base for the United States Army Air Forces, specifically B-17 crews heading for airbases in England. Thus I was gratified to learn that the sole remaining building onsite, the Officer’s Club, has been restored and is now open to the public. For that reason alone I’ll be at Sebring next year, perhaps before… maybe for the Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS in May… after all, it’ll be the right crowd with no crowding!
PS: I also read the Beirne Lay, Jr. and Sy Bartlett novel. Told you I’m a reader! Now I’m going to watch the movie AND a few episodes of the TV show!
MUSICAL INTERLUDE: I taught myself to play this on the piano as a yute: Twelve O’Clock High theme song.
When I was at Microsoft, it was a similar situation on the F1 discussion list, the Euro ex-pats running down NBCSN coverage and talking up Sky. When I finally got to see Sky when ES-pee-N took over F1, jeez. I cannot stand that shouty moron Crofty. My dream team would be Brundle, Hobbs after a pre race Gin & Tonic and the late James Hunt.