50th Daytona 500

[LMITOUT]

Discuss your thoughts on the race!

They are really hyping that this is going to be a big blowout event with the new cars, but I wonder if it'll turn out to be the same ol' same ol'.

All I hope is that somebody dumps Kyle Busch ASAP....maybe even before the green flag. It would save a lot of people from getting angry later at his ridiculous driving, as illustrated in the Busch race yesterday.

[polarsusd81]

He was all over the place yesterday but smoke sure put a stop to his pass attempts.

[LMITOUT]

Gentlemen, start your engines.

[Johnsonator]

81 laps complete so far and the race seems to be pretty uneventfull. I expected the cars to run in tighter groups.

[LMITOUT]

yawwwwwn....is it over yet?

I guess the hype was exactly that...hype. Except for the first 10 laps and the last 40, it was a sleeper.

[SledNeck]

Terrible ending. I wanted to see Toyota finish 1 & 2.

[Johnsonator]

At the last restart I never would have guessed the ending. That is what makes restrictor plate races exciting. I really wanted to see Kyle Bush win, he had the fastest car all day long.

[maddowg1192000]

what happen to the busch stewart war. they had a perfect chance at the end to mess each other up. Thats what I waited for all day

[Jarrod32]

Heh heh heh.

[lawdog]

HELLO NEWMAN!!!!!

Thank God someone broke up the rice burner festival all weekend. Toyota will have to wait a little while longer to ruin the sport with all their billions if yen they are sticking into these teams.

Kyle Busch may have had a fast car, but he's still an accident going someowhere to happen. By far the most reckless guy on four wheels!!!

[Meaney]

boring boring boring!!!!

NEWMAN!!

[SledNeck]

 Originally Posted By: lawdog

HELLO NEWMAN!!!!!

Thank God someone broke up the rice burner festival all weekend. Toyota will have to wait a little while longer to ruin the sport with all their billions if yen they are sticking into these teams.

Kyle Busch may have had a fast car, but he's still an accident going someowhere to happen. By far the most reckless guy on four wheels!!!

Yeah, because NASCAR has not been dominated by any one team before Toyota's emergence.

[LMITOUT]

 Originally Posted By: lawdog

Thank God someone broke up the rice burner festival all weekend.

yep!

 Originally Posted By: lawdog

By far the most reckless guy on four wheels!!!

That's an understatement!

So where are all the Newman fans? Oh that's right, there aren't any.

[Team Otter]

Ok, let me just say, that this is probably my first post in the NASCAR forum. Sorry guys and gals.

For some reason, today, my family and I were interested enough to watch "the race" from start to finish. None of us are race car fans, so that made the day all the more of a challenge. You're right, the race was kind of boring, but for an "outsider looking in", there's nothing quite like watching those pit crews go to work and the camera shots of the driver's wives. It was nice to see Newman win even though I'm a fan of smart mouth's and was cheering for Stewart. Ha!

What's with the "gopher cam"? That was kind of a joke in my opinion.

[eyepatrol]

Wow! TO jumping into the NASCAR forum! Well, there's always a first for everything.

As for the race, mostly boring except the last 40 or so. Of the cars up front on the last lap, Newman was the ONLY car I was rooting for.

Congrats to Newman!

So sorry 'yoda fans....looks like "the force" just wasn't with you tonight.

[polarsusd81]

So how many people were embarassed to say they watched the pre-race "concert?" Chubby Checker blatantly lip-syncing, whats his name from the doobiebrothers who should have been lip-syncing, it was a sorry excuse for a pre race show. The race was pretty boring until the last 35 laps or so when it got interesting. It seemed Denny Hamlin couldn't avoid any of the on track incidents.

[Pyrex]

Careful TO, you'll find yourself watching more and more races, trying to figure out the strategy. Welcome to the redneck world... next thing you know you'll be watching wrestling. LOL!!

[LMITOUT]

Fox Sports is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Daytona 500 with a new HD camera angle that sounds like something out of Caddyshack but would make NASCAR founder Bill France proud: Gophercam. The specialty camera, based around Sony one-third-inch CMOS chip imaging technology, a DPA microphone and built by Inertia Unlimited, will be placed within the pavement of the track on the apex of each turn and give viewers a gopher’s view of oncoming NASCAR race cars zipping overhead at upwards of 200 mph. “No gophers were harmed,” jokes David Hill, Fox Sports CEO, “and this is the most compelling shot I have ever seen in the history of sports. It reinforces the speed and precision at which the sport is raced.”

Michael Davies, Fox Sports director of engineering, says the idea for Gophercam was born last season by NASCAR on Fox Director Artie Kempner. Fox trialed an SD version of the camera in Texas, Charlotte and Delaware and showed video of the coverage to Hill. “He decided almost immediately that he wanted to have four of them at every track,” says Davies.

The cameras, designed closely with NASCAR Media Group, are nearly flush with the track and less obtrusive than a lane reflector on a highway. The discrete footprint ensures the camera does not endanger drivers while also minimizing potential damage to the camera that results from being run over thousands of times by more than 40 cars traveling great speeds.

Jeff Silverman, owner of Inertia Unlimited who designed the camera, knew the system would need to be HD to meet Fox broadcast criteria. The problem last year was that there was not an HD solution as HD POV cameras had camera control units. In addition, they were all multicore, making it impossible to get signals off the track due to distance constraints. But in the NASCAR off-season he found an imager by Sony that would do the trick. With some heavy modifications that included building a circuit board to output component HD he was able to build a small 1080i/720p switchable camera that could fit into a cylinder that is four inches in diameter and about four inches tall. Given the go-ahead by NASCAR to proceed with the project he turned around fully operational units in about a month.

The cameras have already been installed in tracks in California, Las Vegas and Daytona. Each camera requires a four-inch core to be drilled into the track and a cylinder to be placed within the core. The camera is then dropped into the cylinder and connected via a 15-pin connector by seven wires that are stacked on top of each other in a one-eighth inch channel that runs to an AJA box that converts the component signal to HD SDI. A Telecast Fiber HD POV link then muxes audio, data, and video into two strands of fiber that run back to the compound to another Telecast box.

One innovation in the camera system is the use of a prism to minimize the camera’s above-surface footprint. With the prism only the custom-designed lens is above the surface (and within a metal plate). Images are then passed through the prism and to the camera but, because of the prism, images are reversed. An Ensemble Designs frame synchronizer flips images back to normal. A Bradley Engineering-designed remote control panel controls gain and color.

“The challenge for us in the TV industry is to capture the sights and sounds of NASCAR,” says Michael Waltrip, NASCAR on Fox analyst. “This isn’t a gimmick or a gadget but a way for the guy at home to say ‘I get it, NASCAR is exciting.’”

Gophercam is the big new feature for viewers but for Fox Sports the big accomplishment was using the same production trucks back to back on arguably the two biggest televised sporting events: the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500.

“What we accomplished last year in two weeks we had to do in two-and-a-half days,” says Davies. Before the ice in champagne buckets used by the New York Giants could even melt, Game Creek’s Fox units, used in Phoenix for Super Bowl XLII on Sunday, April 4, began the cross-country journey to Daytona so they could arrive by April 7.

While the Game Creek trucks traveled day and night across the country Nascar Media Group was completing all long-haul fiber runs and interconnects at the track. Once the trucks were onsite in Daytona they had to transition from NFL mode to NASCAR mode: loading in new elements, rebuilding the tape room, redoing audio. “Software files are used for some things but it did require some hardpatching and reconfiguring the layout of the video panels,” explains Davies.

Silverman also made the trip from the Super Bowl and quickly through himself into the down-and-dirty task of using a concrete saw and drill to install the cameras. The next steps will involve constant evaluation of where best to place the cameras on the track to satisfy viewer’s need for speed.

“We’re being conservative in the placement of the cameras on super speedways,” he adds. “This is a multi-year project and we’re proceeding with an abundance of caution. But on slower tracks we should be able to get more aggressive with the camera placement. At a track like Bristol these cameras will be outstanding.”

“This gives viewers a better sense of the banking and we’ll be taking it through the full tour,” adds Ed Goren, Fox Sports president.

[Nate McVey]

I thought the gopher cams added a fresh, new angle. The race itself was pretty blah and the "gentleman start your engines" was a little lame too.......was there a fly over?

Anybody else figure out why smoke went low with one corner to go? I know he said on the radio that he thought he could ride down there, but he was pulling away from everyone up high with 2 laps to go. I thought it was a little strange.....

[Double D]

A few observations:

shiner2367 is right, the start your engines was a little lame.

Was Tony Stewart mad because he didn't win or because he finished behind Kurt Busch, after last weeks fracas?

When did Kyle Busch hire Darrell Waltrip as his Fox cheerleader? Man, that was getting old.

The gopher cam was OK, the promotion of it is what was silly.

DD

[Wanderer]

Yeah, whats up Smoke???!!!

I still say, give me a top 5 any race but don't throw away a win! And the AMP guys... Why not pit???

I couldn't hear the post race interviews, so I don't know the driver's take their performances, but sheesh, from my barstool it all looked so clear!

At least we won door prizes in the drawing so we didn't notice a snore fest. The whole race was fun for us.

[PikeBayCommanche]

I think it is so funny how everyone just can't stand Kyle Busch because of his "wreckless" driving.

Did he wreck anyone??

Many considered Earnhart Sr. wreckless but its ok because he is a legend now so its ok right.

[Trick]

The way it sounded, they did want JR to pit, but there were too many people babbling on the radio at the same time so he didnt get the message til he had already went past pit road.

[LMITOUT]

 Originally Posted By: Double D

When did Kyle Busch hire Darrell Waltrip as his Fox cheerleader? Man, that was getting old.

As soon as he stepped into a Toyota. DW is a cheerleader for any Toyota driver, and yes, it is old.

[LMITOUT]

 Originally Posted By: PikeBayCommanche

I think it is so funny how everyone just can't stand Kyle Busch because of his "wreckless" driving.

Did you watch Saturday's race? He did do better tonight but maybe the other drivers expected his antics and gave him room, or he was just lucky. The guy is a lunatic.