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Los Angeles, CA. - Following the classic
2006 Indianapolis 500, Indy Racing League teams went to Watkins
Glen, N.Y on June 4 for a little road racing in the rain. Only 19
IRL cars competed at Watkins Glen and at the big, fast 1.5 mile
Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night, June 10. That was not enough
cars on either track. The Penske and Ganassi teams continued to
dominate IRL victory lane and they may shutout all other teams this
year. It's too bad we have to wait a year between Indianapolis 500s.
In the good old days of Indy Car racing under USAC-sanction, Indy
cars ran two races a year at the Milwaukee mile in West Allis, WI.
A 100-mile race followed the Indy 500 by one week and a 200 or
250-mile race came during August.
This could be the final year of Formula One
racing at the Indy Motor Speedway. If F.1 leaves Indy for the
streets of Las Vegas, maybe the IMS should run a 250-mile (100-laps)
IRL race in late August or early September. It could even be the IRL
season finale. How much attention would that bring to the IRL, its
teams and sponsors? It might even keep IRL in the news at a time of
year when the NASCAR Nextel Cup Chase for the Championship dominates
nearly all media attention left for motor sports once NFL Pro and
college football begin. IRL's ABC/ESPN television partners should
even like having a second and season-ending race at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway. A shorter duration race would not detract from
the tradition and prestige of the Indy 500 anymore than the
July 4 Daytona Cup race detracts from the Daytona 500 in February.
IRL's final race this year is scheduled for September 10 at the
Chicagoland track in Joliet, IL. It just doesn't have the impact of
a season closer at IMS.
The current state of sports talk radio in
Southern California is a disaster. The three all-sports talk
stations (570, 710 and 1540 AM on the dial) have gone in recent
years to multiple hosts in various time slots. Not just two, but
three commentators compete for air time simultaneously; they talk
and even yell over each other. It is downright annoying. What is
even more ridiculous is the fact that current sports commentators
only know how to talk about NBA (Lakers primarily) basketball
year-round, college and NFL football and major
league baseball. The big three sports obviously deserve the majority
of air-time, but close to 100% coverage is too much. Could it be
that radio sports talk hosts are too lazy to learn about other
sports?
Perish the thought that motor sports would ever
get deserved air-time, despite its well-known popularity in fan
attendance. Based upon TV rating numbers and actual attendance at
major motor sports events, you would think racing would receive more
coverage. But sports talk hosts only seem to know the three major
ball sports-basket, foot and base-ball. One heavyset, opinionated
air-head, known as "Big Joe", even said prior to the
Indianapolis 500 there will be no motor racing talk or listener
phone calls about Indy on his show. Hosts do not try to learn about
or interview guests from other sports. Tennis, soccer, hockey,
boxing, horse racing and motor racing are on the sports pages of
daily
newspapers and on TV sports reports, but they are not covered much
on radio sports talk shows.
There is one major exception to the above knock
on sports talk radio hosts. His name is Lee "Hacksaw"
Hamilton, a former Phoenix, AZ and Cleveland, OH sports radio
personality. Hamilton was the play-by-play voice of the San Diego
Chargers NFL team for 50,000-watts 690 AM for many years. From 1987
to last year he had a one-host, four-hour afternoon drive-time
sports talk show on 690 and later 570. Hamilton was must listening,
just as the late Jim Healy sports show was for decades until his
untimely death. Hamilton covered everything in sports on a
15-minute kick-off to his Monday through Friday 3:00-7:00 p.m show.
He covered 50+ sports topics of the day off the Associated Press
wire and treated ALL sports, including motor sports, as newsworthy.
He gave his
opinions freely and accepted on average 50-60 daily listener phone
calls about any
and all sports topics throughout his four-hour show. That was
an interesting part of his show. You learned what was on the minds
of fellow sports fans, what they liked and didn't like about local
and national sports teams, people and trends.
Hamilton also made newsmaker phone calls of five
to ten minutes at the start of half-hour segments to sports
personalities, media people and sports people-players, owners,
agents, union officials, etc. His interviews were excellent
journalism, in great part because of Hamilton's interest and
in-depth knowledge of all sports and because of his outstanding
questions. He did not interrupt. He listened to answers and
responded with more interesting questions. He had preview shows
annually before the NFL draft of college players, the Kentucky
Derby, Indianapolis 500, golf tourneys, and hockey playoffs. Each
spring Hamilton visited spring training sites and previewed with
local experts every
MLB team and their chances. Hamilton also had newsmaker calls at
times to authors of sports books (such as baseball's old Pacific
Coast League) that made you want to read the books, plus other
unique features that made his sports talk show one of a kind and
must listening.
Station shifts of call letters and places on the
dial resulted in Hamilton going from 690 to 570 AM a while back, but
his show remained unchanged and as popular as ever. Then about a
year ago everything changed. Hamilton's four-hour time slot was
given to the three bozos as many call them. Hamilton was given ten
minutes at the top of two hours (5 and 6 p.m) to cover sports news
of the day under his usual format. He also got three hours on
Saturdays and Sundays (11 a.m to 2 p.m) to take sports calls from
listeners. Unfortunately, people are often busy on weekends and this
time slot has to compete with sports events on TV. Active pursuits
of many people also keep them from listening to a radio. That is too
bad, Hamilton probably is not reaching as many listeners these days
as he did on his M-F 20-hours a week show.
Each year Hamilton gave the Indianapolis 500
special attention during the week before the race. He read breaking
news reports from Indy, offered his opinion about a likely winner,
and berated the IRL-CART split. He also spoke about other racing
topics, from drag racing to NASCAR. Hamilton placed newsmaker calls
to current or retired drivers, media members and others. He would
have three or four Indy 500 newsmaker calls per day from Tuesday
through Friday. Hamilton's questions to his guests were unique and
elicited interesting information. Even as a knowledgeable racing
observer I learned something of value during each interview because
of Hamilton's original or follow-up questions.
This year Hamilton had all of his Indy 500
newsmaker calls on air during his 11 a.m to 2 p.m show on 570 AM
Saturday, May 27, a day before the race. His eight Indy 500
calls this year went to IRL drivers Scott Sharp, Buddy Rice, plus
Helio Castroneves, Dan Wheldon and Sam Hornish, Jr-the complete
front row. He knew some of the drivers from past interviews. He also
made calls to three knowledgeable media members-Mike Harris (AP),
plus broadcasters Derek Daly (Speed Channel) and Sam Posey. Hamilton
also fielded some interesting telephone calls about the Indy 500
from listeners between newsmaker calls. Thumbs up as usual to
Hamilton for his interest, knowledge and coverage of motor racing.
Too bad there aren't more Lee Hamilton-like sports talk hosts on
radio.
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