Jeff Behnke has always loved listening to auto racing on the radio. When done well, the broadcast sounds smooth yet intense as commentators take turns relaying what they see from different spots on the track.
As NBC’s vice president of motorsports production, Behnke wanted to bring “radio-style” coverage, or “multi-vantage-point” coverage, to television. After being rebuffed, he took video of a race, dubbed in the Motor Racing Network audio and presented it to Sam Flood, the president of NBC Sports production.
It intrigued Flood enough to use radio style for the 2017 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen. He’d see how it would go and decide whether to use it again the next day for the NASCAR Cup Series race.
“Three laps in, my phone rings,” Behnke said, “and Sam said, ‘We’re doing it Sunday, as well.’ So that’s how it came to be.”
And that’s how NBC will broadcast the NASCAR Chicago Street Race this weekend. Following its blueprint from Watkins Glen, a road course, NBC will position commentators in four spots on the city streets, in addition to the pit reporters and studio crew, which will broadcast at Buckingham Fountain. The Loop 121 Xfinity race airs at 4 p.m. Saturday on USA and the Grant Park 220 Cup race at 4:30 p.m. Sunday on NBC and Peacock.
“We’ve done it at Watkins Glen many times now; we’ve done it at the Indy road course,” Behnke said of using radio style. “So we’ve done 10 or 11 races like this now, and we thought there was no better way to showcase this than to have our announcers right down in the middle of it, to have the cars roaring by. It excited the daylights out of me.”
For the broadcasters to pass the baton of their commentary without the benefit of eye contact, they needed to rehearse. Behnke asked director Sean Owens to take the virtual version of the course and add street names so the announcers could acquaint themselves.
Play-by-play voice Rick Allen and analysts Steve Letarte, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mike Bagley and Jeff Burton, along with Owens and producer Rene Hatlelid, watched the video on a Microsoft Teams call and rehearsed pick-up points on the course for more than an hour. They’ll work on it again in person during Xfinity and Cup practices Saturday.
Hatlelid and Owens are NBC’s lead IndyCar tandem. They have lots of experience with road courses and just worked the IndyCar street race in Detroit in early June. But the Chicago race presents unique challenges.
“It’s the ultimate challenge to be the first people to televise a race at a course that’s never been televised before,” Flood said. “Obviously, the sense of space and the spectacle of being in the middle of the city is important. [We’re] going to shoot the race a little bit differently. You’ve got to shoot it to capture the size and the scope of what is being executed here.”
That will involve an array of about 80 cameras. The broadcast will have two drones to spotlight the scenery over land and a fixed-wing airplane over Lake Michigan for aerial shots. Behnke said the crew usually uses a helicopter, but Owens chose a plane because it can fly longer thanks to a larger fuel load.
Behnke said the crew will employ 13 point-of-view cameras (small cameras that don’t pan or zoom), 12 robotic cameras, eight in-car camera systems (four cameras in each) and five handheld, wireless cameras. On top of that, NBC has 45 generators around the track.
The network’s compound of production trucks is inside the footprint of the track between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive. It includes more than 20 vehicles that house the A and B units, robotic- and in-car-camera controls, graphics, replays, generators and other support.
Studio coverage will be presented from the Peacock Pit Box, NBC’s traveling studio set, in the Fan Plaza. Host Marty Snider and analysts Dale Jarrett and Brad Daugherty (yes, the former Cavaliers player) will work out of a pit box that NBC custom-built to their studio standards. The backdrop will be Buckingham Fountain and the skyline.
Add up the production crew, engineers, announcers and support staff, and almost 200 people will put the race on TV.
“It’s a traveling circus the size of the Super Bowl,” Behnke said. “But what cannot be lost is the sport of NASCAR and these drivers. To have the guts to take these racecars and go roaring through city streets, it’s never happened before in a major metropolitan city. We’re fortunate to be able to share those pictures and those stories about these drivers all wrapped in the event and festival that this is.”
NASCAR CHICAGO STREET RACE TV COVERAGE
Saturday (all on USA Network)
10 a.m. – Xfinity Series practice
11 a.m. – Xfinity Series qualifying
Noon – “NASCAR America” Live
12:30 p.m. – Cup Series practice
1:30 p.m. – Cup Series qualifying
3:30 p.m. – “Countdown to Green”: Xfinity Series
4 p.m. – Xfinity Series The Loop 121
6 p.m. – Xfinity Series Post-Race
Sunday
4 p.m. – “Countdown to Green”: NASCAR Cup Series, NBC 5, Peacock
4:30 p.m. – Cup Series Grant Park 220, NBC 5, Peacock
(Jason Beghe, who plays Hank Voight on “Chicago PD,” will voice the open.)
8 p.m. – Cup Series Post-Race, Peacock
