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See You At The Races!!!

RACING SCENE 
by Tim Kennedy

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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