Johnson’s Championship Coverage Stunk
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 11:11am CST
By Tim Spencer, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
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[thumb:364:l]What a disappointing end to a season that flew by. Jimmy Johnson who was at one point counted out of the race for the championship claimed the top honors on Sunday. For that his team is to be recognized and congratulated on. Not to take anything away from Johnson or Greg Biffle who won the race, but the TV coverage was the worst of all time. After all of NBC’s debacles with their coverage this season, we entered into Homestead wondering if it could get any worse.
Johnson and the Hendrick Motorsports team had to dig deep to pull off the championship and some of may have forgot some of he highlights of he year, like starting out the year without his veteran crew chief Chad Knaus at the beginning of the season. The suspension of Knaus didn’t seem to upset the chemistry of the Lowe’s Chevrolet though as Johnson scored the big one when he won the Daytona 500. Johnson also picked up the win at the Brick Yard as well, to become the first Champion to ever score those two wins and the title.
Lowe’s definitely got their share of the waves on Sunday. By watching the race on the old tube you would have thought that Johnson was the only car on the track. Yes, he deserves the credit for a great year. However, many other drivers deserve some credit too. The last 30 laps or so all Johnson was doing was cruising around the track. With as many restarts as they had in the last 30 laps or so you can’t convince me that there wasn’t some racing going on. Johnson knew that all he had to do was finish 12th or better and he had the Cup Championship. As soon as another car would get close to him he would move out of the way and let them go. Most of us would have done the same in the situation, but that is all they showed in the closing laps.
There was an occasion where they would let us know what was going on up front, but rarely did they show anything but Johnson in the closing laps. Just because Johnson was winning his first championship doesn’t mean that some of us wanted to just watch that unfold. Even though many of the drivers up front weren’t running for the championship they still deserve the same coverage. They did show at one point Denny Hamlin, as he threaded the needle in the turn, but they didn’t even let him complete the pass before they refocused on Johnson.
I would rather watch two cars in the back of the pack racing side by side than to watch a guy that is allowing every car that comes to him to pass by. After all we dedicated rednecks love a good race. It could be lawn mowers as long as it is competitive.
So now we bid farewell to NBC. All I can think of at the moment is a note of caution:
Don’t let the door hit ya in the backside on the way out.
And That’s The Way I See It!!!
Filed Under: Features, Guest Authors, Nascar, Nextel Cup, The Chase, The Way I See It, Tim Spencer
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great points Timmy let’s let ABC and ESPN bring us the real stories with a driver commentary by somebody who has won a race GO RUSTY GO not that I am biased when it comes to Rusty.
Frank said this on November 22nd, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Heck, my eight year old could have did a better job with a home movie camera than what NBC did.
Tim said this on November 22nd, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Who’s this “Frank” character?
Luke said this on November 22nd, 2006 at 9:32 pm
He is just somebody that shows up from time to time.
Tim said this on November 23rd, 2006 at 10:59 am
yep usually when it is damp outside most people call it a mosquito. Luke give me a call need to ask ya something. Tim it sounds like you and me will be passing each other on next deployment i’ll be coming back from mine in 08.
Frank said this on November 24th, 2006 at 7:44 pm