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Year's experience begins to pay off for NBC's telecast

Sunday marked the first live airing of the Daytona 500 in NBC history, but by now the network's NASCAR broadcasters are veterans -- and it showed.

In stark contrast to its wobbly broadcast of the Pepsi 400 in July, its first race under the Fox/NBC/TNT TV contract, NBC's team acted Sunday like one that had a full season under its belt. Following the myriad developing stories in the race wasn't easy, but for the most part the network managed to keep up.

The network has been boasting about its "Complete Olympics," but Sunday it gave viewers a complete Daytona 500. Its pit reporters have been NBC's strength all along, but it was the network's camera work and the ability of announcer Allen Bestwick and analysts Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach to shift gears quickly that helped viewers keep pace with the craziness on the track.

"We've seen a lot of twists and turns at the Daytona 500 over the years, but this one may top them all," Bestwick said as the race wound down.

Given the number of crashes and car problems, keeping track of it all wasn't easy. But the trio was continually on cue, even when it had to come out of commercial to cover the 18-car wreck three-quarters of the way through the race. Bestwick, Parsons and Dallenbach even seemed unruffled when Ward Burton, a driver they'd barely mentioned during the broadcast, won the race.

The camera work was excellent, especially the glimpses from Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car of debris coming out from under Michael Waltrip's car and striking his. When Earnhardt had problems later, he wouldn't talk on camera but the video said it all: NBC captured him gunning toward a NASCAR official in frustration, and showed the view from his car as he sped in the garage area, with people scrambling to get out of the way.

Dallenbach, far more comfortable than he was eight months ago, gets extra points for taking the short walk to the NASCAR officials' booth to get an explanation of the penalty against Sterling Marlin so viewers wouldn't have to wait until the end of the race.

Other observations from the broadcast:

NBC has added drivers' head shots to the balloon graphic that follows cars around the track, proving there is such a thing as too much technology. Maybe they just take getting used to, but at first glance (and second, and third) the floating smiley faces looked goofy -- kind of like a smaller and more wobbly version of the virtual disembodied head of Ally McBeal seen on the backstop during the first game of the World Series.

The prerace show was solid, with bits on Dale Earnhardt Sr. and safety and the young guns of racing. The weakest part was Dallenbach's visit to Salt Lake City to take a turn at bobsledding -- nothing more than a useless cross-promotion.

Reporter Dave Burns' prerace report on NASCAR's safety improvements was made more effective with the use of visuals. Cameras showed him sitting in one of the newer composite seats and holding up one of the new crash-data recorders installed in every car.

Both Fox and NBC did silent lap No. 3's last season in memory of Earnhardt. NBC did it again for this race, but tacked an American flag on the screen with the line "Remembering friends and heroes." Let's hope that was a one-time occurrence. If a silent lap is to include victims of Sept. 11, then make it lap No. 11 -- or better yet, drop it all together.

Best line: "We don't see any French judges in there, do we?" Dallenbach said as cameras showed NASCAR officials deliberating over Marlin's penalty.

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