CBS' coverage of Sunday's Daytona 500 drew a 7.5/18
overnight Nielsen rating, down 5% from last year's 7.9/20
overnight (THE DAILY). CBS Sports' Ken Squier signed off at
the end of Sunday's race by saying, "Since 1979, CBS has
been proud to be a part of this Daytona 500 and the growth
of NASCAR. For everyone here at CBS, who for 22 years have
brought you this American racing classic, brought it into
your homes with a sense of dignity and dedication, love and
respect, thank you for being part of it. After all, it is
the Great American Race" ("Daytona 500," CBS, 2/20).
REVIEWS: In Atlanta, Prentis Rogers wrote that CBS
Sports Dir Bob Fishman's "instincts for timely cuts to the
in-car cameras have never been sharper" than they were
during Sunday's broadcast. But "more impressive was the
camera work on pit row" (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 2/21). In
Orlando, Jerry Greene wrote CBS did an "outstanding job"
with its broadcast, with its "numerous low-angle cameras"
and its "long view of the pits" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 2/21).
In St. Petersburg, Ernest Hooper wrote that while in-car
driver interviews "were the highlight of a technically sound
effort," there was "something missing: An edge, an eye-
catcher. As we look to 2001 and the dawning of ... Fox and
NBC/Turner handling NASCAR coverage, one suggestion: Spice
it up" (ST. PETE TIMES, 2/21). USA TODAY's Rudy Martzke
wrote that CBS' "usually first-rate crew generally reflected
this Daytona's disappointing version," which was the
"dullest Daytona 500 in memory" (USA TODAY, 2/21). In DC,
Tony Kornheiser, on the lack of excitement from Sunday's
race: "I love watching cars go round and round in the same
space for hours at a time. In Psychology 101 we did the
same with rats on a wheel -- only we occasionally gave the
rats pellets of food" (WASHINGTON POST, 2/22).
WAS THE WEEK A SUCCESS? In Winston-Salem, Mike Mulhern
wrote that the Daytona 500 was a "yawner and left the media
focusing on the rules and contracts ... instead of the
sport's bright young stars" (WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL, 2/22).
The AP's Mike Harris reports that Sunday's race was
"anything but wild," as a "combination of redesigned cars
and a new shock absorber rule" limited "what the teams
[could] do to the shocks and springs" (AP, 2/22). In FL,
Mike Bianchi: "Go ahead and blame NASCAR's new shock-
absorber rule for [Sunday's] glaring lack of bump-and-grind
racing, but don't the racers themselves bear some of the
responsibility? Drivers today have become corporate clones
who are so busy protecting the company line -- that they've
lost their nerve and their verve" (TIMES-UNION, 2/21).
STUDY UP IN DAYTONA: NASCAR COO Mike Helton gave his
organization a grade of a "C to a C-minus" for its "handling
of everything," including the shock absorber rule, the
"testing and approval of a revamped Ford Taurus and new
Chevrolet Monte Carlo," the "major flap" over media
credentials and "marketing concerns from teams in light of"
the new TV deal. Helton: "But at the same time, I would
tell you (the fact) that I just got a test back that had a
C-minus on it, we've all studied harder. So the next test
should be a lot better" (USA TODAY, 2/21).
