"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Newps" wrote in message
...

with ESPN. Air racing would be 1000 times worse.


Putting the races on television could breath new life into the sport. It
could bring sponsorship money, advertising revenue, and a host of other
good
things. It's simply about expanding the business.

Seriously, if people can find NASCAR so enthralling, which stuns me to no
end, Reno Unlimited air racing ought to be able to attract at least a modest
audience. Even shaving the pennies of what sponsors put into stock car
racing could be transformative for air racing.

Also, it's yet another avenue to draw more people, particularly the
young'uns, into aviation, which is always good.

Just as with other
televised sports, the real fanatics probably will find the commentary
tiresome and the actual coverage lacking, but that wouldn't stop the
coverage from being a useful component of the sport.

No kidding. I live in a hardcore sports town (Boston) and a lot of my
friends are dyed-in-the-wool Sox, Pats, and Bruins fans, and they spend half
their time talking about the game and half the time complaining about the
announcers.

If anything, the constant "newbie chit chat" does serve to make the sport
more accessible. Nothing kills public interest more than a new potential
viewer not having any idea of what's going on.


Seriously. I was taking a friend of mine up for his first ride in my 172,
and he's a serious car nut. At first he didn't find the idea of 150HP too
impressive, then I explained what was really going on... Well, actually it's
a nearly 6-liter engine running the equivalent of racing gas, generates
almost 350lb-ft of torque at only 2500rpm, and will run at full power
continuously for nearly 200,000 miles with only routine maintenance. Oh
yeah, and it's air-cooled, carbureted, and normally aspirated, and weighs
only a couple hundred pounds... you should see what a "high performance"
engine looks like. That got his attention. Then I explained the IO-550 on
the SR-22 in front of us, his eyes got a little wider, then I told him about
Rare Bear. He said, "this makes car engines sound like pretty wimpy
stuff..."

Best,
-cwk.