FOX Sports proudly presents the 54th running of the Daytona 500. Coverage starts with the FOX NASCAR SUNDAY prerace show hosted by John Roberts, with up-to-the-minute reports, live interviews with drivers, crewmen and officials shaping the day’s action and analysis from Darrell Waltrip and Michael Waltrip. In an innovative new role, veteran analyst Jeff Hammond takes his extensive experience as a former championship-winning crew chief to where the action is, in the garages and pit road.
Special FOX NASCAR SUNDAY Daytona 500 features:
‘ NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. joins the FOX NASCAR SUNDAY outdoor prerace set to talk about his chances in the Daytona 500 and what he hopes to accomplish in the 2012 season.
‘ Stock car’s biggest storyline and newest full-time addition, Danica Patrick, sits down with Hall of Fame Inductee and NASCAR on FOX analyst Darrell Waltrip to discuss her switch to stock car racing and how she expects to gain respect from her fellow competitors.
‘ A live performance by one of music’s most decorated artists, and four-time Grammy Award-winner Lenny Kravitz.
‘ Grand Marshals for Sunday’s race are Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model Kate Upton and talented actress in FOX’s hit show GLEE, Jane Lynch.
‘ The youngest UFC Champion in the history of the sport, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones serves as an honorary official.
Once the green flag drops, race announcer Mike Joy is alongside analysts Waltrip and Larry McReynolds to call all the twists and turns on the track while Dick Berggren, Steve Byrnes, Krista Voda and Matt Yocum patrol the pits for reports on teams and pit stops.
The Gopher Cam, introduced at the Daytona 500 in 2008, is a small, stationary high-definition point-of-view camera that lies buried underneath the asphalt track surface, inches below the yellow line at Daytona International Speedway. There are four Gopher Cams in-place for this year’s Daytona 500. The cameras have been paired with high quality condenser microphones for an unbelievably realistic audio/video experience. New advances in the lens and materials have enabled FOX to reduce the size for the 2012 edition while providing a much wider and clearer field of view.
In 2012, FOX Sports introduces a new way to bring fans under the hood. The new virtual car using a high-tech touchscreen provides magnified looks at the smallest details of the high powered machines on the track. It gives viewers a clear and illustrative explanation of how the car works and performs through its components. With assistance from NASCAR on FOX analyst Jeff Hammond, the FOX Sports graphics team co-opted an incredibly detailed model with a built-in custom interface and telestrator.
The Hollywood Hotel is all new for the 2012 season. First unveiled in 2007, NASCAR on FOX’s traveling prerace studio is the most technologically advanced mobile unit ever employed to cover sporting events. It captures the charged atmosphere associated with on-location remote broadcasts. The 2012 version has been completely revamped to update the state-of-the-art premier network center. The background virtual ‘window’ to the track uses three monitors (two 60 inch and one 103 inch) so the prerace set can be ‘transported’ anywhere on the track. An inverted ‘Jitacam’ crane hangs from the roof of the hotel and operates along a track, allowing floating and sweeping camera moves not possible in the network’s old mobile trailer. Color mixing for the background on its flat screen monitors is manipulated using 1600 linear feet of RGB tape (LED lights) to illuminate the background in any color FOX chooses. These updates and modifications in power make it the greenest production truck on the planet.(FOX)(2-26-2012)
