Well I guess all you will see of solo on TV is CP, Danny Popp and
the occasional HS roll over. ;) Whoa my heart is pounding.
Jason "RX7 KLR" Isley
jason.isley@alltel.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew McCutcheon [mailto:andrew@personification.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 6:17 AM
To: Team.Net
Subject: Re: Solo on TV, was: new CEO at SCCA
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Matt Murray wrote:
> All it takes is money.
> Get sponsor who will fund the production and buy the air time for spots,
and
> you are on TV. Rally does this with a half hour show that has Audi as a
> major sponsor, and a few other minor sponsors.
>
> Matt Murray
>
> mattm@optonline.net
True, but if a sponsor is about to put out that kind of money, I think
they're going to want some kind of return on their investment. While you
can argue about which form of motorsport is more exciting to compete in, I
don't think you can argue about which one is more fun to watch. Rallying
features hero slides, high speeds over treacherous roads and goregous
scenery. It's a sport where big mistakes have big consequences. From a
production standpoint, less cars do more driving, which makes it easier to
package as a half hour highlight reel.
By comparison, Solo is a sport which rewards smooth driving - fast drivers
don't look like they're driving fast. Drivers are navigating a sea of
cones that is intimidating enough to read from inside the car, let alone
from the outside from a single camera angle. Let's stay away from
lots of cameras, because each time you add a camera the cost of
the show rises dramatically. Despite all the safety chatter
on this list, I'd like to think that solo is considerably safer than
rallying - you're supposed to be able to get away with big mistakes in
Solo. In Solo, you've got lots of cars doing not very much driving, so
I don't the program would work very well as a highlight reel. Watching
different cars do almost exactly the same thing over and over again would
get pretty boring pretty quickly. You'd be looking for something more
interesting to watch, like commercials, or a repeat of Auntie May's Bridge
Championships.
If the program had a narrower audience (The solo community) and delved
deeply into things like car preparation, driving techniques, maybe project
cars like that hillbilly truck show (I love that show!), while featuring
short segments that covered major events, it might work. Heck, if you
expanded it beyond Solo, you'd be looking at Grassroots Motorsports TV.
Cheers,
Andrew
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