Unfortunately, many announcers are plain forgettable play-by-play guys, but recently we enjoyed the work of Matt Prieur at Dixie (MI) Motor Speedway.  He reminded us that in the early 21st century, race track announcers are arguably the most important employee promoters have. (Our apologies to the promoters themselves, starters, and tech men.)  Jeff and Pam Parish, like all but a few promoters, do not enjoy the luxury of computerized TV edit suites, big-screen video boards, and million dollar special effects.  They produce live outdoor entertainment–the art of the unpredictable–in the spartan surroundings of a 47-year-old arena.  The only tool they have to bring excitement and color to their races is their announcer.  And an announcer like Matt Prieur, in the best radio tradition imaginatively “paints the picture” in the mind’s eye for we who inhabit the seats, making what happens on the track more than racing (more than what we can see for ourselves), making the race night as much an “experience” as one guy with microphone can.  We reluctantly conclude from what we see this season that most promoters and announcers just do not get it. They believe that fans buy tickets to sit on a hard bleacher board to hear racing described by what usually amounts to a boring baseball broadcaster (that is, when he can be heard). Announcers like Prieur and the experience he creates at Dixie (where we could hear him very well, even with cars racing) prove that its much more enjoyable when we experience the conflicted heroic struggles, the foibles, and fortunes good and bad, of mortal humans just like us in combat. Dry play-by-play is for the pastoral ballpark and radio.  Prieur’s knowledge of the drivers, their families, the track’s history and regional goings on, is deeper than most announcers, and he used it to give context and narrative to the night, and to the meaning and consequence of each race within the show.  Announcers like Prieur use this knowledge to illuminate entrants’ hour-by-hour struggles and successes, and what they mean for the season, and to excite us about what we were seeing.  Prieur humanized the men, and women barely visible in the steel machines, giving us characters we could relate to, that we could root for, or against–narrating the extraordinary efforts of ordinary people just like us, not just repeating the obvious.  We think this is the essence of short track racing.  He did this in a welcoming way as though he was introducing racing to new acquaintances across the table in a sports bar, cold one in hand.  This is what is missing at most short tracks today!

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