I Miss Marty!
5/8/06
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can't believe I'm saying that I miss Marty Reid as the regular host on the NHRA/ESPN TV Show. Early on in his baptism of fire I had only seen Reid on Pikes Peak Hill climb shows on ESPN although the network mentioned a previous drag racing history not very many of us could remember.
The comparisons to legendary hosts like Dave McClelland and Steve Evans were expected and we sat through Marty's growth into the lead on the NHRA show with nasty Internet jokes about his hairdo (yes, I said some of them too) and all his "Martyisms" like "on the outside looking in" and "it's a driver's race" when two cars smoked the tires on a given wheel-spinning pass. But I think we were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this post-Winston world of NHRA Drag Racing.
One thing about Marty was that he appeared to give us the impression that he liked, maybe even really enjoyed drag racing. After a few years we'd grown to trust him.
Then, in what can only be described as a move up, this year Reid left us to become the Indy Racing League mouthpiece to train Rusty Wallace for his NASCAR announcing job when ESPN regains the rights to broadcast half of the year in 2007 sharing the mantle with FOX. NASCAR is so much more important to ESPN that they needed to start training the candidates for the new on-air team now.
Remember that ESPN gave up most of their great team of motorsports
broadcasters when they lost NASCAR a few years ago to FOX and NBC in a bidding war. It was time to part out the team. Remember Dave Despain, Bob Varsha, Robin Miller, Phil Parsons, Ralph Sheheen and so many others who we'd watch on ESPN? They even broomed RPM2Nite as the re-purposed sports and entertainment network found its way in a post-NASCAR world.
In what may be one of the worst trades in modern sports media history, we got Paul Page when Marty was busy in his new open wheel job. I sure remember various sportswriters
Bob Frey is still on his game, even with Page, and Bob is ever the Goodwill ambassador for all of us who watch on the sportsman show. The most telling sign of discomfort was Mike Dunn who seemed to bristle at traditional banter he would have easily done with his regular TV announcing partner Marty Reid. The point is that Dunn and Reid were and are a good team together, they've grown together, and they have a rapport, a synergy that comes off as sincere.
Back on the Gainesville show there were a few points at which Dunn seemed to look to Page as though he were thinking, "Who the hell are you and what have you done with Marty?"
Page is a professional, I know that, but the whole foreign exchange
program of having Page on-deck when Marty isn't busy with Rusty Wallace's on-the-job training program is yet another reason that proves ESPN considers our sport to be second rate. We nurtured and watched the training and maturation of Marty into our new host and then he moves on up to greener pastures and the 1.5 million or so regular fans to the ESPN broadcast are left sucking the hind tit. It's really sad that NHRA pays so much money for this show to be produced.