nhra is lucky to have gary gerould; same said for john kernan.
I agree. Gary actually knows a lot about racing. I have no official source, but my best guess has always been that it's not him that's choosing to do the warm fuzzy emotional stuff, but the producer/director. They have a penchant for focusing on emotions and contrived drama. That's their wheelhouse and they can't help themselves but to interject it as often as they can.
It really wouldn't matter who was interviewing the driver. Gone are the days (with precious few exceptions) of tuner/drivers. Sure a lot of them have a good knowledge of the cars, but we will never again see the types of drivers that made tune-up choices, then rattle off the effects during the run like the old guard did, and THAT makes for a great top end interview.
The thing that sticks out for me is the way we get blow-by-blow talking during a run, like we're huddled around radios. I'm not talking about an emotional outburst like WOW, or WHOA, but incessant fill-in chatter. Steve Evans would interview drivers after something interesting happened. Most the time, they just went right back to the next pair once the current pair cleared the track. Now, they all get interviewed, every round, no matter what occurred. It's more about checking off the sponsor plug box than anything else. It really disrupts the flow of the program in my eyes. They'll talk about last week, they'll talk about last year, they'll talk about a race three weeks back, each and every race. It's like a broken record. Stories told during qualifying are simply replayed on elimination day. In all honesty, I don't need to tune in but every third Sunday to get the whole picture.
I've always said I tune in to watch a race. That's what I want to see. Everything else is bells, whistles, and fanfare. Just my opinion. You may love it. I can barely watch three minutes without hitting the fast forward button.
