IndyCar Series
Photos and story © 2006 Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

IndyCar ESPN/ABC Stars:

"That smell of fear is still in the air."
Brent Mussberger

"If you have to think about it, you're a part of the accident."
Scott Goodyear

"I've watched Jeff Gordon race as a 16 year old."
Marty Reid

"They're going to take the shortest way around."
Rusty Wallace

Attending an ESPN/ABC press conference with Brent Mussberger, Scott Goodyear, Marty Reid and Rusty Wallace as key speakers is like a media dream. Mussberger's renowned presence and musical voice would light up any stage. Goodyear is especially articulate about a subject he knows well as an open-wheel expert driver. Reid brings decades of commentator experience in NASCAR, NHRA and now IndyCar. The outspoken Wallace brings his fame to the fore front as casually as he might walk across his living room.

Zoomster.com took this prized opportunity to interview the interviewers. We being you comments from Mussberger and Wallace plus one-on-one interviews with Goodyear and Reid. (A separate Wallace interview precedes this article on our front page, IndyCar NASCAR Star: Rusty Wallace)

Time: Spring 2006
Place: Homestead-Miami Speedway Homestead, Fla.
Event: Toyota 300

"Last year at Indianapolis I'll never forget the reaction when Danica Patrick pulled into the lead and became the first woman to ever take the lead in the 500. That's the kind of human drama that we have to find a way to get to the public. My role as an anchor is to set the table. It's great having Rusty here. Human drama is human drama. Competition is competition. My job is to set the table and get out of the way and get back to the guys in the booth, Marty Reid, Rusty Wallace and Scott Goodyear. It's terrific to have Rusty Wallace here. What NASCAR has accomplished in the past 10 to 15 years has been unbelievable."

"The thing that jumped about to me was something that Earnest Hemmingway wrote, 'There are really only three sports in the world, mountain climbing, bull fighting and automobile racing.' It's in the back of everybody's mind when they watch racing, these guys put their butt on the line. It's a little bit different when you come to a basketball game or a football game. That smell of fear is still in the air. That's the biggest difference."

"When I drive on the highway at 55 or 65 it feels like I could open the door and step out and run beside the car."

"I've always said if you have to think about what you're doing in a race car that's the time to get out the seat."

Dwight asked Scott Goodyear:

"Well, I think the ability just to go do without having to think about it. I know when we drive down the highway we're sort of watching things and thinking about things and we're doing that at 60 miles an hour. You know most of us are racing at 200 or 220 miles an hour. For instance these IndyCars go the length of a football field in seven tenths of a second. I always tell people when they ask me that question, I've never thought about it and I've always said if you have to think about what you're doing in a race car that's the time to get out the seat. Because when you're driving at that speed, it's reaction. I'm not sure how it comes. I'm not sure if it's born into your genes or what the situation is. It may be inherited because that's what we're seeing in the Andrettis. You can't think about it at that speed. It's reactionary. It just happens. When you get through an accident with stuff fly around you and all of a sudden you look around you and say gosh I made it through. If you have to think about it, you're a part of the accident."

"I think it's that description I just gave a moment ago. Probably the best thing is when I drive on the highway at 55 or 65 it feels like I could open the door and step out and run beside the car. Your mind is capable of action going so quickly compared to what we do on the street. That's where people get into trouble, because the younger kids when they think they can drive a car exceeding limits. When they get their license and they go off and try something. Well, when people are usually on their way to having a car slide for the very first time on the road, they're usually on their way to their very first accident. With that situation we have been trained for years. You're out there racing in training cars or go-carts or whatever you've done and it's become just a reaction. That reaction, it just doesn't matter if you're there again in a go-kart or a training car or an IndyCar or a NASCAR, you have the background and training for it. "

"Vastly superior. We have programs to measure that. When I was racing I was going to a clinic in Austria when I was doing my training over there. I was there for a week and you're in dark rooms and your reaction time is measured when you see light appear. They are just apparently better than the average person. That didn't just come by birth. That comes from your training, years and years of training and focusing on doing the job."

"You were talking about drag racing. If you were to line up the average citizen and put them in a drag car and have them line up to the Christmas tree, by the time they reacted to it going green. The average competitor would probably be half way down the strip by then. That just comes from years of training and it's the focus that you have mentally when you drive a race car that I think is far superior to people who drive road cars.

"You can be in a car for two and half or three hours, I'm speaking of other sports. For us we're in there and coming in off the racetrack at 220 miles an hour coming in at 60 miles an hour, stopping on about a 16 square foot piece of material that's marked out by tape in the pit box. So that the pit hose can actually reach the wheels and the fuel hose can actually reach the fueling on the car. And if we miss we have to spell time in the pit box. The most important part I'm saying is that you are never down defensively, mentally. So you have to be perfect in the pit box getting in. You have to be perfect leaving. You have a lot of people around you that you have to make sure you're not going to run over. Then you have to get up to speed very quickly to get on the racetrack and carry your concentration again.

"When you go to Indianapolis, and you turn into turn one at 220 or 230 miles an hour you've got a six or eight inch piece of area that you can actually hit. A patch of ground that we're always looking for where that left front wheel has to hit every time, because if you don't you're going to end up hitting the wall.

Marty Reid

"What are you trying to accomplish? What are you doing? You're just spinning wheels and blowing smoke?"

Dwight asked Marty Reid:

"After Atlanta I fall off the schedule until the last seven. I do from Memphis to the end of the season."

"Well, I'm a gearhead, If it's got wheels and a motor. What's thrilling for me over my career I've watched Jeff Gordon race as a 16 year old. I was privileged to cover that and a young kid named Robbie Gordon flying through the desert. A young kid by the name of Jimmie Johnson winning in a super light in the MIckey Thompson Stadium Series, guys like that. Every series I've ever gone through, I can literally keep on with name after name after name. And if you watch their careers continue to grow and somehow a lot of them come back. And yes, the drag racing is a little bit separate because it's a quarter mile, it's for a quarter mile with no left turn no right turn unless you're in deep. Each one has its own interesting set of characteristics and makes it fascinating. "

"Rusty Wallace says it best when he found things he couldn't believe inside the cockpit of an IndyCar. I guarantee we strap him behind 8000 horse power in John Force's Funny Car, close that body top down on him, he's going to have that same sensation. Put him on the back of Ricky Carmichael's motorcycle and ask him to do a triple jump at a Supercross race. That's what makes racing so great and somehow if we can succeed in making these racers as familiar to the viewer as the NASCAR guys are; or John Force, Gary Scelzi, Tony Schumacher are to the drag racing fans then we can't fail. That's one of the reasons the company brought me onboard, because we well know from following me, I'm a people person. I want that story about the human side of this thing."

"I think every exposure is good exposure. I've always said say what you want about me but spell my name right in the paper. You know, because if people weren't talking about your sport, if they're not involved then why are you there? What are you trying to accomplish? What are you doing? You're just spinning wheels and blowing smoke? I think on that kind of show they are going to see things that they didn't know about John Force or his family."

"I wanted to understand the cars. I got IRL101. They took me from the front bumper to the rear. I looked at the black boxes in them. The engine. The weight. How effective the wings are. How effective they're not. I was educating myself about the stuff. I didn't want to sound stupid. Hey Scott, what's this? Hey Scott, what's that? I was asking those questions this morning while they were practicing. They've got so much down-force. In NASCAR, you've got to take the front ends off, open up the fenders, air the tires up before you hold on for dear life going live. Then it's run in the pack, run in the pack. I said 'Why are they running around the bottom of the racetrack? Why don't they come off turn two up to the wall and then down to the bottom like we do?' They have so much down-force they can go where they want. They're going to take the shortest way around. I didn't know that. I could have asked a lot of stupid questions. I'm all questions. I'm out to assess all I can. As they say no question is a dumb question, especially if it's a dumb one."