Monday, May 17, 1999
SPORTS ON TV-RADIO
'Racing Report' hits on all cylinders
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Three years ago, Bob Schmidt and Bill “Seg” Dennison were watching the people pour into Lawrenceburg Speedway when they got an idea:
“Let's put on a show.”
Seg, Bill Cunningham's score-reading straightman and veteran sound-bite gatherer for WLW, loves auto racing above all sports. Schmidt, president of Shurgood Biscuits, is a big NASCAR fan.
Dennison had wanted a racing show on WLW or HOMER. “I would have been happy with 10 minutes,” he said.
But, with Schmidt, he had a sponsor.
“We were just shooting the breeze,” Schmidt said of that day Lawrenceburg. “Then the place started filling up. We saw the enormous potential. Seg said, "Talk to your (advertising) rep.'”
Schmidt did talk to his rep. Schmidt agreed to buy an hour of time on HOMER (WCKY-AM 1360), and the Shurgood Racing Report was born.
“For me, it was a dream come true,” Dennison said.
The dream has gotten better. The show has gone from Tuesdays to Sundays, and from HOMER to high-powered WLW (700 AM).
“Bill Cunningham saw the popularity of the sport and gave us a shot,” Dennison said. “We've been "movin' on up' the like The Jeffersons ever since.”
Schmidt helped the cause along.
“We lobbied to get on WLW on the weekend,” he said. “I guess their Sunday ratings were a little lax. Willie (Cunningham) said, "We'll see how it goes.'”
The show has gone from a small blip on the rating radar screen to a major draw.
In the winter Arbitron book — mind you, the offseason for racing — the show pulled a 4.1. That was triple what the show did in the previous book. Only SportsTalk on WLW gets a bigger audience for local sports talk.
“We're on cloud nine with the ratings,” Schmidt said.
Dennison hosts the show. Schmidt is there to give a fan's perspective, and Dennis Neal is the technical expert.
“We get some pretty lively debate going,” Dennison said.
Because of WLW's 50,000-watt signal, the show is popular with fans driving back from races. A good number of the callers are fans who have been at races reporting in on car phones.
Dennison has been able to get big-time guests from Mario Andretti to Richard Petty to Jackie Stewart.
“The one thing we really wanted to do is hit the local tracks and drivers,” Dennison said.
The local scene is about to get much bigger with the construction of Kentucky Speedway.
“It's going to get bigger and bigger,” Schmidt said.
EMMY AWARDS: Channel 19 took four awards at the regional Emmy banquet Saturday. Dan Hoard won for anchor, and he shared an award for live sports coverage with Dave Ashbrock for University of Cincinnati basketball. Ashbrock won a program element award for his UC opening, giving him 25 career Emmys. Andy Treinen won for sports segment for Sports Challenge.
Channel 12's Brad Johansen won three awards. He won for sports reporter and shared an award for sports segment with Eric Gerhardt and Matt Coiner for the story on the making of Anthony Munoz's Hall of Fame bust. Johansen, Kevin Barnett and Tom DeCorte won an award for sports program for the Bengals pregame show.
Mark Goldsmith of Fox Sports Net Ohio won best live sports coverage for Reds baseball.
John Fay covers radio/TV sports for The Enquirer. He can be reached at 768-8445.
Sports Stories
REDS 3, PADRES 0
Reds relieved to be hitting road
Cameron bashes slump with two-homer game
REDS NOTEBOOK
Box, runs
Scouting report
Reds worth $163 million, survey says
