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Fox's 20-minute broadcast interruption of IndyCar's Sunday afternoon race at The Thermal Club on network TV was caused by a tripped breaker, IndyCar president Doug Boles said.
Immediately after Sunday's race won by Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou, Boles said the combination of two potential culprits — the use of new broadcast trucks that IMS Productions purchased this offseason that Fox Sports uses to broadcast IndyCar races, as well as the extreme heat Sunday afternoon — may be the root cause of the issue.
Before the Long Beach Grand Prix in three weeks, Boles said the IMSP team will pull the truck in question apart to get to the bottom of the issue. Sunday's broadcast glitch comes on the heels of IMSP and Fox working together this past offseason to upgrade the visual quality of IndyCar broadcasts in their new relationship together by using 1080p resolution instead of 1080i, as had been the case previously with NBC.
Fox Sports president Eric Shanks was on site for Sunday's IndyCar race at The Thermal Club and was on-hand as the sides worked together to rectify the technical issue mid-race.
Watch: IndyCar drivers Devlin DeFrancesco, Scott McLaughlin get into on the track and after race
"There was no indication (there was an issue), and then once they got it back up and running again, there was no issue there (the rest of the race)," Boles told IndyStar. "We're gonna have to just pull (the truck) apart and figure out what the cause was.
"But it's disappointing for sure."
Sunday afternoon's IndyCar broadcast on Fox dropped off around Lap 28 with polesitter Pato O'Ward leading Arrow McLaren teammateChristian Lundgaard by just under four seconds. On the ground at The Thermal Club, as well as around the country and world, live broadcast feeds of the race all a sudden shut off. In the moment, the IndyCar on Fox account on Twitter noted, "Our IndyCar production truck has an electrical issue."
'It drives you to work hard': Arrow McLaren teammates challenging each other
Quickly, Fox switched its broadcast of NASCAR's Cup series race at Homestead over from FS1 to the network slot while officials attempted to diagnose the issue and get the truck back online. According to fans on social media, driver in-car camera broadcasts in the IndyCar app continued to function during the outage, and fans were also able to listen coverage of the race on the IndyCar Radio Network. Some teams complained post-race of timing and scoring issues in-race, but the series confirmed any problems there were neither widespread, series-wide problems, nor were they related to the network broadcast outage in question.
Shortly after Lap 40, roughly 20 minutes after the initial outage, both live picture and audio of the Fox IndyCar broadcast were back online and continued on without issue for the remainder of the race. During that span, fans missed the second of three pit exchanges among the race contenders O'Ward, Lundgaard and Palou, though after they cycled through the pits, the running order remained the same as it had the entire race up to that point, minus temporary changes during the first pit sequence.
Reports on the race broadcast that the outage was due to a large-scale electrical outage at The Thermal Club were inaccurate.
Nine months into the two sides' new partnership, there remain some rough patches that still need to be ironed out, the broadcast truck included. Fox's new booth was confirmed less than two months before the start of the season, and its pit reporter lineup wasn't solidified until the week of the season opener at St. Pete — a move that included looping in active IndyCar driver Jack Harvey into an on-camera role with very little time to help show the Dreyer and Reinbold Racing driver the ropes before his first practice in St. Pete.
More: Likes, dislikes from Fox's IndyCar debut and what to watch at The Thermal Club
Alongside the new trucks that were ordered this offseason, IMSP only finalized its roster of dozens of folks who help put Fox's IndyCar broadcasts together within weeks of the season kicking off. Combined with technical glitches that limited the tools Fox could use at St. Pete and that somewhat plagued that opening weekend, along with Sunday's brief broadcast failure, there remains frustrations within corners of the paddock at the last-minute nature that some parts of the new alliance have come together leading into the 2025 season and the shortcomings that seem to have resulted from it, though Fox has taken great strides to more thoroughly promote the sport and elevate its broadcasts with new technology and a different, fresh perspective.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar Thermal race: Why Fox broadcast dropped coverage
Continue reading...
Immediately after Sunday's race won by Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou, Boles said the combination of two potential culprits — the use of new broadcast trucks that IMS Productions purchased this offseason that Fox Sports uses to broadcast IndyCar races, as well as the extreme heat Sunday afternoon — may be the root cause of the issue.
Before the Long Beach Grand Prix in three weeks, Boles said the IMSP team will pull the truck in question apart to get to the bottom of the issue. Sunday's broadcast glitch comes on the heels of IMSP and Fox working together this past offseason to upgrade the visual quality of IndyCar broadcasts in their new relationship together by using 1080p resolution instead of 1080i, as had been the case previously with NBC.
Fox Sports president Eric Shanks was on site for Sunday's IndyCar race at The Thermal Club and was on-hand as the sides worked together to rectify the technical issue mid-race.
Watch: IndyCar drivers Devlin DeFrancesco, Scott McLaughlin get into on the track and after race
"There was no indication (there was an issue), and then once they got it back up and running again, there was no issue there (the rest of the race)," Boles told IndyStar. "We're gonna have to just pull (the truck) apart and figure out what the cause was.
"But it's disappointing for sure."
Sunday afternoon's IndyCar broadcast on Fox dropped off around Lap 28 with polesitter Pato O'Ward leading Arrow McLaren teammateChristian Lundgaard by just under four seconds. On the ground at The Thermal Club, as well as around the country and world, live broadcast feeds of the race all a sudden shut off. In the moment, the IndyCar on Fox account on Twitter noted, "Our IndyCar production truck has an electrical issue."
'It drives you to work hard': Arrow McLaren teammates challenging each other
Quickly, Fox switched its broadcast of NASCAR's Cup series race at Homestead over from FS1 to the network slot while officials attempted to diagnose the issue and get the truck back online. According to fans on social media, driver in-car camera broadcasts in the IndyCar app continued to function during the outage, and fans were also able to listen coverage of the race on the IndyCar Radio Network. Some teams complained post-race of timing and scoring issues in-race, but the series confirmed any problems there were neither widespread, series-wide problems, nor were they related to the network broadcast outage in question.
Shortly after Lap 40, roughly 20 minutes after the initial outage, both live picture and audio of the Fox IndyCar broadcast were back online and continued on without issue for the remainder of the race. During that span, fans missed the second of three pit exchanges among the race contenders O'Ward, Lundgaard and Palou, though after they cycled through the pits, the running order remained the same as it had the entire race up to that point, minus temporary changes during the first pit sequence.
Reports on the race broadcast that the outage was due to a large-scale electrical outage at The Thermal Club were inaccurate.
Nine months into the two sides' new partnership, there remain some rough patches that still need to be ironed out, the broadcast truck included. Fox's new booth was confirmed less than two months before the start of the season, and its pit reporter lineup wasn't solidified until the week of the season opener at St. Pete — a move that included looping in active IndyCar driver Jack Harvey into an on-camera role with very little time to help show the Dreyer and Reinbold Racing driver the ropes before his first practice in St. Pete.
More: Likes, dislikes from Fox's IndyCar debut and what to watch at The Thermal Club
Alongside the new trucks that were ordered this offseason, IMSP only finalized its roster of dozens of folks who help put Fox's IndyCar broadcasts together within weeks of the season kicking off. Combined with technical glitches that limited the tools Fox could use at St. Pete and that somewhat plagued that opening weekend, along with Sunday's brief broadcast failure, there remains frustrations within corners of the paddock at the last-minute nature that some parts of the new alliance have come together leading into the 2025 season and the shortcomings that seem to have resulted from it, though Fox has taken great strides to more thoroughly promote the sport and elevate its broadcasts with new technology and a different, fresh perspective.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar Thermal race: Why Fox broadcast dropped coverage
Continue reading...
