©1998 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.
On Track Magazine's Tim Tuttle will join Jim Murphy in the booth as color analyst for the historic cybercast of the Budweiser 500K from Twin Ring Motegi, Japan. Staged at the spectacular new 1.549-mile oval north of Tokyo, the Budweiser 500k is the second round in the 1998 FedEx Championship Series battle for the PPG Cup.
The cybercast is the only live coverage of the race being broadcast back to North America. It also marks the first time that major motorsports has been broadcast live, flag-to-flag, specifically for the Internet.
"There has been plenty of prior art for having an existing radio broadcast also put onto the Internet," said Murphy, the show's anchor and producer, "but this is the first time to my knowledge that race coverage has been produced specifically with the Internet as the target medium. We are very appreciative of the folks at MCI for sponsoring this historic event.
"ABC television is tape-delaying the race to the United States until the following afternoon, while TSN is tape-delaying the race into Canada by 2 hours," Murphy explained. "We saw this as a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of the latest in global communications technology to bring this race directly to the race fans."
"Tim's been covering the sport of Champ car and Indy car racing magazine for very long time and I'm pleased to have someone with his experience and knowledge working with me. I'm sure he'll be a valuable addition to the broadcast and the listeners will be the ones who benefit."
Produced in conjunction with the CART and The Auto Channel, the cybercast begins at 10:45 p.m. ET (7:45 p.m. PT) on Friday night, March 27th. It will be available on www.cart.com, www.mciracing.com, and www.theautochannel.com.
MCI is the official telecommunications supplier of CART.
