Bob Varsha Goes on Record with pressdog

When it comes to announcing teams, many fans rank the SPEED TV Formula 1 trio of Bob Varsha, Steve Matchett and David Hobbs as the best in the motorsports business.

Lead announcer Bob Varsha goes on record about his booth mates, the vagaries of the television life, F1 in America, the up-is-down 2009 season and much more below.

pressdog: I understand that you, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett are in a booth in Charlotte calling the race from a live video feed. What challenges does that pose as opposed to calling a race at the venue?

Varsha: That’s a fact. I have done it that way since the mid-90s with ESPN, though we originally went to all the races. The reason, obviously, is cost. Probably the biggest challenge is following a video feed over which you have no control, and therefore no idea what you’re going to see from one moment to the next. You have to be quick to react to shot changes, and keep your comments brief.

On the other hand, it allows you to take some liberties you might otherwise not if the broadcast was in the hands of your own producer and director. Another downside is not being able to speak with F1 folks directly, because I believe you get better information from people who have the opportunity to get to know you personally. On the personal side, I miss the travel.

pressdog: What do you think are the top few things fans want out of an announcing team?

Varsha: Entertainment, information, enthusiasm, knowledge and perspective.

pressdog: You and Hobbs and Matchett seem to have a great on-air working relationship – not talking over each other, quipping with each other, etc. etc. – does that just come from working together or are your personalities just extra compatible?

Varsha: Both, I think. David and I have worked and traveled the world together for about a quarter of a century now, shared a lot of adventures, and become great friends. The same goes for Steve, whom we tend to think of as the new guy, though he’s been doing television with SPEED longer than he spent in the F1 pitlane. We all have different personalities, but we also have different roles to play on the air, and we respect those boundaries.

pressdog: I’ve enjoyed your lack of fear in talking frankly about F1 changes or decisions, and even disagreeing with them on air. Does F1 every get mad at you for disagreeing or do they give you guys a lot of liberty?

Varsha: That’s probably another plus to working from a studio far from the site of the race. We haven’t been scolded by F1 that I can recall, but it wouldn’t matter really, because our first obligation is to the viewer and giving them the best show we can.

pressdog: David Hobbs seems like a fun guy with a great sense of humor. True? What do you think is the biggest strength he brings to the show?

Varsha: Anyone who has spent five minutes with David knows what a great guy he is. He is one of the most popular extemporaneous speakers in the sport, and when we traveled together in F1 he was always my meal ticket to one sponsor dinner or another, where inevitably David would be asked to stand and thank the hosts on behalf of the assembled guests. His comments would occasionally touch on his infamous near-misses as a driver at places like Le Mans, Indianapolis, or Daytona, and his habit of making fun of himself tends to gloss over the fact that he won tons of races around the world in a variety of machinery, including championships in F5000 open-wheelers and Trans Am pony cars.

He brings that experience and versatility to the broadcasts, but he also brings a special kind of humanity, because he knows what motivates a racing driver, and what it feels like to succeed as well as to come up short. We don’t hear that often in sports television, where athletes-turned-broadcasters often seem to feel they need to talk themselves up in order to prove their worth.

pressdog: Likewise, Steve Matchett is the uber-tech-geek guy. Do you find him getting overly excited about transmissions and winglets? What’s his most valuable contribution?

Varsha: Steve is a unique personality, and I’ve never worked with anyone quite like him. He truly values the idea of being part of a team, and I suspect that in his heart of hearts he would love to spend just one more all-nighter up to his elbows in an F1 car on a distant pitlane trading insults with his teammates, then grabbing a quick pint in the wee hours.

I’ve always been fascinated by the chemistry between drivers and their crew, and Steve embodies the true racing mechanic: he would take a bullet if it meant he could give his driver a better car. And just as Chris Economaki invented the role of the television pit reporter, Steve Matchett has been the prototype of the Mechanic In the booth, and he deserves credit for it.

pressdog: What do you think F1 should do to help raise awareness in the U.S.?

Varsha: The obvious things: an American race, an American team, American drivers. But in the bigger picture I think F1 needs to realize that the sport needs the USA more than the USA needs F1. We have so many ways to spend our time and money here that F1 needs to reach out in ways it doesn’t have to elsewhere in the world. Ron Dennis once said America is the world’s biggest island, and he’s right.

pressdog: Re: the 2009 season. A lot of fans — and you guys as well — seem pretty geeked about the changes in the sport. What do you find the most exciting aspect of 2009 thus far?

Vasha: The sheer unpredictability of it. All the new rules… and there are more to come… have closed the old gaps in performance. Teams are winning who never won before, and while we all know the big teams will catch up, watching them go about it is going to be fun to watch.

pressdog: Do you hear from a lot of fans? What’s a common comment or complaint?

Varsha: We do hear often from fans, and I try to read everything from them. Most are genuinely gracious and complimentary about what we do, but there are complaints as well. Aside from technical issues such as why we don’t present the races in true HD (the races are not shot in HD by Formula One Management’s television unit), or questions from folks who want to see this or that shot (we do not control the cameras during the race) the main complaint is from viewers who feel that we favor one team or driver over another. The hilarious part is that from one message to the next we are accused of favoring a different team or driver.

pressdog: What about announcing do fans seem to think is much easier than it actually is?

Varsha: The most important skill in announcing is saying a lot in a very short space of time, usually just a few seconds, and doing it in proper English, using complete sentences. If you think that’s common, just listen closely to the way people really speak sometime. In a live event context, you can never know what will come up, so you have to be prepared, even for the possibility of a terrible incident. You have to be ready for anything, and you cannot be at a loss for words. People take their television viewing very personally.

pressdog: What’s one of the common mistakes a lot of announcers make?

Varsha: Taking the fans for granted, and speaking to a specific level of knowledge and experience, rather than making sure that the commentary leaves no one behind. That can be a tricky thing to do without talking over the heads of some, or boring others.

pressdog: Being a sports announcer seems to be a profession that is pretty nomadic, or can be quite unstable. How do you deal with the here-today-gone-tomorrow element of your profession?

Varsha: That’s a good question. Television is also hard on relationships and marriages. I’ve been fired from a few jobs, and walked away from a few others. There are so many ways a career can be derailed, from getting a new boss who may not care for your work, to your network losing the rights to a property you are identified with. I thought I was going to spend my whole career at ESPN, but that’s not how it worked out. I think all you can do is do the best job you can every broadcast, be nice to everyone, be as low-maintenance as possible and keep your eyes and ears open.

pressdog: Are F1 fans different than other racing fans in some way? If so, how?

Varsha: I think F1 fans are more knowledgeable than average about the cars and drivers. In addition to going to races for the spectacle, F1 fans are also attracted by the engineering, and the sense that they are watching an event that has had significance for a worldwide audience for some 60 years through names they can all recite, such as Fangio and Brabham and Stewart and Hill and Clark and Andretti and Prost and Senna and Schumacher. In F1 you’re not fans, you’re a fraternity.

pressdog: Based on your work with F1 over the years, how is the sport today different than it was when you first worked in it (more than a decade ago, according to Wikipedia)?

Varsha: I did my first GP in 1987, and like the rest of the world, the sport was simpler and more informal back then. F1 has grown enormously, with greater commercial infrastructure, and of course a much greater awareness of safety since the black weekend at Imola in May of 1994. On the personal side, we got to know the drivers better; back in the eighties David Hobbs and I would occasionally have dinner with a Nigel Mansell or a Thierry Boutsen and their families. I can’t imagine doing that on a race weekend now.

pressdog: What’s your favorite part of a race weekend? Practice? Qualifying? Race day?

Varsha: What I like about doing all three days of practice, qualifying and the race, is that each broadcast is so different: practice is casual and conversational, and since the teams are working without much concern about lap times we can devote more time to off-track subjects and getting caught up on the teams and drivers; qualifying is more fast-paced, with a pretty rigid format and lots of details to be explained in the time available; the race is the big show, with an even faster pace and a different set of storylines. For me the race broadcast is most satisfying.

Comments

[Sue]

You've done it again - bested yourself! Varsha-Hobbs-Matchett are the only reason I've continued to watch F1 over the past few years. Great interview!

[Boo Boo]

Pretty darn good interview there, Mr. Dog.

[pressdog]

Thanks. Props to Bob for his thoughtful answers for a humble blogger boy. I never miss an F1 race in part because the booth posse rocks it for the customers (fans).

[Roy Hobbson]

Is there anybody who you AREN'T tight with in the world of racing??? Like, can you call Willy Ribbs on his cell phone right now? What about Dave Calabro? Al Unser? The Firestone Firehawk mascot? This is outlandish.

[pressdog]

Ribbs won't take my calls ever since the unpleasantness in Tijuana. And the Firehawk, besides owing me money, can seriously hold his liquor. His only weakness is cheap gin. After half a bottle he flops around like a carp out of water. Great fun.

[Bash]

Another one...out of the park! Thanks, p'dog!

[David E David]

While Matchett is a logical, reasonable, knowledgeable, and fair motorsports commentator, Bob Varsha is a nasty, aggressive, highly prejudicial commentator without much technical expertise who is really a sloppy and emotional lawyer trying to convince viewers to accept his superiority as well as his own atitudes and opinions. Anyone who has ever seen him can instantly identify the team he loves unconditionally: Ferrari. Motorsports coverage would be much better without him!

[Daryl Stoner]

Truly the best commentators in the world. All three are exceptional in their respective roles. David gave a guided tour at the one F1 race at Watkins Glen years ago (to the Goodyear Motorsports Club) and the impression then was precisely what we witness now.
I have a major concern currently regarding F1 popularity expansion in the U.S. - the blocking of program recording is a major pitfall due to the hours of broadcasting practice, Inside Gp, Debrief, qualy, and race. We die-hard fans do everything we can to not miss any of it which means trying to find motels with Speed, recording, etc. Somewhere around the middle of June, '09 we can no longer record onto our DVD recorders. Plenty of my friends have been very irate when talking to me about it. I share this and have no need to watch Speed (and its advertisers) if I cannot record F1 or other forms of road racing. I could not care less about bumper car racing.
Please help us to enjoy the best entertainment the world has to offer.

[steve]

I like the broadcasts, but wish we were losing Matchett instead of Windsor. Matchett could talk much less, and it would suit me.