WASHINGTON—IndyCar and Fox Sports will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding this weekend by presenting the Freedom 250 Grand Prix from the National Mall and surrounding streets.
(Race coverage begins Sunday, Aug. 23, at 1 p.m. ET on Fox and FS1. Pre-race coverage starts at 11:30 a.m. ET.)
While the broadcaster is devoting a bevy of broadcast and production tech to covering the race, the real highlight is the nation’s capital, historic architecture and storied landmarks as drivers run the circuit past the U.S. Capitol, down Pennsylvania Ave. and along the National Mall. Some 250,000 race fans are also expected to attend, adding to the spectacle.
“All credit to making this race happen goes to the president of Penske and to our CEO,” said Michael Davies, executive vice president, field and technical management and operations for Fox Sports. “This was their vision. They wanted to do this to have IndyCar contribute to the celebrations for the 250th, and that's how we're going to treat it.”
The backdrop for the race played heavily into coverage planning efforts. “Of course, there’s a competition afoot, but we really made an effort to have each shot show off the iconic nature of where we are,” he said.
OWL Cam and Washington Monument
Among the 90 cameras the broadcaster will use to cover the race is a newly designed specialty camera dubbed OWL Cam, mounted to a 4D gimbal for four-axis stabilized shots and suspended about 12 to 13 feet over Pennsylvania Avenue.
Fox Sports constructed a special arched truss over the street with a track for OWL Cam to follow. As the race’s main straightaway, Pennsylvania Avenue will see drivers reach speeds of around 180 miles per hour as they pass beneath the camera.
“The camera itself is going to be able to crawl from one side of the arch to the other,” Davies said. “But more importantly, its 4D gimbal will allow the camera to pan and swivel as the cars go underneath.”
Conceived in a Washington bar and drawn on the back of a beer coaster, OWL Cam will give the broadcaster a view of the Capitol as it looks down the straightaway, he said. Fox Sports worked with JitaCam (Jib in the air Cam) to bring the camera concept to fruition.
JitaCam started with an inverse jib widely used to fly over crowds at combat sports and other events. As the broadcaster’s “go-to people for specialty cameras,” in Davies words, the company souped up the setup to meet Fox Sports’ vision, adding the gimbal and the ability to crawl. “They basically pieced it together with different things that they own and rented to make it a reality,” he said.
Five hundred feet above the race, on the observation deck of the Washington Monument, Fox Sports is positioning a camera and operator to capture the massive crowd expected to attend.
“Interestingly enough, there’s a piece of fiber up there that we found out about from one of our video guys who does pool work,” Davies said. “It doesn’t get more iconic than that, looking all the way down the National Mall to see 250,000 people."
Drones and Beyond
Once again, Fox Sports will work with drone partner Beverly Hills Aerials to capture race action with the help of drones. As would be expected, flying a drone in the nation’s capital, especially when heightened security is always a concern, required Fox Sports to secure many government approvals.
Seeking those approvals began months ago, and only days before the race, when Davies was interviewed for this article, did the Fox Sports executive vice president express confidence that “our aerial profile is complete.”
Aerial shots from drones are critical to race coverage at this point because “it just wouldn’t look like the same kind of race” without them, he said.
“This is how far drones have come over the years,” Davies said. “They've become not a nice-to-have, but something that is essential to the sport.”
In all, Fox Sports will deploy some 90 cameras to cover the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, consisting of multiple manned and robotic cameras along the streets, including a swift-panning robotic camera it first used in March, during the Java House Grand Prix in Arlington, Texas.
Fox Sports will also deploy in-car cameras, which “have been a huge part of what we’ve been reimagining for IndyCar,” Davies said. The broadcaster has doubled the number of in-car cameras used.
“We now have two cameras and two simultaneous feeds out of every car,” he said. “We’ve added some positions, including the ‘Top Gun’ position, which basically looks back at the driver to see the driver’s helmet, as well as the driver’s eye view camera.”
However, it’s not simply the in-car cameras but also the graphics paired with those shots that create the biggest impact on viewers. “The graphics that go with them allow viewers to really stay focused within the context of the race in watching the cars,” he said. “The graphics communicate where the car is on the track, its speed, its position and the turn that is coming up.
“When you take an in-car [camera], you not only take the camera, but you also take the graphics that go with it,” Davies said.
RF Environment and More
As with other races, RF plays a critical role—not only for video transmission from in-car cameras but also telemetry sources, communications between drivers and crews and production comms. However, unlike in other locales, the federal government in Washington makes extremely intensive use of RF to support its communications needs.
Fox Sports contracted with BSI, an NEP company, for in-car camera transmission and “everything else,” said Davies. BSI began three months ago working on every facet of frequency coordination, including securing Special Temporary Authority (STAs) from the FCC to meet the broadcaster’s needs.
“Nothing has been left to chance in terms of making sure that all the stakeholders, from law enforcement to government security to everything else, are on the same page with us in terms of all the frequencies that we use,” he said. “Coordination definitely was not an afterthought.”
The broadcaster will produce race coverage on site with its production partner Indy Motorsports Productions, using the Penske Entertainment-owned company’s flagship HD5 production truck. For its pre-race coverage, Fox Sports will work from a Game Creek production truck, he said.
For its audio coverage of the race, the broadcaster will continue to rely on two mics in the car—one at the front of the vehicle towards the engine and one onboard the car. “One of the things we’ve been working on is separating the audio both in IndyCar and NASCAR to expand the audio. It’s always great to hear that separation of audio in street races. It’s fantastic,” Davies said.
Contemplating the upcoming Freedom 250 Grand Prix, Davies reflected on the race’s historic nature.
“You know, back in the late 1700s and early 1800s they used to run horses by the White House,“ Davies said. ‘For five years, they had a horse track—that was the racing that used to be in D.C.. We’re looking forward to bringing back horsepower to Washington, D.C.”
