[BobUnkefer]

"To Miles Per Hour or not, that is the question........"

Announcing a race demands many variables be accounted for. Bracket race, divisional, or national and to an extent what day it is...... yes really.

At a bracket race or division race that has a light spectator turnout, your audience is the racers themselves, there you can roll through the numbers and call out "10.56 @ 124 for Joe Bob to get the win in the right lane." simple and quick right?, but you have to identify the driver, not just left or right lane.... because the majority of your audience is seeing the race through your eyes while they're working on their car or helping a buddy back in the pits. they are spectating via the words the announcer says, not sitting in a bleacher watching.
At a national event (or any race with a high spectator count, i.e. Norwalk's divisional a few weeks back) your parameters change. Now you are not only announcing to the racers themselves, now you have to account for John Q Public that 'may not' be as aware of what the numbers mean as a racers does. Now saying miles an hour becomes a little more critical in trying to provide the paying spectator with knowledge and understanding of what they are actually seeing.
What day it is????? A national event crowd on Friday is in many ways different from the crowd that shows up on Sunday. Friday;s crowd will be more attuned to the sport, the hard core fans if you will, while the Sunday audience consists of the casual fans drawn in by the TV or Radio ad or maybe they won or were given some tickets..... and as an announcer your job is to recognize that difference and be able to entertain both the casual as well as the hard core fan.
Being able to please both at the same time is hard, as evidenced by the conversations on this thread. Frey and Alan do it well, Leo & Lewis can handle it to, I like to think that I was included in that group when I was part of the tour.
It's TOUGH to please everyone all the time and as a racer we tend to be hard critics when we are back in the pits trying to get ready for the next round yet wanting to hear how the guy pitted next to us just did in his car..... you get the idea. I've been on both sides of the coin.... announcing just about every type of race there is, but I've also been the racer back in the pits, trying to keep up with what's happening via the announcer.
If you stop and think about it, an announcer has to describe the same thing hundreds of times in a weekend race, in as many different & entertaining ways as possible.

Miles per hour or not, just give me an announcer that can paint the picture with his words so that we can "see" the race by what he says, whether we're watching or not, that's an announcer that's doing his or her job.

But hey, that's just my .02,

Unk