Riding Shotgun with ESPN's Dr. Jerry Punch
ESPN kicks off its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series coverage this weekend with the Allstate Brickyard 400 from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We took time out to speak with ESPN’s lap-by-lap announcer, Dr. Jerry Punch
Named ESPN’s lead announcer for NASCAR coverage prior to the start of the 2007 season, Punch has been associated with ESPN since 1984. He has served as sideline reporter and play-by-play man for the network’s college football broadcasts but his primary role has been motor sports. He started as a pit reporter for NASCAR races and has been part of the Emmy Award-winning broadcast crew covering the 1989 Indianapolis 500.
The North Carolina native worked as a mechanic and driver in high school and college, when he was also a walk-on, backup quarterback for North Carolina State. Following several years as a mechanic and driver on the short tracks of the Carolinas, Punch began substituting for the track announcer (Ned Jarrett) in 1975 in Hickory, N.C. He then covered NASCAR races for the Motor Racing Network on radio beginning with the Daytona 500 in 1980. He branched out into television in 1982.
Punch received his medical degree from Wake Forest University in 1979 and became an emergency room physician. Twice in 1988, his two careers dramatically combined. In Bristol, Tenn., in August, Punch revived driver Rusty Wallace, who crashed in practice and was not breathing. Then in November in Atlanta, Punch joined the rescue effort to save Don Marmor who crashed in an ARCA race but survived.
Dr. Jerry Punch has been with ESPN since 1984. Here he is standing outside of Dale Earnhardt's car at a race in 1988. Photo courtesy of ESPN.
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Trading Paint: Tell us a little bit about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Dr. Jerry Punch: I don't think I've ever been around anything that is as big, it has a combination of a small town county fair or carnival, but it also has the feel of a Super Bowl or World Series. There is so much at stake during the day, you look in the drivers eyes and you can see that it means so much. The sheer magnitude and size of the venue can literally take your breath away. In sports, there is Wimbledon, Augusta, and maybe Fenway and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one of those places. If you win there, your legend is set. You can be an unknown, and suddenly you are known.
TP: The Brickyard has such an IndyCar tradition, but how important is it to the NASCAR drivers?
DJP: Everyone I have ever spoken with – the Daytona 500 is the crown jewel -- but a very close second is the Brickyard 400 because of where it is held and the tradition. It’s arguably the most hallowed ground in all of motor sports. When you come through the tunnel here, it's special.
TP: Is the economy hurting NASCAR?
DJP: I think NASCAR enjoyed unprecedented growth and success for three decades. The numbers were staggering. That opened a lot of eyes, But with the economy and the grass roots fan being among the hardest hit, there has been a bit of a leveling off, Still, I think we have to step back and look at the big picture and say, it's still probably the second most viewed sport in America, aside from the NFL.
TD: You’ve been on board for the rise of ESPN and NASCAR, did you ever imagine that?
DJP: I don't know that I ever did. I grew up in the south listening to the Southern 500 and the Daytona 500 on the radio or sitting outside under a tree and cutting up a watermelon and listening to races. I raced short tracks in North Carolina, I built cars in high school. Me and another redneck named Dale Earnhardt were running around together. I’ve been on the inside of it, I’ve welded trailers together, washed out the inside of a car after a driver gets sick. No, I don’t think I knew the sport or ESPN would get this big. NASCAR and ESPN grew up together. It was a symbiotic relationship. We held hands we grew up together. When we went to Bristol back in the early days, it was 17,000 people sitting on a blocks of concrete on the side of a hill. But the more we started to show, the races, the tracks, the inside look, the bigger it grew. Now you have fans driving from almost all 50 states to get to Bristol.
TD: Talk about how athletic the drivers are.
DJP: I don’t know how to put it. They are like marathoners, there is no huddle, there is no timeout, they are in a car for four and a half hours and many times the floorboard is 120 degrees. So, you are sitting in an oven, just baking. Most football games are 3 hours, and there is a halftime. In the car, the G force pulls your blood pressure down, so in order to keep your blood pressure up, your heart rate goes higher. It’s a different kind of conditioning. Everyone knew never to bum a ride with Bobby Allison because he’d drive around Alabama in the summer with the windows up and the heat on. One time, they put Joe Frazier into the car with Bobby Allison. Now Joe Frazier was a great heavyweight champion, a very strong man. Inside that car, Joe couldn’t even keep his head up.
TP: What was it like working on “Days of Thunder” with Tom Cruise?
DJP: It was a great experience. Tom Cruise was the ultimate gentleman. He really wanted to immerse himself in the part of being Cole Trickle. He came to Watkins Glen and walked around incognito as part of one the crews. No one up and down pit row new that it was Tom Cruise. He had a mic wired to his hat so he could pick up the dialect. I thought Robert Duvall was as good an individual playing his role as Harry Hogge as I've ever seen. I was able to interject some things. We'd be in the middle of shooting an interview at victory lane and I’d hesitate and Tom would say, “What’s wrong?” And I’d tell him that I would never ask that question. He would say, “What would you ask?” So we would stop and they’d have to call to get the script changed. Some of the best lines in the movie is what we did off the cuff." -- CASSIDY
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