He's logged some miles
Bestwick keeps track of NASCAR
He grew up in Coventry, R.I., and maintains a home in nearby East Greenwich, so when Allen Bestwick drives to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race tomorrow to host ABC's prerace studio show, it will be a homecoming of sorts.
The 46-year-old broadcasting veteran, who goes on the air at 2:30 p.m., followed by the race at 3, said he is expecting a thrilling event because of the atmosphere at the track.
"It is sometimes underrecognized," said Bestwick. "They'll put 101,000 people into the stadium again, which they've done every time since they opened the gates in 1993. They've sold it out. It tends to really make the driver work hard to get the car around the corner under control but as fast as he can go. It's a tough place. It's hard to pass because it's so tough. The guy who gets the job done at the end of the day has really done a full day's work. It's a challenge. It's just not the same as other places. It's a tougher racetrack than it appears to be."
Bestwick said it's easy to explain the widespread appeal of motor sports, and it starts with the drivers.
"They're very relatable to a lot of the chunk of the population," he said. "A lot of us aren't 7 feet tall and can dunk a basketball. A lot of us can't skate like Zdeno Chara. But a lot of us drive a car and some of us fancy ourselves as being pretty good at it, whether we are or aren't. These guys all come from blue-collar backgrounds. They're just normal people who basically are living the American dream."
Bestwick first dreamed of a broadcasting career in his youth when he would listen to Fred Cusick do play-by-play for Bruins games.
"As a young kid growing up in New England in the 1960s and '70s, it was hard not to be a Bruins fan at that time," Bestwick said. "I'm a hockey guy, I still play hockey to this day. You used to sit and try to pull in Channel 38 on the rabbit ear television and watch all the broadcasts that we could.
"[Cusick] was just solid. His presentation was all class. It was smooth and there was energy when it needed it and not when it didn't. As I thought back on it over the years and think about the style that I came to broadcast in, I could see myself learning a lot of lessons from that subconsciously as a kid. Having some dignity about what you do and having some energy and some enthusiasm. He was definitely one of my inspirations and idols as a kid."
Bestwick became hooked on auto racing when he was 6 as a result of his father driving at Seekonk Speedway. Bestwick became the Seekonk track announcer at just 16, before embarking on a career in radio and television.
"When I first started going around, in the mid 1980s, to the top-level NASCAR races, cable TV was just starting to become something and a lot of these races were just starting to be shown to people around the country," Bestwick said. "The first major NASCAR race I ever covered was in Dover, Del., and Richard Petty won it and I was one of maybe 15 people in the press box. Now, you go to Dover and there are probably 300 media there. There were maybe 40,000 seats at the place and now there are 140,000. Everything has grown so exponentially because of success.
"I think it can still grow. The days of it growing in leaps and bounds, like it had in the 1980s and '90s and early part of this century, I think those are past. It'll continue, but not at the pace it was before."
Women's turn
NBC (Channel 7) will air the 63d US Women's Open from Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., tomorrow and Sunday from 3-6 p.m. Annika Sorenstam, who earlier this year announced she would be stepping away from competitive golf at season's end, is looking for her record-tying fourth Open title and 11th major championship. Mark Rolfing will host the coverage, with Johnny Miller and Dottie Pepper joining him in the tower at the 18th green. "This is the best event in women's golf, there's nothing even close," said Pepper. "This course is so long, so difficult, that it's going to take a smart player, one who plods their way along, to win this thing. It would really be something if Annika won; you couldn't script it any better." . . . Kathryn Tappen, who serves as NESN's studio host for Bruins broadcasts, as well as a weekend anchor and reporter for "SportsDesk," will chat online at NESN.com today at 3 p.m. Red Sox studio analyst Dennis Eckersley will host a chat on NESN.com Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell can be reached at marrapese@globe.com.
