WHAT DOES AIR LOOK LIKE? ESPN SHOWS NASCAR FANS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

The latest, greatest technical advancement in sports television really is nothing more than a bunch of hot air.

And how you can see it.

Without trying to make it sound like some magic Harry Potter trick, ESPN returns to covering NASCAR's Nextel Cup this weekend at the Brickyard 400 with something so revolutionary, the 200-mph rigs zipping around Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday may make you believe the paint actually is peeling off the hood and roof.

They're calling it Draft Track, a multi-computer setup that allows a visualization of how the air stream flows over and around the cars as they're moving and, most specifically, how it affects those rumbling behind them.

Sportvision, the Chicago-based company that developed the yellow "1st & Ten" line on the football telecasts and the K-Zone for baseball, came up with the brainpower to make this work. And if Draft Track gives you some sense of deja vu about a glowing hockey puck that Fox once tried to use on its NHL telecasts some 10 years ago, it's because this is the same group that developed that as well.

"The derivation (of Draft Track) comes from the number of times I counted the announcers using the term 'drafting,' and it was important to them, but it was something we couldn't see," Jed Drake, ESPN's executive producer, said in explaining this was something the company really pushed for rather than responded to viewer demands for it. "Do I think the system is going to make our coverage distinct and better? Yes, absolutely. But we have a long history of doing things, not just as a marketing scheme, but to bring value."

In terms we're not supposed to fully comprehend, this is all about a computative fluid dynamics system that weaves three computers, including one that has wind-tunnel tested models and another with a GPS that can find a car on the track "within two inches" (according to Drake). Plugging a car on the track into the computer and showing different colors flaming over and around it hopefully will give optical reinforcement to terms such as "aero push," "turbulent air flow" and "drag boost" that can, in some cases, cause a car to "get too loose."

For now, they'll just use all this new stuff on replays. It's tough enough trying to decide on when to break away from live racing just to get in commercials.

"I'll try to temper my enthusiasm and let the viewers decide how good Draft Track is," said Drake, who first came up with the idea in 1998, just as ESPN was about to lose its rights then on NASCAR coverage. "This all may seem relatively simple -- that's air -- but it is always a difficult exercise when you go from a science project to a television system, and that is precisely what we've decided to do this week because obviously we realize the significance of returning to Cup coverage, and especially at the Brickyard."

Not to be sidetracked in considering how this could be used just as effectively to measure how much wind is created by a Chris Berman or Dick Vitale on a live ESPN game, the key to selling this to NASCAR viewers without dragging them under the sofa for relief is how the analysts accurately dumb down what's going on with all those psychedelic lines.

"As a driver, when you're side by side and behind someone, I know what that air feels like," said veteran TV analyst Rusty Wallace, a former Cup champion. "We'll have to clarify things in a real way to not confuse everyone, but it's an amazing project and very cool."

TV newbie Andy Petree, a crew chief on Dale Earnhardt's former team and a respected car owner, said today's racing teams "won't look at the broadcast and see something they don't already know. But it might be something that sparks some more thought and creativity for teams."

Since 1981, ESPN has produced more NASCAR races than any other network -- 262 by their count -- and helped popularize the sport for two decades. So a return for the important second half of this season with partner ABC (after NBC and TNT shared the first half) definitely sparked enthusiasm in the company to take this over as many ESPN platforms as possible to cover this again, with as many hours of ancillary programming as possible. ABC and ESPN do the final 17 races, including the event at Fontana in five weeks, leading into the final 10 "Chase" races from Sept. 16 to Nov. 18.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- color) Computers will allow TV viewers to visualize air flowing over NASCAR cars and creating drafting, starting with ESPN's Brickyard 400 coverage Sunday.

ESPN

(2) DODGERS NOTEBOOK: (book: "The Outsports Revolution: Truth and Myth in the World of Gay Sports")

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES

(2) WHAT CHOKES