Courtesy: ESPN
ESPN’s Lindsay Czarniak will host this year’s Indy 500. The SportsCenter co-host’s appointment to the broadcast marks the first time ever that the race broadcast has ever been helmed by a female broadcaster. Czarniak co-hosts ESPN’s SportsCenter alongside John Anderson. Before taking on co-hosting duties with Anderson was a pit reporter and feature reporter for broadcasts of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races on TNT and NBC. She also hosted ESPN’s NASCAR Now previously.
Lindsay got her start in broadcasting at WRC-TV (NBC 4) in Washington, D.C. She worked at WRC-TV from 2005 – 2011. During her time there, she covered the 2006 Winter and 2008 Summer Olympic Games as well as NASCAR broadcasts.
Courtesy: ESPN/ABC
The Indy 500 pre-race show is scheduled to run from 11am – 12pm on Sunday, May 26th. Czarniak will head the pre-race broadcast from the IMS’ famed Pagoda. She will also help contribute to the race broadcast itself. Former Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever will also take part in calling the race. He will serve as an in-race analyst in the broadcast booth for the race, and for the remaining five races that ABC will carry.
Cheever is a former Formula One racer who won the Indy 500 in 1998. He made 132 starts in Formula One from 1978 to 1989. That is the most by any American driver in the history of Formula One racing. He returned to the U.S. and joined the former CART Series in 1990 and then the IndyCar Series in 1996. He claimed five wins in his time in the IRL, including his win in 1998. Cheever last raced in the IndyCar series in 2006. He will be joined by lap-by-lap announcer Marty Reid and fellow analyst Scott Goodyear to call all six Izod IndyCar Series races broadcast on ABC this season. Also on hand for the broadcasts will be pit reporters: Rick DeBruhl, Jamie Little, and Vince Welch. Dr. Jerry Punch will join the broadcast team in the pits for the Indy 500.
The Indy 500 is the first of six races that will be broadcast on ABC this year. Each race will be produced by ESPN and broadcast on ABC. ABC’s other races include: a doubleheader from Detroit’s Belle Island on June 1st and 2nd, a primetime broadcast from Texas Motor Speedway on June 8th, the series’ race from Iowa Speedway on June 23rd, and its return to the hills of Pocono, PA on July 7th at Pocono Raceway.
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