6 replies to this topic

[10kDA]

Bob Jenkins, longtime Indy 500 and NASCAR announcer, has passed. He was great in the early days of ESPN with Larry Nuber on "Speedweek" and did excellent work on the "Thursday Night Thunder" USAC midgets and sprint car events. He once said he had never not had a job announcing something, either radio, TV, or PA, for the 500 at IMS since 1979. Diametrically opposite from the Hellzapoppin style of race reporting, his reporting was always just enough and always insightful. RIP Bob.

 

https://racer.com/20...ins-dies-at-73/

 

https://racer.com/20...-speedway-icon/

[absinthedude]

Oh no....I remember getting into NASCAR by watching late night ITV broadcasts of the Winston Cup presented by Bob Jenkins and Ned Jarrett. Calm, thoughtful, insightful.

[messy]

I think he was my first introduction to NASCAR - I’m pretty sure having bought NASCAR ’98 on my PlayStation the first intro screen was him introducing the game. Knew nothing whatsoever about NASCAR.

[lcbulldog]

Bob Jenkins in his own words: "A race fan who got lucky".  And so did we.  RIP

[Doug Nye]

That's a lovely sentiment - one that the late Murray Walker shared...

 

DCN

[70JesperOH]

Just realised that Bob Jenkins WAS the voice of NASCAR, when I started watching live transmission here in Europe in the 1990s.

 

Jesper OH

[jonpollak]

 Diametrically opposite from the Hellzapoppin style of race reporting.

 

Of which no one can do properly without sounding like an absolute psycho.

When Murray left us that style went with him. Yet no one told these commentators today who can't STFU for 3 seconds.

 

Bob was a friend and I always learned something from him when we conversed.

 

He did me a huge favor by asking Donald to recall a moment from his past that had eluded the TOGA audience for many years.

 

Here it is,

A zoom call from the IMS Museum the day before the Harvest Grand Prix in 2020

https://youtu.be/tX5jE4U0-WE?t=2048

 

Jp