Barber: NASCAR drama right there on radio scanners

Indulge me in a little reverie. It’s deep fourth quarter in Super Bowl 51. The Patriots, trailing the Falcons by eight points, get the ball at their own 9 with 3:30 remaining. They have one extended shot to tie the game and cement their legacy as one of the great dynasties in NFL history.

As Tom Brady huddles his players, you adjust your radio scanner to listen in on the New England headsets.

What will offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels call? Is Brady changing plays at the line of scrimmage? What does Bill Belichick have to say about all of this?

After Julian Edelman’s insane reception puts the ball at the Atlanta 41, you switch to the Falcons channel.

Is there confusion in the voices of head coach Dan Quinn and defensive coordinator Richard Smith? Anger? Desperation?

What emotions do the teams express after James White’s crucial touchdown run with 57 seconds left, or after Danny Amendola’s game-tying catch on the 2-point conversion?

It’s a fun image, and a frank impossibility. The NFL would never let its sausage be made in public like that. No professional sports league would. Or almost none.

NASCAR fans at Sonoma Raceway this weekend for the Toyota/SaveMart 350 can rent or purchase scanners allowing them to snoop on any race team at any time, during practice, qualifying or today’s race.

Every spat, every wisecrack, every stratagem will be laid bare.

You may consider motorsports your cup of tea, or a cup of noxious fumes that you want no part of. Either way, you have to appreciate how NASCAR has invited the public into places we’d otherwise never dream of seeing or hearing. More than other sports orgs, NASCAR lets its followers become part of the experience.

“It’s just one more deal that makes it like a video game, and people can play along,” said Tony Gibson, Kurt Busch’s crew chief.

Chad Willis, VP of marketing for Racing Electronics, the company that manufactures and sells or rents the raceway scanners (as well as the video-enabled FanVision units), noted that about 1 in 5 NASCAR customers springs for audio. He said Racing Electronics has been doing this since the late 1980s.

The two-way systems were raw back then. The cars’ electronic ignition systems and distributors would interfere and bleed static into the line, and it was hard to get a proper ground.

“Guys would paint the cars, and they wouldn’t grind the metal back, and it wouldn’t go through,” Gibson said. “It’s just crazy how far it’s come, to how clear it is. It went from a radio that weighed 10 pounds, trying to hold it, to these radios about the size of a credit card now.”

Jason Hedlesky, a spotter for Matt Kenseth - spotters are the eyes in the sky who warn drivers of hazards or hard-charging opponents - said some tire changers have listen-only privileges (you know how tire changers are), but that somewhere around 20 crew members enjoy two-way communication capability.

That said, the only people who really talk during practice, qualifying and the race are the driver, the crew chief and the spotter - or, in the case of Sonoma’s hilly road course, the two spotters.

Gibson said his crew employs two channels, one that includes all three ?parties and a second channel for chief and spotter to use without distracting Busch.

“Some of these spotters become almost celebrities themselves,” Willis said.

He noted that he particularly enjoys listening to Clint Bowyer and his spotter, Brett Griffin. “They’re two peas in a pod - high-energy, maybe not suitable for kids of a certain age, but a great listen,” he said.

Oh, right, Brett Griffin. The guy who, after a dust-up at Texas Motor Speedway on April 9, said that another driver (I couldn’t tell if it was David Ragan or Trevor Bayne) had the “IQ of a (bleeping) mud flap.”

If you want a taste of the NASCAR scanner experience, turn to Fox Sports’ “RadioActive” packages. After each race, Fox puts together audio highlights of the day’s drama, layered over artfully edited video of the action.

Search “NASCAR RadioActive” on Google and some of the results on the front page include:

“Radioactive: Phoenix (March 21) - ‘Holy (expletive) people.’ ”

“Radioactive: Las Vegas (March 14) - ‘Get the (expletive) off me.’ “

“Radioactive: Kansas (May 16) - ‘Holy (expletive), dude.’ ”

“Radioactive: Pocono (June 13) - ‘(Expletive) brakes failed.’ ”

Not sure what that word means, but stock ?car drivers and crew members sure do seem to like it.

“My owners used to think I was really bad on the radio,” driver A.J. Allmendinger said. “And then they started to listen to Kurt, and Kyle (Busch), and Ryan (Newman), and (Dale Earnhardt) Junior, and Danica (Patrick) and all that. And they were like, ‘Wow, you’re actually fairly calm compared to most.’?”

As you might imagine, RadioActive has become must-listen audio for the NASCAR teams who can’t wait to know who was sniping at whom during the race.

“Really, that’s my only opportunity to hear how other teams react,” Hedlesky said. “I’m so busy on Sundays.”

The feuds and F-bombs are an attraction, no doubt.

But the most interesting aspect of NASCAR’s scanner system is the strategy it exposes.

Admittedly, you can’t compare each lap of an auto race to the detailed, choreographed Xs and Os of a football play. But I’ve covered plenty of races at Sonoma, and most of them were decided, to a large extent, by tire and fuel strategy.

All of those tactics - when to pit, and when to swap tires - are communicated openly on the Sprint Cup circuit.

Do they spy on one another? Is Dale Jr. an Earnhardt?

“We have several different channels listening to different people,” Gibson said. “All that stuff is shipped right over to me. We hear and see things other guys are doing. Everybody does it, so it’s not an advantage. But there are certain times - say you’re running second and trying to catch the guy ahead of you, and you listen to the radio and hear he’s loose in the corner, your driver might get right on his butt.”

With the whole racing world listening, teams develop code words.

“If you have to talk over strategy - pull four tires or two tires - there’s words we change up each week,” Gibson said. “We have other ways of getting around the system, but sometimes it is what it is. Sometimes panic mode sets in and you say, ‘Damn it, do what you need to do.’?”

According to Hedlesky, though, a lot of the nuts-and-bolts strategy of the race stays closer to the vest.

“You hear all drivers, they’re really close-lipped with their chassis, how they feel,” he said. “Because they’ll come in and talk through the window to the pit chief. So the majority of things talked about on the team radio are not about strategy but just getting through the race.”

Just getting through the race can be pretty damn entertaining, though.

Like last year in Sonoma, when an electrical fire chased Bowyer from his cockpit after five laps.

“(Expletive),” Griffin said on his radio, “we’re on fire.”

You really are, gentlemen. You really are.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.