Sid Collins - Announcing

Announcing

Collins worked for WIBC in Indianapolis. One year after he started at WIBC, he became the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) track announcer for the south turn. He became a radio announcer for the track after Bill Slater became ill. He was named the chief announcer in 1952. That year he introduced his "full coverage concept", which replaced a five minute rundown each hour. He sent letters to all of the radio stations on their network, but only 26 stations participated. The next year 110 stations participated and the number grew until it became 1200 by 1980. With live television coverage of the race prohibited until 1986, Collins' radio coverage drew a large audience every year, and his announcing became synonymous with the race itself. He told the world the deaths, accidents, incidents and crashes during the race. Collins received over 30,000 letters asking for a copy of the eulogy that he gave to Eddie Sachs after Sachs died in a crash on the second lap of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

He anchored New York's TVS Network auto racing network broadcasting from Trenton, Milwaukee, Langhorne, Castle Rock, and Colorado for two years. He announced national television coverage of the Indianapolis 500 festival parade with Garry Moore, Steve Allen and Bob Barker for Hughes Sports Network. He was the subject of stories in Hot Rod Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

Collins always signed off by quoting a serious thought or some poetry.

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Famous quotes containing the word announcing:

    A trial cannot be conducted by announcing the general culpability of a civilization. Only the actual deeds which, at least, stank in the nostrils of the entire world were brought to judgment.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    At night thousands of names and slogans are outlined in neon, and searchlight beams often pierce the sky, perhaps announcing a motion picture premiere, perhaps the opening of a new hamburger stand.
    —For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Along the highway, all but lost among blatant neon lights flashing ‘Whiskey’ and ‘Dance and Dine,’ are crudely daubed warnings erected by itinerant evangelists, announcing that ‘Jesus is soon coming,’ or exhorting the traveler to ‘prepare to meet thy God.’
    —For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)