Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993 TAG: 9312160256
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wheeler arrived at TNN less than three years ago, at 27, to handle 18 live motorsports events for a network that was known mainly for its country-music format.
Today she's in charge of covering more than 50 live events (up from 20 in 1992) and of the network's ``Sports Sunday'' package and has expanded TNN's motorsports offerings to double the number carried by its cable competitor, ESPN.
``Motorsports on television is going to grow, and I want to keep riding that wave,'' Wheeler said. ``Everybody's programmers are sitting around making plans for when the technology comes around to us.''
The breakthroughs are likely to occur on cable, where one entrepreneur is already planning an all-racing channel, she said. Like many other women in television, Patti Wheeler has found cable hospitable and often more adventurous than broadcast stations.
In overall sports-TV viewers on cable, TNN's live NASCAR coverage on Sundays, begun in 1991, ranks third behind Atlanta Braves game s on TBS and pro-football telecasts. In mid-July, at peak motorsports season, Nielsen polls showed TNN's auto racing was fourth among all basic-cable network programs, reaching 1.88 million homes, for a 2.0 rating.
Indeed, many of the motorsports clips viewers see on any sports program come with a TNN logo. It is the only network carrying live sprint-car racing (now through Jan. 23), live drag racing and soon, live motorcycle racing.
TNN's new NASCAR season begins in February, and in mid-March the network will add live and taped American Motorcycle Association races.
Wheeler's biggest coup may have been last March when a blizzard shut down Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport and forced postponement of the Motorcraft 500 race, which was to have been aired on ABC. But ABC had contracted to carry tennis the next weekend, when the race was rescheduled.
With one week's notice and a 4-week-old son at home, Wheeler did what was necessary to bring the race to TNN. In a flurry of phone calls and faxes, she rerouted TNN's tractor-trailer production unit from southern Virginia and hired nearly six dozen broadcast technicians to handle the four-hour telecast, calling on free-lancers who hadn't already been hired by CBS to work the NCAA basketball tournament that weekend.
For all her work, it was a one-time event for TNN: ABC renewed the Motorcraft 500 contract. But Wheeler's reputation in the industry sparkled, and she got the Pocono racing events for June.
Wheeler, a self-described ``track rat,'' is the eldest child of Howard A. ``Humpy'' Wheeler, president and general manager of Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. ``My dad offered me exposure to things - that's what he did best of all. He taught me a true love of motorsports and a sincere, deep love of people.''
As a teen-ager, Patti Wheeler hung around her father's raceway, watching how the broadcast networks covered the races. Sometimes she was allowed to help. At 5 feet 3, blonde and pretty, ``I wasn't intimidating,'' she said.
But she was ambitious and set her sights high.
``From the very beginning, since I was 12, I wanted to go into television sports,'' she said. ``I used to work for the nets [networks] when they came to the racetrack. When I was 16, I was traveling to meet them at Daytona or Talledega. At the time, the networks didn't have much talent. To them, I was an expert.''
She went off to Belmont Abbey College, a school run by Benedictine monks, to major in English literature. She specialized in works of the medieval era.
She also worked at a local television station - ``that really teaches you how to tell a good story.'' She thinks most of the Belmont Abbey faculty was unaware of her other life: ``None of them were big television fans,'' she said.
``Timing is very much a part of this story,'' she said.
``When I was out of college, I went to Atlanta and worked for a company [World Sports] that produced motorsports. At the time, I was co-ordinating producer for `Hidden Heroes' [predecessor to TNN's current `Winners'], and during this time I came up to Nashville. Then David Hall, senior vice president of the network [TNN], called up and offered me this job. TNN had just become involved in live motorsports.''
She moved to Nashville and became a one-woman office, planning the telecasts, negotiating contracts and acquiring rights, co-ordinating events packaged by outside producers, hiring technicians, ordering satellite time and often driving to the eastern venues herself. Six months ago she got an assistant, Danielle Burkhead.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB