moonshine boost: Hanover's Broadcast Sports to again provide in-car cameras for Grand Prix

Friday, August 31, 2012

Hanover's Broadcast Sports to again provide in-car cameras for Grand Prix

Nicholas Griner | Staff

The command center for NBC Sports Network's broadcast of Grand Prix of Baltimore race Sunday.

As race car drivers prepare for the Grand Prix of Baltimore, an Anne Arundel County company is again going through preparations of its own for the race.

Broadcast Sports Inc. is returning to this year?s event to supply 17 on-board cameras, as well as four cameras in the chassis of cars, for the IndyCar race on Sunday.

Hanover-based BSI plans to lay more than 15,000 feet of fiber optic cables through the streets of Baltimore, said Peter Larsson, the company?s general manager. The cable transmits video images taken from the on-board cameras and relays them to a television production truck. The company has set up 12 ?receive sites? around the track to help transmit the images.

The whole operation costs more than $25,000, Larsson said. BSI, which has 10 employees working in Baltimore this weekend, works about 120 races a year, including NASCAR, IndyCar and the NHRA Drag Racing series. ?Everything worked out very well [last year in Baltimore],? Larsson said. ?We were very, very happy.?

The Grand Prix of Baltimore is scheduled to take place Friday through Sunday, with the main IndyCar race running on Sunday. The race will air on NBC Sports Network at 2:30 p.m. The network, which was formerly known as Versus, is broadcasting the race for the second year in a row.

Everything might be calm the Thursday before the race, Larsson said, but the action will start heating up as Sunday approaches.

?Sunday, the pressure and the silliness is all inside the production truck,? he said.