I'll never understand...

Can't believe I'm saying this but bring back Ralph. He was the voice during my childhood. 

I like how he tried to make joke of Ryder D’s mustache, JS & RC completely ignored it. Then he brought it up again. Crickets lol

Diffey is the reason I have to watch the races with the sound off.  Dude should be banned from calling any type of motorcycle racing.

Did you see any of WSX? Ralph made that shit unwatchable.

Can you imagine a broadcast of just Ralph & Leigh? Good lord 🤣🤣

For fucks sake. This bitching never ends no matter who they have. 

True , but they are not wrong on this one

I though his “light the candles” phrase was pretty catchy… 

I'm so sorry about your childhood.

Idk I thought his voice was exciting. He reminds me of the Reed and Stewart battles. And the finale in Vegas. Good times. 

I'd much rather Leigh over Ralph or Todd Harris. Best combo would probably be JB and Blair imo

His voice is great, but he literally has nothing else. Has no clue who is out there or what is going on.

i didnt even subscribe to watch live for the first time in a decade. and it was to keep my blood pressure down. i literally get steamin mad at how bad the production of sx is with shitty announcers. i've decided to just watch youtube replays and turn volume down.

peacock can suck a big d. aint given them a cent ever.

There is no right or wrong, because it comes down to personal opinion.

Ralph and Diffey are formed from the same pile of crap. They're both terrible.

It's your mistake 4 having your sound on... loll

Real pros listen to another play by play on yt, fb, insta, x, etc... 

Bring back Art Eckman and David Bailey...."Bar to bar!!"

Another pro tip.. start watching at the hr and a half point... allows you to ff the ads and be live for the 450 main... 

Just a small piece of my childhood...

I really do not understand the Diffey hate. Is it really just the accent? I think he's fine. Just fine. Yes, Weege, Blair, AC, and JB are better, but we've had far worse.

Ralph is the girl that likes you but she's overweight and a goober, super enthusiastic but doesn't understand she doesn't have it.

Leigh is the girl that thinks she's hot but is literally a 2/10 and her only personality trait is being condescending, with the flat butt and leggings looks like she's a midget on stilts..

Rutledge is the gay guy that you have mutual friends with but started avoiding because he threw a Hail Mary your way at the New Years Eve party, and he started calling you homophobic behind your back.

Because he is terrible and arrogant. He views himself as like "The voice of motorsports" and he clearly doesn't give a F about MX/SX. He has been announcing it for like 20 years and doesn't know anything about the sport. He just knows that it's his job to yell and try to say exciting catch phrases.

Good Lord have you heard some 'murican accents. They need to spit the marbles out!!
And ole mate Ralph is like a can opener on your eardrums!

I don't hate him myself, but the entire production has been on a slow downward spiral since the Eckman/Bailey era. Even re-watching the above clip I realized the camera angles and cuts were better back then. The boom camera, the head on shot through the whoops, then over the finish... It's all very cinematic and everyone is locked in.

Today, there's a heavy reliance on the wide shots from the seats and some super sloppy direction (cutting to the wrong riders happens wayyyy to often).

Roczen was 2 seconds back of Tomac with a lap to go and no one cared. I get that Roczen making a pass was unlikely, but did anyone catch how close he was at the line?! Sell that drama! Get all the cameras on the front battle and get in tight for the entire last lap. Instead it was almost an after thought to get on Tomac and the angles were such that it didn't seem like Roczen was close.

Outdoors is shot a lot better today though, so I'll give them that. Drone cameras have made up the difference and then some.

That’s cause they keep throwing us 💩 

That'll show em 

It's the producers.  They think they need a "color" guy there.  The racing is the color as well as the insight from people who actually know what is going on.  No need to hype things up.  The product is what it is.  Stop trying so hard please.  No Diffy.  No Ralph. Just some commentators who know what they are talking about and also know when to stay quiet.  

I'm not a regular listener to Joe Rogan, but I've noticed and seen comments, about how he'll let a guest actually continue to talk without interrupting them.  Same with the racing.  If you having something to contribute do it.  But don't force it.  It doesn't come off well.  

Color guys work when they have someone in the booth that graduated high school (*at 18) and treats the audience as equals.

Didn’t art and David commentate on taped races ?

Only outdoors. Indoors was live to tape (because most broadcasts aired later, though some were certainly live). I met Bailey at a race back then and you could see them in the booth...

Edit: Interestingly, there were rare times when they had to fix commercial transitions with the indoor races. Sometimes they'd come back from a commercial and you could tell Art had to record something extra to get the audience up to speed. His voice was at an abnormal timbre and volume, often acting overly excited, then it was right back to him and Bailey commentating as normal.

Edit 2: My memory didn't fail me... 49:42 from the same race in 2001: https://youtu.be/FJpLF44Wgx8?si=i7dM2IGAXzRWuQON

I can only guess how they determined when/where commercial transitions would be done with these live to tape deals, but they obviously missed this one and cleaned it up after.