'For Jeff Gordon, please press 24...'

It's almost there. Every computing device, without exception, needs a killer application to sell it. You'd think the FanView's would be automatic. But a perfect application needs to be usable, and in this case, we're not talking usable by Xbox gamers but usable by race fans. There's nothing at all wrong with the button layout of the Kangaroo.TV device. But the software that makes use of it is ever-so-slightly confusing, which is just distracting enough to make a serious race fan want to put it down rather than fool with it.

For example, with the keypad, you can dial up complete race statistics for the driver of your choice simply by entering his number and pressing Enter. That's fine, but whoever laid out the graphics for this device was using a much bigger screen at the time, because he forgot how tiny text gets as it fits in the palm of your hand. The attempt to make a kind of bar graph based on the selected driver's recorded lap times, for one reason or another, reminded me of the old coin-op game Frogger. How fast was Jeff Burton going during the first 40 laps, for instance? Well, you can find out, but there are several bars in the graph, each one numbered "31," with the fastest lap represented by the longest bar (which doesn't make sense), and each bar marked with lap times and speeds that are the furthest thing from Microsoft ClearView ever rendered on a display.

Here's the full-field rundown, for instance, taken from an actual screen during last weekend's Brickyard 400 race. It was a good idea to use the iconic number emblems for each driver; in NASCAR, their numbers are now their logos. But if you're having a hard time reading who's in 29th, 31st, 32nd, or 33rd position, that's not my camera's fault. The screen simply isn't that crisp for a graphic that tries to be this glitzy. If you're a software developer, you've probably already conceived any number of ways the information in this graphic could be made clearer and more legible, without changing a thing about the hardware.

Now, suppose I've dialed up the stats for #31, and I want to see the view of the track from his camera. Being able to dial up the camera views from any car in the field, is a race lover's dream. At this particular race, FanView viewers didn't have access to every car's camera, which isn't surprising and not terribly disappointing. But you'd think if I'm already looking at how well Jeff Burton's doing on my Frogger scoreboard, I'd be able to poke a button and see his in-car camera. No, I have to switch to TV view, and then change the channels like a late-night surfer until I notice one with a Cingular logo on his hood (which I'm sure Sprint really appreciates).

Think about this: How often do you watch a race on television where you're looking at the view from an in-car camera, where you don't see some part of the driver's stats superimposed over part of the view? If I'm interested in one driver, I'll probably want access to both elements at adjacent times. So there should be one-button switching, at the very least, between the Frogger graph and the in-car view.

Rather than blend together access to audio, video, and stats - for what I'd call multitasking - FanView would have you exit one task to get to the other, which is a bit like taking a DOS computer to the racetrack. I can listen to a driver's crew radio by dialing his number and pressing Enter. I do the same thing if I'm viewing his stats, so why wouldn't it have been possible for me to just dial one number and get both? Or get the stats and press a key to get the audio feed?

Is there an echo in here?

Even with all these nitpicks, I've saved two important criticisms for last, and they're only because I'm a bigger race fan than I am a gadget collector. At most races, I carry with me a reporter's notebook. I take notes during all my phone calls, I take notes when I'm watching important newscasts, and yes, I take notes when I'm watching a race. Yes, I understand I should see a psychiatrist. But I've found that notes are critically important to me as a race fan, because they help me recall which driver did what maneuver, when. I can go back and read the running order from 40 laps ago and tell you how fast someone's moving up in the ranks. I need access to the race history, and FanView doesn't give me that. Sure, it updates me on the present statistics, and it can show me some past statistics for certain drivers in a way only a 1980s Sega coin-op designer could appreciate. But anyone who really follows racing knows that when the cars are closely matched, pit strategies become critical; and if you don't know who pitted on what lap, you can't estimate how long someone would maintain the lead. Jimmie Johnson won last weekend's race partly on successful pit strategy.

A technologist's toolkit for the Speedway: from left to right, digital camera bag, Robic stopwatch, Sprint Nextel Fanview, reporter's notebook, Mead portfolio.

And then there's the criticism that Sprint and Nextel, most of all, probably would least expect: The FanView device is too slow. Between the time something happens on the racetrack and the time you see it happen on this screen, at least two seconds have passed, perhaps more. And two seconds in racing is an eternity. I watched the last lap spinout last weekend. I counted one-filipe-giaffone, two-filipe-giaffone, three-filipe-giaffone, and I watched it again on my little device. Granted, instant replay is generally considered helpful. But there was a three second gap between the time the field was frozen, and the time FanView reported that the field was frozen. If the IMS Radio Network took that long to report this, I'd say something was wrong with Mike King's headset.

These are all solvable problems, and have little to do with this device's hardware whatsoever. With the exception of a flip-clip that wouldn't stay flipped when I placed the unit down (probably just a one-time defect), Kangaroo.TV has a clever design. They need to work with some software designers to make the interactive program more useful and more informational - and frankly, more fun - for the race fan. When they get that done, believe me, I'll be someplace around the track willing to test it out..

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