In his more than 20 years with ESPN,
reporter Jack Arute has covered two college football games, and even two
different sports, on the same day, on multiple occasions. However, he has never
done anything approaching what he will do April 19-20.
With help from the 13-hour time
difference between the two locations, Arute will cover two hemispheres and more
than 5,000 miles in two days as he works as a pit reporter on live telecasts of
two auto races on ESPN2.
Arute will cover the Firestone
IndyCar 300 for the IndyCar Series at Motegi, Japan, with the telecast starting
at midnight ET Saturday, April 19 (late Friday night). He will then fly from
Japan to California and work the telecast of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long
Beach, the final race for the Champ Car World Series, at 5 p.m. ET. Both
telecasts will be presented in high definition.
"Jack Arute has always brought a
tremendous amount of passion to his work, and this is another example,” said
Rich Feinberg, ESPN vice president, motorsports. “He didn't have to do this, but
he wanted to go the extra mile, or in this case, the extra 5,000 miles."
Arute looks forward to the
challenge.
“This actually started as a lark,
like ‘wouldn’t it be funny to do both Motegi and Long Beach,’” said Arute, a
regular member of ESPN’s IndyCar Series coverage team as well as a sideline
reporter for ESPN and ABC’s college football coverage. “But then we started
looking into it and saw that it could be done.”
Arute amazing journey begins Tuesday
when he departs for Japan from Hartford, Conn., with a 13-hour flight from
Chicago to Tokyo. The IndyCar Series race at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit will
be run Saturday afternoon Japan time, after which he will travel two hours by
bus to his hotel and spend the night. While at the hotel, he will use his laptop
to study and prepare for the Long Beach telecast.
On Sunday, he will travel two more
hours by bus to Tokyo’s Narita Airport, then board a 3:45 p.m. flight to Los
Angeles. His flight is scheduled to arrive 9.5 hours later at 9:15 a.m., still
Sunday because of the time difference, in Los Angeles. After clearing customs,
he will be driven to Long Beach, arriving at approximately 11 a.m. for the 2
p.m. local time telecast. Arute will catch a red-eye flight home to Connecticut
after the race.
“This became something that I
personally wanted to do, despite the sacrifice,” said Arute. “I covered the
first CART race at Long Beach, and this one is going to be very special as the
last Champ Car race.
“Fortunately, I can sleep on
airplanes with no problem,” said Arute. “But I’ve asked one of the teams to have
a cot in their pit at Long Beach, just in case I need it. And lots of
coffee.”
