By Dick Mittman
indy500.com

Thursday, January 2, 2003

Many Indy Racing League or Indianapolis 500 fans might not know his name, but anyone who has enjoyed an IRL or Indy telecast or radio broadcast over the last 36 years should salute Julio "Chico" Fernandez.

Fernandez, the network director of the IMS Radio Network, retired Dec. 31 after a long, interesting and distinguished career in broadcasting, most of which centered around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Racing.

It was 50 years ago that Fernandez departed Cuba for Miami with no idea where life would take him. A half-century later - Dec. 31 was his last day on the job with the network -- he leaves the daily grind of radio and television work as one of the broadcast media's most respected directors, producers and salesmen.

Fortunately for open-wheel racing, Fernandez wound up in Indianapolis in 1965. He directed and produced the Indianapolis 500 for television in his early years, and then at the tail end of his career worked tirelessly to sell the Indy Racing League radio broadcasts to stations across the country.

As he turns the job over to someone else, he sees a bright horizon for the Indy Racing League due to the exciting races the series produces. It makes stations that change formats have a second thought about dropping auto racing broadcasts.

"Our broadcast team is really exciting," he said. "Mike (King, chief announcer) was a great addition. He bleeds IRL racing. Actually, all of our people are the same way."

Fernandez, who will turn 66 in May, decided he had been in the front lines of broadcasting long enough.

"In my retirement, I still want to be active, do something," he said. "I didn't want the daily grind.

"I'm not going to do anything for a couple months."

He added he likely still will be around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a smaller capacity.

Fernandez was bitten by the broadcasting bug while in high school, attended a Lindsey Nelson broadcasting school and worked at three Miami television stations at ground-floor jobs that led to becoming a cameraman. He then returned to work two years in Havana in 1956-57.

"Then I got the hell out of there," he said.

He wound up at an Indianapolis TV station in 1965. The next May, Fernandez was the second director at the Indianapolis 500 for ABC. There was a big crash at the start that year, and Fernandez captured everything as the videotape replay director. The main telecast missed some of the action because the wreck occurred deeper in the field.

"The next year I got the No. 1 seat," Fernandez said of his promotion in 1967, when A.J. Foyt won for the third time.

Fernandez noted that televising the Indianapolis 500 35 years ago was very primitive compared to today.

"We didn't have cameras on walls," he said. "The cameras were big. We didn't have replays, didn't have graphics. We worked with cards. The standings were shown on a sandwich board. We didn't have slow motion until the third year. It was a machine that looked like a VCR and was as big as a double sink. It would record only 60 seconds."

Still, Fernandez's team did some innovative things. One was to hand TV race announcer Chris Schenkel the first wireless mike to describe the pace lap from the Pace Car as it led the field around for the start.

"Once he was on the backstretch, we couldn't hear him," Fernandez said. "Then we could hear him again as they came out of Turn 3 into the north chute."

Fernandez said there is nothing he has done that compares with directing the race. He has worked on many other sports, including the famed Indiana high school basketball tournament, the initial Indiana high school football championship game, the Daytona 500, horse racing, baseball and even parades at Walt Disney World.

There is little doubt in his mind about his favorite Indianapolis 500.

"I think '69 for me was the day," he said. "Mario (Andretti) won, but (Lloyd) Ruby led and then pulled in the pits and left with the (fueling) hose still attached. Ruby qualified poorly (20th), and we had our cameras on him as he came through the field and went into the pits.

"Mario was my favorite. I though he'd win many more."

Fernandez's last two races as director were the back-to-back victories by Al Unser in 1970-71. Thirty years later, he was in the radio booth when Helio Castroneves duplicated the feat in 2001-02. His job was to keep broadcaster King aware of race happenings such as a driver who climbed through the field or about approaching pit stops.

"My primary job (in the office) is hiring and firing, budgets and sales," he said.

All of that will be behind him now. He'll be spending more time at home with his wife, Marilyn. They have two daughters - Allison, who is in advertising sales at an Indianapolis TV station, and Ashley, who graduated from Indiana University in 2002 and is a first-grade teacher in the Indianapolis Public School system.

"Both are employed, that's why I can get out," Fernandez said with a concluding laugh.

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