SVG Sit-Down: NHRA Producer Kymberly Booth Higgs on What Makes Drag Racing a One-of-a Kind Broadcast Experienced producer believes drone coverage could be a boost to production By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, August 22, 2017 - 10:15 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
In January, when the NHRA named Kymberly Booth Higgs show producer for the 2017 Fox Sports television broadcasts of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, she may have been new to the front bench on this circuit, but she was far from new to the world of auto racing.
With two decades of NASCAR, Formula One, IndyCar, IMSA, and TORC: Off-Road production under her belt, Booth Higgs has drag racing in her blood. As a child in Kansas, Booth Higgs's family was involved in the NHRA Summit Racing Jr. Drag Racing League from its inception. So the opportunity to return to the sport she has loved since she was a little girl was one she couldn't pass up.
Kymberly Booth Higgs heads production of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.
SVG caught up with Booth Higgs at the NHRA's recent weekend of action in Brainerd, MN, to discuss her career, the state of drag racing on television, and what technology tools she believes could take production of the sport to the next level.
As a producer of NHRA, what do you find currently to be some of the biggest challenges you face?
I think the biggest challenge is the storytelling. Our cars are fascinating, they're fast, they're exciting, they're earth-rumbling. The experience is something that you need to experience in real life to be able to appreciate what we're doing. All the senses are united when you're at a drag race. To communicate that to a television audience is a challenge. You don't have smell in your television. You have audio, but you don't have something that's rumbling your chest. So that's our challenge: to try to communicate what it's like in person to the television audience.
At the same time, we have to make someone [watching] television care about the person who's behind the visor. Otherwise, who are you going to root for? Why do you even care who wins this drag race?
In a weekend on Fox Sports, you do some days on tape delay, and some others are live. How different are those two, and how do you balance doing both in the same weekend?
The way we build drag racing is different than the way anyone's doing sporting events right now. We start at 11 in the morning and come on the air live at 1:00, but, at that point, we're playing back segments that we've already built. We didn't just build those as complete segments. We paused, and we picked up, and we used an EVS for all these on-the-fly edits. Then, on Sundays, we catch ourselves live.
Our [Assistant Director] Melissa Armstrong is the best in the business to be able to make sure all this times out. We plan our segments to exactly hit ourselves live, and then we come on live for the finals and stay live for that final 20-25 minutes.
I've worked on a lot of sporting events and a lot of racing motorsports particularly, and nowhere else is it nearly this complicated. On every other type of racing, you come on when the green flag flies, and you stay until the checkered flag. That's not how we're doing it here. We're building on-the-fly. So it's a lot to keep track of in your head.
One key is having the same people in the same roles week after week to know that this is what works for us and this is how, over time, we've developed a routine of how we go through [the day]. It still gets pretty crazy, but we somehow make it work and somehow make it time out to hit live.
What are some of the current technological and production tools that excite you? Is there some new technological element that you think lends itself well to the sport?
I think we have tremendous growth potential [in] technology. Our [Game Creek Video production] trucks are completely equipped to handle anything.
I think we have to start using drone technology. There's so many things that you can do with a drone on a drag strip now. There's all the legal aspects [we have to consider], but we have to figure out a method.
Our sport is just completely centered around time and speed. We have to be able to communicate to an audience how incremental, how tiny these time measurements are. Margin of victory, reaction time, and how a tiny bit of difference from one driver to the next can win or lose a race: those are things that we have to keep figuring out [how to show with] the next graphic technology or the next 3D animations. All those things that I think are still coming can transform our sport to another level.
Where do you find the balance between catering to the hardcore fan and welcoming in new viewers? Is that the hardest part of the job?
That's definitely the hardest part of the job.
I'm a drag-racing fan, and I've been around this for 40 years, so I always have to think about [whether] someone else [is] going to know what we mean - especially when we speak in vernacular or inside language or jargon. At the same time, you don't want to insult your hardcore fan who's followed you for all these years.
The goal would be for us - even when we're doing something that we would consider elementary - to include information that even I didn't know. And it takes a lot to find something that I didn't know! But, when we can, I like that, because that means I didn't insult the people who have been around forever.
I spend a ton of time in the pits just asking questions, because I love it and I love the terminology, and I love all the stuff that I could probably never explain on television but at least I have the information. The more that I listen to the people who are in there and able to explain it, I get
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
01/12/2025
Many industries have seen big-ticket hardware turn into software. Switchers, though, demand a combination of real-time performance and sheer bandwidth that has ...
01/12/2025
GENEVA Shanghai will host the next quadrennial Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27), Oct. 11-Nov. 12, 2027. This...
01/12/2025
NEW YORK Just in time for Giving Tuesday tomorrow (Dec. 2), the Broadcasters Foundation of America is seeking out donations to help television and radio industr...
01/12/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Net Insight CEO Crister Fritzson has informed the company's board that he will retire from the video transport and media cloud technology ...
01/12/2025
01 Dec 2025
Kyivstar and Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation Select Go...
01/12/2025
The prequel to the global hit Sky Original mob crime saga, Gomorrah' is a s...
01/12/2025
Featuring Florence Welch, Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Flea, designer Bella Freud...
01/12/2025
Back to All News
A Down to Earth, All Too Relatable Hero: Cashero' Teaser ...
01/12/2025
In the rush to deliver content to every screen, many broadcasters overlook one of the most crucial steps in the workflow: format and frame rate conversion. Get ...
01/12/2025
Fox Corporation Chief Financial Officer Steve Tomsic to Participate in Upcoming ...
01/12/2025
Arvato Systems' Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Receives BSI C5 Certification (T...
01/12/2025
Summary This short video gives you an summary of the changes in under two minutes.
--...
01/12/2025
As the festive season approaches, RT Supporting the Arts is proud to showcase a...
01/12/2025
Researchers worldwide rely on open-source technologies as the foundation of their work. To equip the community with the latest advancements in digital and physi...
01/12/2025
Festive specials of Christmas in Kilmainham presented by Marty Whelan, High Road Low Road, Callan Kicks the Year and Keys to My Life
Ring in the New Year with ...
01/12/2025
Architect and television presenter Hugh Wallace, best known to RT audiences as a long-serving judge on Home of the Year, has died at the age of 68.
In a state...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
SVG Sit-Down: NHRA Producer Kymberly Booth Higgs on What Makes Drag Racing a One-of-a Kind Broadcast Experienced producer believes drone coverage could be a boost to production By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
