You may have heard that Texas Motor Speedway is bragging about its proposed new HD screen. The thing about this particular video board is that it’s really big –– so huge, in fact, officials have nicknamed it “Big Hoss” to underscore its sheer epicness. The other night, veteran Channel 8 newscaster Gloria Campos couldn’t simply rely on synonyms for “big” to describe the screen. She had to apply two unique systems of measurement, counting the number of elephants and Alamos it would take to fill that not small video board. I don’t remember the final tally, but it was impressive.
As a non-sports fan, I’ve grown accustomed to local media types wetting themselves over new arenas, stadiums, and stadium amenities. Especially if those things are expensive and really really big. But like a few people I know, I’ve got size fatigue. I have no way to judge what’s colossal anymore because sports owners keep upping the ante. I generally rely on outsiders to verify if something new in the North Texas sports world deserves my unvarnished awe. (The locals are unreliable –– everyone’s an unpaid p.r. flack for their favorite team/venue around here.)
Turns out Texas Motor Speedway wasn’t just whistling Dixie about “Big Hoss.” The sports section of USA Today declares the planned HD screen, at 108 tons and 94 feet high, to be the biggest in the world. The author of the story didn’t convert those numbers to the elephants-and-Alamos metric system, but I got the gist. We’re still secure in the land of Really Big Things.
