What sports fan wouldn't love to listen to Peyton Manning in the huddle or talking strategy with his coaches on the sideline?

Or stand beside Joe Torre and his infielders and listen as the Yankees manager tells Mike Mussina how he wants to pitch to the guy at the plate?

Or see through the eyes of LeBron James as he soars toward the basket for a slam dunk?

None of those things is likely to happen anytime soon. But NASCAR fans are breaking through the wall between drivers and teams and the grandstands in unprecedented ways.

You want to ride along with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona from your couch? OK.

How about listening from your family room to Jeff Gordon talk with crew chief Steve Letart about what he wants done on the next pit stop? No problem.

You left your grandstand seat just long enough to get another beer and you missed "the Big One." Just watch the replay as many times as you want on your new handheld device.

Oh yeah. What position is your favorite driver in after that last pit stop? Heck, just check the live stats at your fingertips.

During the recent Daytona 500, fans at home and at the speedway were able to do all of the above, thanks to a new era of technology.

"It's a wonder of the times," said Jay Abraham, president and CEO of NASCAR Images, which boasts that it manages the most technologically advanced television compound in the world. "Most of this wouldn't even have been possible just a few years ago."

All of the new technology is funneled through that compound, which is made up of trailers and trucks connected by more than 100,000 feet of fiber optic cable and sprouts a maze of antennas and microwave dishes.

Steve Stum is director of field operations for NASCAR Images and the man who oversees the TV compound, which has expanded in size by 2Z\x times this year to accommodate all the new technology.

"It's three times the size of the compound at the Super Bowl," Stum said. "And we have two days to move it from Daytona to California and 48 hours to set it up for the next race — all the equipment, cables, everything.

"We have more RF (radio frequency) transmitters in our compound than there are in New York City," Stum said. "There are 17 or 18 production trucks, 23 work areas and about 600 workers. We feed everything through here, including NASCAR's timing and scoring and whatever television feeds there are."

And it's not just the fans who benefit. The new technology also allows NASCAR officials to view replays from up to 16 different camera angles.

"We even give them touch screens, so they can make images larger or see some part of the replay more clearly," Stum said. "Everybody benefits from all this new technology."

But fans benefit the most.

Each of the new technologies has its own trailers or truck, designed specially to handle its specific needs.

DirecTV built a truck with individual, cubicle-sized production studios to accommodate its new NASCAR HotPass, five fully produced channels allowing fans to watch the race from the vantage point of a single driver and team.

The thing that makes HotPass unique is that each of its five channels has its own announcing team, director and producer and offers multiple camera angles, real-time stats and telemetry, and in-car audio.

The first two Cup races featured nine different drivers, with only Dale Earnhardt Jr. carried over from Daytona to California. The lineup for Las Vegas, on March 11, will include Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Dale Jarrett and Carl Edwards.

A spokesman for DirecTV said there is not yet any system in place to determine which driver is being watched the most each week.

Here's a rundown of some of the other services available these days:

n Sirius Satellite Radio has "Team Talk," 10 fully produced channels putting fans inside the helmet of one of 10 drivers for the whole race. It includes all radio communications between the driver and his team. When team members aren't on the radio, the live race broadcast audio comes up, allowing listeners to follow the race.

n At the track, Sprint Nextel has FanView, a state-of-the-art scanner offering live audio, video and real-time statistics.

n Fans can follow the race on their computers through NASCAR.com's TrackPass, which now has a 3-D offering and a "social networking" component.

n NASCAR.com To Go with PitCommand is a mobile phone service that allow fans to listen to driver-crew conversations on their Sprint Nextel phones. It also provides real-time race data over the phone.

n TrackPass RaceView is a 3-D application on NASCAR.com that features animation similar to sports video games. Fans can watch race data displayed on a computer screen showing drivers' positions and movements to within a few inches. They can select one driver or switch among the full field, following them around the track while viewing driver data such as live position, speed and time behind leader, as well as listening to in-car audio feeds.