Couch Potato Tuesday: A New Man In NASCAR’s Play-by-Play Chair

Last weekend, all three series were back in action, though they were split up between Pocono and Iowa. ESPN continues their “lame duck” season covering the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series, while FOX Sports 1 continued their longtime coverage of Camping World Trucks.

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On Saturday night, the Nationwide Series was back in action at Iowa Speedway for 250 laps of competition. With the Sprint Cup Series in action at Pocono Raceway, it meant a second production crew was sent out to cover the action. Nationwide races in Iowa (especially the August night race) are typically slightly stripped down from a typical broadcast. There’s no Quicken Loans Pit Studio and the extra analysts that come with it. In fact, ESPN had only five on-air personnel in Iowa.

Pre-race coverage was focused upon interviews. Greg Ives got his time on-air since he was just announced as Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s new crew chief starting next season. As a result, it was a good move to introduce viewers to the man who’s going to be calling the shots on Earnhardt, Jr.’s No. 88 next year. The rest of the focus was squarely on the Nationwide regulars, which is always good to see.

With the split crews, ESPN has often chosen to go with a two-man booth for this particular race in the past. Last year, it was Marty Reid with Ricky Craven. With Reid having been released prior to the end of last season, it was Dave Burns who got the call to partner up with Ricky Craven. The Burns-Craven duo has a lot of potential. As I’ve stated in this column in the past, Craven is a very smooth presence in the broadcast booth and easily explains everything in a way that doesn’t make diehards look dumb.

A perfect example was when Craven was explaining radio chatter between Trevor Bayne and his crew chief, Chad Norris that made him think that Bayne may have had a loose wheel. The only problem with that segment is that ESPN didn’t fully pay it off when the teams finally came to pit road. Granted, that was nearly 60 laps after the aforementioned passage, but they did need to at least put a camera on the tires that came off of Bayne’s car so that viewers could see if anything was up.

Last winter, I wrote that my dream NASCAR broadcast booth actually included the current version of Craven because he brings a mentality to broadcasts of not trying to overshadow everyone. It’s refreshing. Someone should snatch him up for the 2015 season. Craven is also a regular in the garage. He’s “in the know” and seems quite knowledgeable about everything.

The actual race coverage was decent, but still not inclusive enough. The coverage was mainly centered upon those towards the very front of the field. There were some good battles for position that ESPN showed viewers, but most of those tended to be early in the race, and as the laps clicked off, the focus got tighter and tighter. Eventually, it was just the Sam Hornish, Jr. and Brad Keselowski show. I know that they were running one-two for much of the race, but there’s more out there to show.

There was only one Up to Speed segment during the race, and that short segment concerned only those drivers involved in the Nationwide Dash 4 Cash. While yes, the Dash 4 Cash was a decently-sized storyline for the evening, there needed to be a more inclusive offering given to the fans.

Post-race coverage was relatively brief. ESPN aired only three driver interviews and never showed the points before leaving for SportsCenter. It was quite a letdown.

Pocono Mountains 150

Saturday afternoon brought the Camping World Truck Series back to Pocono for a slightly longer race. The telecast also saw the debut of Steve Byrnes in the play-by-play chair, replacing the departed Rick Allen.

If Byrnes taking over the play-by-play role was supposed to be the big story of the telecast, he certainly didn’t make it look like it was. Having Byrnes in the booth resulted in a completely different feel from what viewers are used to. Allen tended to take charge in the booth, and even with Michael Waltrip prominently involved with the telecast, you knew that Allen was in control. I didn’t get that feel on Saturday.

Instead, Byrnes’ booth work during the race reminded me of his work on practice telecasts. He seemed to defer to Phil Parsons and Waltrip quite a bit more than Allen would. Granted, it’s his first Truck race in quite a long time (he hasn’t worked the pits on a truck telecast anytime recently prior to Saturday), but I think he’ll need to work himself into a natural groove. Doing a 150 mile Camping World Truck Series race is a far cry from working a Sprint Cup practice session at 11 am on a Friday. As the play-by-play commentator, Byrnes has to control the flow of commentary from the booth, and I didn’t feel that he did that Saturday. It seemed like Parsons was the primary commentator in the booth for much of the race.

The overall production was quite decent. Viewers always had a good idea of everything that was going on out on the track. There were no notable technical issues, and the action was pretty good. The booth did go a little easy on Tyler Reddick, though. Also of note, it seemed that no one noticed Bryan Silas smacking the wall in addition to Tyler Young.

Post-race coverage was relatively brief Saturday afternoon. FOX Sports aired three driver interviews, an interview with winning crew chief Nick Harrison, and a check of the points before leaving the air.

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On Sunday, the Sprint Cup Series returned to Pocono Raceway, site of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s latest Sprint Cup win.

NASCAR Countdown on Sunday was notable for two different reasons. First was a one-on-one interview that the always interesting Marty Smith conducted with Jeff Gordon about two hours after he won the Crown Royal presents the John Wayne Walding 400 at the Brickyard. Gordon comes off here as someone with a child-like sense of wonder, despite the fact that he’s now 43 years old. It’s really interesting when you think about it.

The other piece of note was Ryan McGee’s sit down with Rick Hendrick and Earnhardt Jr. The three men talked about a variety of topics, ranging from the No. 88 team’s performance in 2014 to stranger things, like the infamous road trip that Earnhardt Jr. took with Ken Schrader (with his father’s permission, somehow) and how Schrader apparently tried to corrupt him on said trip. The piece showed how the Earnhardts and Hendricks have been connected with each other since Hendrick entered NASCAR. While Earnhardt Jr.’s currently in his seventh year with the team (hard to believe that it’s been that long), the ties stretch way beyond that time. Earnhardt Jr. seems to think of Hendrick like another father.

Ultimately, races at Pocono can be a little similar to races to Indianapolis, just without all the pomp and circumstance that comes with a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The pit strategy once again became the primary story. Having a track where green flag laps take 52 seconds or more and three pit strategies means almost constant pitting. It’s a little hard to figure out where everyone is if ESPN has to keep cutting to pit road every lap or two to cover a major pit stop.

ESPN did get some good radio chatter on the broadcast Sunday. The best example I can recount is from when Kasey Kahne, for lack of better words, punted Joe Nemechek into the wall. Kahne’s comments were completely inconsistent with the replays that showed Kahne giving Nemechek the vehicular bum’s rush. Either Kahne was wrong outright, or there’s something we didn’t necessarily see. Given Nemechek’s pace on Sunday, I’m going with the former.

There were some technical issues that unfortunately tempered my ability to watch part of the race. I’m going to need your help on this one because I could not tell based on Twitter if it was affecting anyone else but me. I had multiple audio dropouts during the telecast that I’m fairly certain had nothing to do with profanities (which ESPN regularly cuts audio in order to bleep out). My thoughts on cutting audio to keep an “S-bomb” from airing are for another time.

However, what really made it hard to watch the coverage is when the entire feed froze and cut out multiple times. Luckily, it occurred under the yellow for the Big One, but I missed at least one driver interview (I think Tony Stewart’s) because of it. Sure, I could get what he said by looking at the Chevrolet Post-Race Quotes, but I’d rather see it live. My guess is that ESPN was having some satellite issues, much like TNT had earlier this year.

Overall, the telecast was on par with Indianapolis. The shear amount of pit strategy trumped almost anything else on the broadcast. I don’t know if such a strategy focus is really what the fans want, but it was essentially required. Problem is, that focus means that people had a difficult time (unless you stared at the scroll) figuring out where everyone was.

Next weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series teams both travel to the very scenic and very hilly Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York for their second assault on the twisties for 2014.In addition, the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship (TUSC) races on the slightly more than four-mile long Road America circuit.

We’ve also got something new this week. To save space, I have created tables that will show this week’s TV Listings. It will definitely look cleaner. Hope you like it.

Tuesday, August 5

Wednesday, August 6

Thursday, August 7

Friday, August 8

Saturday, August 9

Sunday, August 10

Monday, August 11

* – Tape Delayed

/ – Highlighted Coverage

# – Repeat Coverage

^ – Available via free online streaming

I will provide critiques of the Sprint Cup and Nationwide races at Watkins Glen in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. This week’s Critic’s Annex in the Newsletter will cover Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio for the Verizon IndyCar Series.

If you have a gripe with me, or just want to say something about my critique, feel free to post in the comments below, or contact me through the email address provided on the website in my bio. Also, if you want to “like” me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, please click on the appropriate icons below. Finally, if you would like to contact any of the TV partners personally with an issue regarding their TV coverage from last weekend, please click on the following links:

FOX Sports
ESPN

At this point, there is still no public contact e-mail for NBC Sports. When they finally get around to creating a new link, I will post it for you.

As always, if you choose to contact the network by email, do so in a courteous manner. Network representatives are far more likely to respond to emails that ask questions politely rather than emails full of rants and vitriol.

Phil Allaway

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.

Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.

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