Couch Potato Tuesday: FOX Clams Up When Drivers Cry Out On NASCAR Qualifying

I take it that you heard the rumbling sound coming out of your speakers this past weekend. That’s right; NASCAR is back, and not a moment too soon. The offseason always seems interminable.

As I stated last week, 2015 will look relatively similar to 2014 here in Couch Potato Tuesday, but with some changes. For one, we’re actually going to talk about Sunday’s qualifying telecast. In the past, the single-car qualifying session rarely saw anything of note happen. Covering one car doing a five-mile run really isn’t all that difficult. However, the change to group qualifying made the session a bit more complicated than normal… to say the least.

Daytona 500 Qualifying

I don’t really need to rehash what happened during Group 1a on Sunday. We all know it by now. What stood out to me were two notable aspects of FOX’s coverage. One was the general cluelessness of what was going on, especially from Darrell Waltrip. All through the broadcast, you would hear Darrell go on with exasperated quotes like “I’ve never seen this before.” It’s as if he didn’t even watch the three-group qualifying sessions last year for Sprint Cup at plate races (OK, maybe more like two-and-a-third, given the rain at Daytona in July). The rule changes instituted for last October in Talladega led to stupidity there, and we saw stupidity Sunday. Just because you’re not calling the session doesn’t mean you don’t need to watch it, Darrell. Preparation is key. Believe me. I know Larry McReynolds prepares. He wouldn’t have 76 pages of notes if he didn’t.

Second, it was obvious that a number of people had strong opinions about Sunday’s shenanigans. Clint Bowyer is the most visible example. I’m happy that NASCAR Vice President Steve O’Donnell came right out and said that the sport won’t fine anyone for ranting about the format. Clearly, the drivers need to have opinions about it, and it seems at the moment that they are roughly 75 percent against. Drivers in other series are in similar boats. For instance, XFINITY Series regular Tanner Berryhill isn’t the biggest fan of group qualifying at plate races after wrecking his only car trying to qualify for the Aaron’s 312 last year at Talladega (he made the race on owner points, but the team sold their spot to Billy Boat Motorsports since they didn’t have a car to race).

The commentators in the broadcast booth should have an opinion on what they’re seeing as well. However, I could not discern any kind of a strong opinion for or against the group qualifying format from them. If anything, I think they’re in favor of it because it’s more exciting for television than single-car qualifying. Michael Waltrip definitely seems to be in favor of it. Mind you, his team lost a car in the Group 1a crash. I doubt Michael would be so gung-ho about it if he was the one caught up in the wreck.

The whole affair made it look like FOX’s broadcast team are nothing short of a bunch of brown-nosers. If that’s the case, it would be very difficult for anyone to take FOX seriously. Do I think that’s so? No. At least it better not be so. FOX and NBC are paying NASCAR enough for rights that they should be able to say whatever the deuce they want, within reason (it is network television, you know). FOX commentators should never be afraid to take a stand about what they believe in. Even if that means we see Darrell come out and say that group qualifying is the greatest thing on earth, I just want to see and/or hear conviction.

Sprint Unlimited

Saturday night brought Sprint Cup quasi-race action back to FOX. It would be the first time that viewers would see most of FOX’s new on-air acquisitions in their new roles. The result: rusty at times.

Pre-race coverage simply wasn’t much to write home about. They simply covered the basic stories going into the race and nothing more. That meant what will likely be the standard “It’s the last time Jeff Gordon’s going to do _______” interview, along with chats with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (just because he’s Earnhardt, Jr.) and Carl Edwards (having at it with Joe Gibbs Racing for the first time). Even though Hendrick Motorsports hasn’t announced any kind of a farewell tour for Gordon akin to Mark Martin’s Salute to You and Rusty [Wallace]’s Last Call from 2005, don’t be surprised if something special happens. At bare minimum, the rainbow scheme will likely return at some point. In telecast terms, I just hope that FOX and NBC don’t fawn all over Gordon this year. I know that it’s his last season, but Gordon doesn’t need the extra stupidity. Let the man do his job and don’t irritate him.

My takeaway from Saturday night is that FOX is rusty. The whole production seemed be a bit off the pace, as if they were running on seven cylinders. The booth was slow to react to the happenings on track. To make that worse, the production team was a little slow in getting the proper shots on-screen. For the viewer, such a scenario makes for a frustrating watch.

Having said that, we got some good interviews during the race. Jamie McMurray dropped a good one-liner when he quipped about being quite loose with only two wheels on the ground. The post-race interviews (see below) also contained some gold. Those interviews aren’t possible without the pit reporters. Saturday night marked the race debuts on FOX for both Jamie Little and Chris Neville, along with the returning Matt Yocum. Both Little and Neville were both very prolific in getting good quotes from drivers. I hope that they can both keep it up.

One of the recent acquisitions that FOX announced was the addition of Andy Petree to the telecast as grandmaster of the rules. His role will be to interpret the rules and explain why certain calls were made. But when stops happened under the first caution on lap 26, a number of penalties were assessed. Where was Petree? Nowhere to be seen. I was hoping to have an idea of what Petree’s role would look like by now; apparently, that just wasn’t meant to be. Perhaps he’ll show up Thursday night. If not Thursday, then either Saturday or Sunday. By the time next week’s column runs, we’ll probably have some kind of idea of what his gig will be like.

Post-race coverage was highlighted by yet another pit road confrontation. As I’ve stated numerous times over the past couple of years, this stuff is getting old. Quit it, you morons. At least no one started throwing haymakers this time. What we did get were some terse words being exchanged between Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano. Apparently, Logano wanted a little more of Harvick before Logano was held back, but not before Logano referenced one of John Cena’s finishing moves. You know, the “STFU.” I’m serious; that is what it is referred to as.

OK, Logano didn’t use wrestling parlance here. He just outright cussed Harvick out and the telecast picked up the F-bomb. There was no move taken by FOX to apologize for Logano’s harsh words. After the confrontation died down, we got some interesting quotes from both drivers involved (extra kudos to the pit reporters for that).

Since the race was on network television and not FOX Sports 1, the FCC could choose to intervene here. Remember, Earnhardt, Jr. threw out a fleeting S-bomb in 2004 at Talladega and was forced to pay NBC’s FCC fine ($27,000 at the time), in addition to NASCAR docking points. While I don’t think that NASCAR’s going to take points away from Logano here, don’t be shocked if a fine comes across the wire before the Budweiser Duels on Thursday.

Profanities aside, FOX does have some work to do. The broadcast booth needs to get a little more in sync with each other. That will probably come with more practice, which they’ll get Thursday night. In addition, the production needs to catch up to the race as well. There were multiple occasions of Mike Joy talking about something going on and it took three to four seconds before we saw anything because we had to see an establishing shot. I don’t particularly care about that. Cut to the Chase. Also, simplify the new Crank it Up graphic. It’s way too big and distracting.

Lucas Oil 200 presented by AutoZone

Prior to the Sprint Unlimited, 40 ARCA Racing Series teams ventured out onto the 2.5-mile tri-oval for 80 laps of action. While the race over the years has become known for wrecks and the infamous “ARCA Brakes,” Saturday’s race was actually quite clean. FOX Sports 1 had the coverage.

Much like FOX Sports 1’s Camping World Truck Series coverage in 2015, the ARCA on-air personality lineup is likely subject to change for a good chunk of the year. Saturday saw Adam Alexander and Phil Parsons in the booth.

Pre-race coverage was brief. We got interviews with a couple of the drivers likely to factor into stories. Leading into the race, Mark Thompson winning the pole at age 63 was a big story, along with the fact that he sponsors himself with his company, Phoenix Air. That fact is not new. He’s been doing that off and on for the better part of 25 years. Not mentioned: Thompson’s painful past at Daytona. His career was curtailed to a certain degree after a nasty crash on the backstretch with Michael Dokken back in 1994.  ESPN chose not to replay the crash during their telecast.  However, the syndicated George Michael Sports Machine did.

While Thompson technically didn’t miss a race after the crash seen above (Thompson came back to finish third in the second race of the season at Talladega, 2.5 months later), he was not fully recovered.  Even if they wanted to, FOX probably couldn’t ask Thompson about the crash because he wouldn’t remember anything about it…or anything else about his career around that time. Thompson suffered a nasty concussion that cost him a fair amount of his memory.  Ultimately, it took a couple of years to fully recover.

The racing up toward the front of the field was tight at times and Alexander and Parsons understand the consequences of actions on-track. Viewers saw appropriate reactions to near-misses (Ex: Cody Coughlin nearly took himself out at one point) and a good amount of enthusiasm for good racing.

The race also served as the debut for the ARCA Ilmor 396. Perhaps Daytona isn’t the best place to see the differences between the fuel-injected Ilmor 396 and the regular 358-cubic inch engine, but there was commentary about the differences. Apparently, the Ilmor has a little more low-end torque, which gives the “crate” engine a little better acceleration. We’ll have to see how it works on unrestricted tracks, but it seems pretty good so far.

Despite 27 cars finishing on the lead lap, there were still a number of drivers that weren’t in the hunt with the leaders. Granted, this number was lower than in the past with all the Ilmor 396 engines out there, but there were still some backmarkers. For the most part, you still had to stay in the lead draft in order to get coverage. That is a shame, especially since there were portions of the race that were relatively staid. Also, there were some complaints on the live chat at ARCA’s website about the amount of commercials. However, the amount of commercials aired during green-flag racing amounted to less than ten minutes. Believe me, I’ve seen worse than that during relatively short races.

Luckily, FOX Sports 1 had most of the cameras for the Sprint Unlimited at their disposal. As a result, we could see instances that caused issues like the engine woes for John Lowinski-Loh, the fire under yellow for J.J. Pack, or even the moveover flag falling out of the flagstand and drawing a yellow.

Post-race coverage was somewhat typical for ARCA races. When the race ended with less than ten minutes before the start of NASCAR RaceDay, I was concerned that post-race coverage would be non-existent, or we’d have a situation like two years ago where the winner’s interview got tape-delayed a half-hour for no reason. No, Grant Enfinger did not get served on Saturday. We got a couple of post-race interviews and a check of the full unofficial results before leaving for NASCAR RaceDay.

That’s all for now. Next weekend, all three of NASCAR’s National Series will hold their season openers in Daytona. Should be interesting. Here’s your weekly listings:

Tuesday, February 17

Wednesday, February 18

Thursday, February 19

Friday, February 20

Saturday, February 21

Sunday, February 22

Monday, February 23

Key:
* – Tape Delayed
/ – Highlighted Coverage
# – Repeat Coverage
$ – Available via password-protected online streaming. Check with your internet service and/or programming provider for availability.

Note that all programs aired on FOX networks are available via FOX Sports GO. Availability is somewhat limited, though.

We’ll have critiques of the Sprint Cup, XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series season opening telecasts right here in Couch Potato Tuesday next week here on Frontstretch. For the Critic’s Annex Thursday in the Frontstretch Newsletter, we’ll have a look at A Perfect Storm: The 1979 Daytona 500 that premiered Friday. Also of note, the first K&N Pro Series East telecast on NBC Sports Network will air Thursday night. That race will be critiqued for a future Annex. Unfortunately for NBC Sports Network, Sunday night’s Hart to Heart Breast Cancer Foundation 150 at New Smyrna Speedway wasn’t exactly the most competitive race on earth. Last year’s was better.

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 FOX Sports personally with an issue regarding their TV coverage, please click on the following links:

FOX Sports

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.