Couch Potato Tuesday: Dreaded Debris Rears Its Head Again

Auto Club Speedway hosted a couple of relatively staid races last weekend. I cannot put it any better than that. However, FOX Sports still has a job to do, and that is to give viewers a good broadcast.

Before we get into the critique, I wish I had good news to report in regards to the ongoing issues between AT&T U-Verse and FOX Sports 1, but I cannot find anything that even remotely insinuates that the two parties are even close to settling their issues. Knowing that AT&T U-Verse was against paying more for FOX Sports 2 due to the potential of additional ad revenue from acquisitions, don’t expect to be able to watch the Cup race from Martinsville Sunday if the issue is not settled. You’ll be able to watch the Kroger 250 on Saturday, since the Camping World Truck Series is covered under their current deal, but the Sprint Cup race will likely be blacked out. You’ll have to hang tight and record one of the repeat airings on Monday (see below in the listings). FOX Sports GO would be blacked out as well. Unfortunately, that’s about the best I can do for you. The only way U-Verse viewers will likely be able to watch Sunday’s race live is by either going to the race in Virginia (I hear tickets are still available if you’re so inclined) or by following the race on RaceBuddy.

Auto Club 400

Before writing this week’s critique, I had the notion of going out for a drive and seeing if I could find some metal debris on one of the local roads, take a picture of it, and use it as the primary picture for today’s column. Unfortunately, time is of the essence. It just wasn’t in the cards. However, I did have to dodge a full bag of garbage that was inexplicably in the middle of a 55-mph road Monday morning while driving to work. Now that’s some debris.

As many of you saw on Sunday, debris was a major issue. Whether or not there was actual debris on the track, the cautions brought out because of it definitely changed the outcome of the race.

Do I think NASCAR threw the lap 200 caution just to stick it to Kurt Busch? Heck no. If NASCAR really wanted to stick it to Busch, he’d still be suspended right now. Was there actual debris on the track? Yes, there was. While the booth didn’t explicitly point it out, it did make air. Compared to everything else we saw in Fontana, that was clearly the exception rather than the rule.

Shortly after the yellow flew, FOX switched to a static view from a speed shot camera exiting turn 4, a place where Mike Joy had already informed viewers that the debris had settled. Sure enough, roughly one-third of the way up the track from the apron was a small object. To me, watching live it looked like a small piece that was reflecting sunlight. I’m not sure what it was, but it appeared to be metallic.

NASCAR’s official explanation is that since the whole track constitutes the groove at Auto Club Speedway, they felt that it was a risk for someone to hit it, blow a tire and wreck. That’s why they threw the caution. Did it completely change the race? Yes. Did NASCAR really want to do that? Probably not, but the minute they threw it, they must have known that they had changed everything.

My main issue with debris is not the lap 200 yellow, like seemingly everyone else. It’s the rest of the cautions from not just Sunday, but Saturday as well. As NASCAR’s TV partner, FOX Sports is beholden to do everything possible to find the debris every time a yellow is thrown for it. To the regular viewer, it seemed like they didn’t even try for most of the weekend. Four out of the seven debris cautions were for pieces that were unseen. The ones that were? The lap 200 caution that I mentioned above, the one where the piece hit AJ Allmendinger’s car on Sunday, and the last yellow where it was obvious to anyone watching that Kyle Larson’s TV panel took flight on the backstretch.

NASCAR telecasts seem to breed conspiracy theories way more often than with any other major sport. It’s likely because the playing field is so much bigger in motorsports than it is in stick-and-ball sports. Even there, it’s possible for things not to be seen, but it’s a rare phenomenon. FOX had over 70 cameras in Daytona for the Daytona 500. In Fontana, they probably had 55 or so. That’s still nearly a Super Bowl worth of TV cameras. Darn near every inch of the place should be covered. However, things happen.

Because of that, NASCAR really should consider having BSI install cameras on the pick-up trucks that cart around the clean-up crews, and even on the clean-up crewmen themselves so that we can see the debris being picked up in these instances. If it’s done that way, these cameras could be a shared resource between FOX Sports and NBC Sports.

Crashes are one thing. You know there’s going to be debris when someone bins it. In debris caution situations, there’s no guarantee that people will be able to easily see what caused it. Accountability is key here. Otherwise, you’ll have fans exploding on Twitter and claiming that the races are as rigged as the 1950s game show Twenty One. Unlike NASCAR races, Twenty One was incredibly rigged.

Aside from the debris issues, I felt that FOX needed to show as much racing as possible for position. Yes, races at ACS have the tendency to spread out. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that FOX can just rest on their laurels and relax. They have to make the race exciting. I don’t think they did the best job of it on Sunday. They did do a drop-back at one point and showed the top-20 drivers in the race at that point, but nothing else really stood out. We did get good action at times towards the front of the field, but Sunday was another Stewart-Haas Racing show. FOX could have done a better job showing how certain drivers plugged away to get closer to the front. Examples here would include Paul Menard, Justin Allgaier and to a lesser extent, Chris Buescher. I have no clue how Allgaier snuck into the top 10 for the final restart. He’s obviously happy with his 12th-place finish, but I would have liked to at least hear a little bit more about how he did it.

On a positive side, FOX slightly revamped their lap-counter box this past weekend. For much of both races, the counter displayed the current lap of the race, and the laps to go. Think of the lap counter on the scoring pylons at Texas Motor Speedway. I think it’s a nice change. For regular viewers, it probably wouldn’t have an effect at tracks like Auto Club Speedway. Instead, it would be most beneficial in races that don’t have a round number of laps, like the 400-mile races at 1.5-mile ovals (267).

Overall, the race just wasn’t all that great to watch. It was really quite boring. Yes, the finish was relatively exciting, but it’s very debatable whether that should have been the way that the race should have ended. If we did a poll here, it’d be something like six to one in favor of not throwing the lap 200 yellow.

Viewers missed Brad Keselowski‘s pass for the win live because FOX was showing Greg Biffle trying to figure out what to do with his trashed CleanHarbors Ford that stopped in the middle of the track. I had a brief Dale Jarrett at Loudon flashback for a moment. Ultimately, we only saw the pass via the replay. Weak. FOX also failed to show (or even talk about) what happened to cause Biffle to wreck. Nothing short of a cavalcade of mystery at the finish. In addition, Denny Hamlin apparently had engine problems late and spent some of the final laps smoking. I saw some of that smoke in the background on one of the restarts, but it was never mentioned on-air.

There was no mention at all on the broadcast about the wild moves that Martin Truex Jr. made towards the end of the race. As you may have seen, Tony Stewart was none too pleased with Truex, berating him with f-bombs on pit road. USA Today’s Jeff Gluck shot mobile video of the argument and put it on the internet. I would have liked to see the high-English maneuver from Truex that led to that mess.

Drive4Clots.com 300

Saturday’s Xfinity Series race from ACS saw the debut of Clint Bowyer in the broadcast booth. As you’ve seen on television, Twitter, or even in interviews, Bowyer is an interesting chap. What does he bring to the broadcast? At this point, it’s a little unclear.

Bowyer definitely brings his personality, quirky as it is, to the booth. The problem with that is Bowyer in the booth comes off a little like Darrell Waltrip, minus the Boogitys. We already have one Darrell Waltrip. We don’t need another one.

Ultimately, Bowyer’s presence did shake things up during one of the more boring Xfinity Series races that I can honestly remember watching. Bowyer has a unique vocabulary that some core fans will like. Others will view Bowyer’s contributions along the lines of the aforementioned Darrell Waltrip, or Larry McReynolds. You know what we’re getting at here. The butchering of the English language.  I know for a fact that Bowyer is going to rub some viewers the wrong way, but it appears that what you see is what you get with him.

Having said that, even if a race is boring, FOX Sports must find a way to make the race interesting. I don’t think they did a very good job of it. To me, a race should be memorable in one way, and not because Bowyer made up some random words.

Heck, FOX Sports didn’t do a good job of showing how Brendan Gaughan was able to put himself in position to finish second. Viewers never really saw much of Gaughan until he led a couple of laps during the final round of green-flag pit stops. Despite the runaway feel, there were a couple moments in which we got some good action.  That was a roughly 15-20 lap stretch when Darrell Wallace Jr. took it to Kevin Harvick and briefly usurped the defending Sprint Cup Series champion before dropping back through the field.

That’s all for this week. Next week, the Sprint Cup Series travels to Martinsville Speedway for 500 laps of rooting and gouging, with the Camping World Truck Series serving as support. Meanwhile, the Verizon IndyCar Series opens up in St. Petersburg and Formula 1 returns to Malaysia, where it can pour like heck whenever. Here’s your listings.

Tuesday, March 24

Wednesday, March 25

Friday, March 27

Saturday, March 28

Sunday, March 29

Monday, March 30

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

Note that FS1 will join coverage of Sprint Cup Happy Hour in progress once the horse race scheduled for 12:30 p.m. finishes up.

I will provide critiques of the Sprint Cup, Camping World Truck and Verizon IndyCar Series races for next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here on Frontstretch. For the Critic’s Annex on Thursday in the Newsletter, I’m going to cover a little bit of FOX Sports’s coverage of last weekend’s Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. For next week’s Critic’s Annex, I’m looking at a new special that is set to premiere after Sunday’s STP 500, NASCAR Masters of the Clock: The Legend of Martinsville. I haven’t seen anything about the show as of yet, but it should be a very interesting watch. Look for that in early April in the Frontstretch Newsletter.

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 email 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.