Couch Potato Tuesday: NBC’s Early NASCAR Coverage Excels

Welcome back, chaps. I had a pretty good time in Florida. Got a couple of good interviews and covered a couple of interesting races. Also, here’s an insider fact about NBC broadcasts: when they go to commercial, the feed that we saw in the Media Center constantly played the NBC chimes through the whole break. It’s the kind of thing that can drive you insane. Given that Sunday night’s Coke Zero 400 broadcast ran over eight hours, that’s a lot of chimes.

Before we get started, there’s some TV news today. Sports Business Daily is reporting that the NHRA will be leaving ESPN at the end of this season, with FOX Sports 1 the likely destination. Reasoning? Lack of promotion and the scheduling, mainly. It bites. It says something that on Memorial Day weekend, I went to a bar in Albany with a buddy of mine and stayed out late since I didn’t have to work the next day. While there, I noticed the broadcast of the Kansas Nationals on ESPN2 at something like 1:10 a.m., hours after it was supposed to air. That kind of stuff drives people crazy. If I critiqued NHRA broadcasts regularly, I’d rant about that because it makes it very hard for people to watch. Appointment television, dudes! It’s the same issue NASCAR Now had for the last couple of years it was on before it was cancelled.

That said, I’m not sure how much better placement the NHRA will get on FS1 as compared to ESPN, especially early in the season. It probably won’t be a problem once the Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series go to NBC, but the schedule’s a little full early on.

Quaker State 400

In between KFC commercials with the third-string Colonel Sanders that is probably making the real Colonel Sanders spin in his grave, NBC Sports Network made their Sprint Cup race debut Saturday night. And hooray! It didn’t rain. Instead of rain fill, we got an interesting race.

During Countdown to Green, there were two primary topics. If you’ve been reading Frontstretch over the past week, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what they were. In regards to the rule package, we got a nice look at how the package differs from the regular rules and what it was likely to do to the cars.

Naturally, Austin Dillon’s huge crash at the finish made huge headlines over the past week. NASCAR’s official video of the crash is the second most-viewed clip on their YouTube page with nearly five million views as of Monday evening. The only post with more views is the rather embarrassing moment from Daytona 500 pre-race coverage in 2013 when 50 Cent (who just declared bankruptcy) tried to kiss Erin Andrews on-air.

NBCSN chose to take a serious look at the crash. To that end, Marty Snider sat down with Dillon, his father Mike, and grandfather/car owner Richard Childress. Lots of steely resolve was on display here. Except from Childress. He was clearly freaking out when the wreck happened and he still looked affected by the crash when Snider interviewed him. Interestingly enough, Mike Dillon looked rather calm. Granted, Mike’s been in a NASCAR race much more recently than Childress (2000 vs. 1981), but Mike is reacting to a crash involving his own son. It’s rather bizarre to watch at times.

After thinking about it further, I remembered the third episode of The Critic (aired on ABC) from 1994 when Jay Sherman goes to the U.N. School to talk to his son’s class about his job. There’s a scene that encapsulated my thoughts here. Childress is the artist who freaks out (legitimately) when Sherman erases his work. Austin’s the gardener. Mike might as well be the guy working on the sidewalk. Of course, I’m not saying that Mike didn’t care about Austin’s condition when the crash happened. It’s obvious that he did. Footage was shown of Mike dashing to the infield care center. However, with the wreck a few days in the mirror by the time he sat down with Snider, he had already come to terms with it and moved on like it was nothing. Even Snider was surprised at Mike’s tone.

During the race, viewers got a healthy amount of racing for position as the new package allowed drivers to race more closely than normal. I just wish more people were there to see it. The more I look at Kentucky, the more I feel that they screwed themselves the first time out with Sprint Cup with the parking and traffic woes. It’s a shame.

The rule package obviously played a big role in what we saw on Saturday night. The test days getting rained out clearly affected the action as well. Had the Wednesday sessions happened, more teams would have known about the need for better brakes. Steve Letarte did a great job showing viewers the heat issues not just with brakes, but with the headers as well, thanks to the cameras in Cole Whitt’s car.

While there was only so much side-by-side racing in the event, there was a lot more passing. People were able to pull up and pass. Cutting off one’s line, like what Denny Hamlin did to win the Sprint All-Star Race in May, did not guarantee victory. It merely gave Joey Logano a temporary reprieve from Kyle Busch’s onslaught.

Post-race coverage was decent despite the fact that the race ran a little long. Prior to the main broadcast ending, NBCSN provided viewers with over half a dozen interviews, in addition to results and points checks. Not much about the rules package in those questions, but we got a good amount of post-race coverage. I’m not sure what to do about the post-race show that follows. Compared to FOX’s coverage, considering that as part of the race telecast would skew opinions since they’re putting so much extra coverage out there. Then again, NBCSN has the time to do that. They don’t have a SportsCenter competitor to wedge in like FS1 does.

Overall, I did like most of what I saw Saturday night on NBCSN. Good racing on track, a decent amount of stories that were picked up upon, and a general no-nonsense mentality in the broadcast booth that continues to be refreshing after four-plus months of FOX broadcasts.

However, I did have a couple of gripes. From what I could tell, NBCSN missed the debris that caused all three of the debris cautions (in their defense, they did mention where it was, but the pieces never made air). Since that is an ongoing issue in NASCAR, that’s something that I will keep my eye on going forward. Another issue was with the telemetry. It seemed to be way off for most of the weekend. That kind of thing makes the race disorienting to watch. Luckily, that issue was fixed by halfway.

Kentucky 300

On Friday night, the Xfinity Series stormed onto the bumpy 1.5-mile tri-oval for their own 300-mile chase. While Cup drivers were once again the story of the night, NBCSN pulled a mixed bag on the rest of the coverage.

Pre-race coverage was not half bad. Compared to FOX broadcasts, there was a little less focus on the hosts and more interviews. There were no features, but I’m always in favor of more interviews on pre-race shows since they’re the only place to get pre-race interviews these days. This isn’t 1993, where ESPN could stick a microphone in the driver’s car two minutes before the engines are cranked.

Coverage in the race itself was centered upon a lot of the Cup regulars that were in the field, which I’ll admit is a little frustrating to see. Unfortunately, NXS races at intermediate tracks are not necessarily the most competitive races on earth. There’s the Cup drivers with Cup-affiliated teams, then there’s everyone else.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a rare NXS start Friday night and proceeded to spend much of the night trying to figure out what he wanted. It happens. Letarte gave an excellent explanation as to why this is so. Turns out that Earnhardt Jr. is just not good at making that transition. He’s best when he focuses on just one vehicle. Otherwise, he spends a couple of days figuring out what he wants.

Post-race coverage was a little rushed since the race ended right at the end of the time slot. Regardless, NBCSN still gave viewers interviews and checks of the results and standings. Also of note, viewers saw Brad Keselowski’s full burnout. FOX de-emphasized those earlier this year in order to pimp FOX Sports Live, something that I feel likely alienated some viewers. Not a good move these days.

Overall, the action just wasn’t as exciting as it was Saturday night, but I felt that NBCSN did a decent job with the NXS race. There was no drop-off in expertise and the race was covered with the seriousness that it deserves. They’re still giving Erik Jones a good amount of coverage, but it’s not enveloping and biased coverage like what we got earlier this year on FOX. So far, so good.

That’s all for this week. Next weekend, the Sprint Cup and Xfinity series travel up to New Hampshire for 501 laps of action. They’ll be joined by a couple of other support series as well, but that coverage won’t air until next week at the earliest. Meanwhile, the Verizon IndyCar Series makes the haul to Iowa for a short-track race with the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards as primary support. Here’s your listings.

Tuesday, July 14

Wednesday, July 15

Thursday, July 16

Friday, July 17

Saturday, July 18

Sunday, July 19

Monday, July 20

Key:
* – Tape Delayed
/ – Highlighted Coverage
# – Repeat Coverage

I will provide critiques of the Sprint Cup and NXS race broadcasts for next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday, likely on a new cable box since I had to watch Sunday’s ABC Supply Co. Inc. Wisconsin 250 on my phone because my cable box threw a fit and wouldn’t let me watch NBCSN. We’ll also have two editions of the Critic’s Annex for you this week. Wednesday’s Newsletter will have my opinion of FS1’s broadcast of the UNOH 225 from Thursday night that I could not fit in here today due to time constraints. In the regular Thursday Annex spot, I will be covering Chasing 43, a new special on the Pettys that premiered on NBC prior to the Coke Zero 400.

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. If you would like to contact either of NASCAR’s media partners, click on either of the links below.

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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.