On paper, covering an event at Bristol Motor Speedway shouldn’t really be all that difficult. It’s a half-mile oval. You can place cameras all over the place and cover it like the laser beams in the diamond vault in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Evidently, at least when it comes to FOX Sports, that’s not actually the case.
Food City Dirt Race
If one were to take one major thing away from FOX’s coverage from the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt track last weekend, it would likely be that the track surface was the best that it’s been for Bristol’s three NASCAR dirt weekends to this point.
I’m probably not going to argue with that. Drivers had options, both on Saturday and Sunday. It was good to see. Tony Stewart (back in the booth just for this week before returning to his NHRA duties next weekend in Las Vegas) in particular gave Bristol Motor Speedway on-air dap. He’d know what makes a good racing surface since he’s spent significant time over the years creating one at Eldora Speedway.
In a TV context, that’s swell. However, there’s more that needs to be focused on.
Back after Daytona International Speedway, I talked about how FOX has a new head producer for NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts this year in Chuck McDonald.
McDonald comes from a football background, a place where it’s pretty rare for notable things to happen outside of the general camera shot unless it involves something in the stands. Of course, McDonald’s point race debut didn’t go all that well as fans went nuts over the commercial breaks.
I already gave my piece about the commercials in the aforementioned Daytona critique. Quite simply, they’re a necessary evil.
What has continued to be an issue is the production just being slow to react to issues on the track. That is bad in all forms of auto racing and it was a serious issue on Sunday.
One example was on lap 96 when Daniel Suarez spun out and Joey Logano got collected. I’m not really sure what happened here, but Logano’s rear suspension broke, putting him out of the race. Suarez was able to continue but finished down the order.
The most blatant example of the slow reaction was when Michael McDowell had his second 360 on lap 99. You heard the booth call the spin and McDowell’s recovery, but viewers saw diddly squat of it. In fact, we didn’t see it at all until the next caution.
Here’s the thing, if the booth wasn’t noticing everything that was going on and wasn’t trying to help the production to the best of their ability, that would be one thing. It could be construed as some kind of overarching funk at all levels.
Here, Mike Joy is trying to save your hindquarters, and it’s like you’re not quick enough on the draw, or you’re not listening at all. C’mon, now. Stuff like this is making FOX’s broadcasts so agitating to watch this season.
At times, it felt like the commentary for the race was on PRN since the booth would often talk about things that we couldn’t see. Perhaps FOX needs to have more meetings to put itself on the same page or McDonald needs to follow the rhythm of his booth a little more closely.
Last week, we looked at NBC’s broadcast of the PPG 375 from Texas Motor Speedway. It can serve as a substantial contrast to what you saw Sunday.
Both the Cup race in Bristol and the NTT IndyCar Series race had good action, but if something went down, you could count on NBC’s broadcast getting to the issue at hand quickly. On FOX, not so much.
Sunday’s race was likely the calmer of the two features in Bristol, but the same issue more or less applies to both races. There was some much discussion of how great the track was and the racing and so on and so forth. The longest run under green Sunday was 28 laps. On Saturday, it was 11 laps. You couldn’t really do much before someone wiped out.
Which also brings up NASCAR’s change in officiating mid-race Sunday. After a series of early incidents, NASCAR made the decision to either wait to throw cautions, or not throw them at all. The decision likely changed the outcome of the race for a number of drivers.
The booth (especially Joy) picked up on this and seemed a little confused about it. When it comes to calls like these, the teams want NASCAR to be consistent. It was anything but. It was literal guesswork when a yellow would come out. Knowing that we wouldn’t necessarily even see what was causing these issues in the first place made it worse.
When the season started, I wanted to give McDonald some time to settle into producing NASCAR broadcasts, knowing how different it is from college football or the NFL. At this point, McDonald should have his sea legs. Unfortunately, he hasn’t picked up the speed that he really needs to be an effective NASCAR producer.
Let’s face it, auto racing is likely the toughest sport to broadcast on television since so much is going on. Nine race weekends isn’t all that much time to get used to it, but it is enough time to pick up on trends. They’re not good so far. McDonald needs to pick up his game.
This is the 15th year that I’ve been critiquing race broadcasts for Frontstretch. I don’t really recall being quite this frustrated with what FOX is offering viewers as far as race broadcasts go.
Weather Guard Truck Race on Dirt
Saturday saw the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race for 150 laps on the dirt in Bristol. It was basically a series of sprints in between incidents, as everyone just couldn’t keep it together.
Unlike Sunday’s race, there were a lot more issues with cut tires on Saturday. Unlike the last two years, Truck teams were racing with dirt radial tires. Usually, radial tires would be less susceptible to cuts as compared to bias-ply tires. I guess that there were a series of instances of bad luck.
Here, you had a different broadcast booth in play (Adam Alexander, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip) but a number of the same issues. The discussion of the high quality of the racing surface was even more pervasive than during the Cup race. That’s nice and all, but jeepers, it’s not like we really got to see much of it.
This was a race with 66 of the 150 laps run under caution and an average speed under 40 mph. It’s hard for anyone to take you seriously when you talk about the racing product when there’s barely any of it on offer because the drivers can’t mind their Ps and Qs.
In practice, much of the coverage was centered on the front of the field. However, Joey Logano pretty much had that covered. He led all but 12 laps on Saturday. He got to the lead on the second lap and only gave it up afterward when he made his one pit stop at the end of stage one. Once the race restarted, it took only 11 laps for Logano to move past Matt DiBenedetto and retake the lead. Only Ty Majeski could hang with him all night.
My takeaway of the on-track product Saturday was that it was really hard to pass anybody. Once Logano in the lead, no one was getting him. What really allowed drivers to move up the order were the wrecks. That’s how drivers like Jake Garcia got up to sixth and Tanner Gray to eighth.
Meanwhile, the top three finishers (Logano, Majeski and William Byron) were the top three drivers at the end of all three stages. It seems crazy that such a thing could be possible, but it happened.
The commentary for this race made the event seem a lot different from what it really was. It was really a wreckfest that wasn’t all that competitive. In practice, it came off on FOX Sports 1 as an ultra-competitive showcase for Bristol on dirt. It’s like it was trying to convey a specific kayfabe for this event. (In professional wrestling, kayfabe refers to “reality, as it is being presented.”)
That is not the job of a motorsport broadcaster. We’re not supposed to be dealing with fake and/or scripted reality. Their job is to bring you the real action with the pictures to accompany it. Cover what you see and explain it properly. Don’t try to spin what you’re seeing off as something else.
That’s all for this week. With Easter complete, we have a busy weekend of racing. NASCAR has a tripleheader at Martinsville Speedway for all three of its national-level series. IndyCar will be in Long Beach for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on the undercard. Finally, the FIA World Endurance Championship travels to Portugal for six hours of racing in Portimao. TV listings can be found here.
We will have critiques of at least the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity series races at Richmond Raceway in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch.
If you have a gripe with me, or just want to say something about my critique, feel free to post in the comments below. Even though I can’t always respond, I do read your comments. 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.
As always, if you choose to contact a 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 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.