Texas Motor Speedway has facilitated back and forth many times in its history.
At first, it was a travesty marked by several obvious deficiencies. Then, it got good. Then, it was repaved for a good reason (issues with drainage) and effectively ruined by PJ1.
Now, things might be starting to get better … when drivers don’t wreck due to bumps. Sunday’s (April 14) AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 started off clean, then turned into a wreckfest.
This was not the best hour (or hours) for FOX Sports. The trouble seemed to start early.
On the second lap of the race, there was some kind of stack up that started around where Ross Chastain was running. Do I know what happened there? Not really. All we have to go on is the booth talking about it and some aftermath. The root cause was never shown. Forty-five seconds into the race, and the broadcast team was already in trouble.
Later on, there was a fire in the pits.
You see the black smoke from the fire, but it’s almost like they ignored it. Thankfully, pit crews with leaf blowers put it out pretty quick, so no caution was thrown. This is another thing that should have been reported on more thoroughly when it happened. Watching this broadcast, you wouldn’t have had much of an idea of who caused it.
Later on, a shot was shown on the jumbotrons literally more than an hour later indicating that Ryan Blaney drove through some spilled fuel, setting it ablaze. However, it wasn’t Blaney’s fuel that caught fire (he hadn’t even taken any yet). It was Corey LaJoie’s. Apparently, the Spire Motorsports No. 7 team had some issues with spillage all day Sunday. It wasn’t broached on the broadcast, but I know for a fact that it was covered on PRN Radio.
The situation was made worse by the fact that it did negatively affect at least one driver in Ty Gibbs. The fire went through his pit stall, forcing him to delay his stop. That ultimately cost him track position.
Shortly before the fire, FOX Sports thought that it was a good time to de-emphasize the live coverage in favor of a piece where Michael Waltrip talked to Kyle Larson about his upcoming Indianapolis 500 adventures. I’m very happy that Larson is going to have at it at Indianapolis, and it seems like he’s adjusted well (he claimed after winning the Cup pole Saturday (April 13) that the Dallara DW18 at Indianapolis was somehow less sketchy than the Next Gen car in Texas). A good run at Indianapolis could very well elevate his stature in the sport and elevate dirt racing as a whole.
That said, lap 35 of the race is not where to show that. Especially since FOX Sports effectively missed the start of the first round of green-flag pit stops to show that. There’s a time and a place for features like that, and it’s not lap 35 of the race.
Later on, you had another instance where I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes. On lap 155, Kevin Harvick made a punny reference to Chastain’s crew chief Phil Surgen “surgically put [Chastain] into position to win the stage,” which Chastain ultimately did. However, this statement was followed by a long, uncomfortable silence.
This was bizarre to watch in real time. What followed was even more bonkers.
Harvick said, “Hello, hello, Clint,” to which Clint Bowyer quickly tried to claim that he was in complete agreement with Harvick and that he was speechless from Harvick’s wordplay. Then Harvick asked him what he did Saturday night. Apparently, Bowyer went to the Fort Worth Stockyards and had a great time. That led to Harvick accusing Bowyer of being hungover on live TV.
Naturally, Bowyer got defensive here. I don’t blame him. No one wants someone to accuse you of such actions while on the job. It’s rather unprofessional, to say the least. Then again, Harvick has spent a lot of time around Bowyer over the years. I feel like he’s probably seen Bowyer hung over in the past and knows what it looks like.
This was rough to watch, folks. Criminy, it was rough.
Let’s get a couple of things straight. I don’t know if Bowyer was hungover or not. I didn’t see him all weekend in Texas. If you have the time, it is OK to go to a bar and/or restaurant to enjoy yourself. I definitely did not have the time to do that in Texas.
That said, your fun cannot get in the way of your job. Even if Bowyer wasn’t hungover, just being accused of it is very bad.
That’s not all that is worth noting here. Tyler Reddick had a dominant car early in the final stage. However, he got burned by a terrible pit stop that cost him his entire lead over Denny Hamlin and then some. He then proceeded to run Hamlin back down like it was nothing.
That pass on-track was what amounted to a virtual pass for the lead since it happened before the round of stops ended. Viewers never saw this pass live on-air. FOX literally missed it. The booth acknowledged that fact as well.
Indeed, until the shenanigans picked up in the closing laps, the whole booth was truly off of their A-game. It’s like they just weren’t paying attention a lot. Just a bizarre broadcast to watch.
Also, Larry McReynolds butchered the name of Ryan Bergenty, crew chief on Todd Gilliland’s Long John Silver’s Ford as “Ron Burgundy,” the fictional San Diego-based news anchor from the Anchorman movies. McReynolds has since apologized (see below). Luckily, Bergenty took it in stride.
Post-race coverage was relatively brief since the 16 cautions pushed the race over the 7 p.m. ET sign-off time. Viewers only got to see interviews with race-winner Chase Elliott and runner-up Brad Keselowski before they left Texas to get to NHRA coverage from Las Vegas.
This was another instance of FOX Sports short-staffing their pit reporters.
Jamie Little was out there with Keselowski for what seemed like six minutes before she had the chance to interview him. Since TV gets priority in the bullpen over everyone else, the rest of the media literally had to sit and wait for her to finish. That is why you didn’t get an interview with William Byron on FOX’s post-race coverage.
Byron spoke to the assembled media on pit road for a little less than two minutes, then left. That’s why you didn’t get his side of the last-lap mess with Chastain on-air.
Of note, Keselowski talked about scoring a bit in his interview. At the time, NASCAR had scored him in third behind Byron, which technically would make not interviewing Byron even more of a mistake than it was. NASCAR only officially changed it something like 30 minutes after the race ended.
Sunday’s broadcast from Texas Motor Speedway will go down as one of the worst that FOX Sports has put out there in quite some time. The production continues to leave a lot to be desired. It’s putting decent workers in bad positions.
I get having to get out of Texas quickly due to the timeslot issues. I can’t do anything about the commercials. They are what they are.
However, we just cannot have situations like we had Sunday. It almost looked like a network in a lame-duck year mailing it in. We know for a fact that that is not the case because FOX has already re-upped as part of the new TV deal that starts next year.
Talladega Superspeedway is a great place to get back on-track. By NASCAR standards, the GEICO 500 is a pretty easy race to cover. Most of the field stays fairly close together, despite the fact that the Next Gen car has spread things out a little in recent years. If something happens, it’ll be fairly close to the front and easy to cover. The strategies rarely vary all that much, unlike Sunday.
Sunday’s race wasn’t the only problematic broadcast on-tap. Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series broadcast was interesting in its own right with Chastain in the booth, but they had their own problems there that we’ll cover later this week.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend is going to be quite busy. The NASCAR Cup Series will be at Talladega Superspeedway for its first visit of the year. It’ll be joined by the NASCAR Xfinity and the ARCA Menards series.
The NTT IndyCar has one of its crown jewel events, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. It’ll be joined by the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and GT America powered by AWS. The FIA World Endurance Championship will also be at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Italy. TV listings can be found here.
We will have a critique of the Cup and Xfinity race broadcasts from Talladega in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. In The Critic’s Annex, we’ll cover Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300.
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.
About the author
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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Let’s just say it bluntly – the Fox telecasts simply suck. The Texas race was a worst case example, so far, but Fox’s coverage has been bad for a long time. I was recording the race while flipping back and forth and missed or fast forwarded through some segments, but did notice a number of events Phil mentioned that were missed on camera. The business in the booth between Harvick and Boyer I missed, but overall you can’t lay this poor production on the booth guys. To paraphrase a bit – “it’s the producers and directors dummy” who are driving this train wreck of sports coverage. These individuals are nameless, but they collectively do a very poor job and have done for several seasons. Looking forward to NBC, Peacock, whatever.
THE CW NETWORK :)
NASCAR is becoming the joke that the Clowns made on all networks. It’s not so much that the booth aren’t doing their job. It’s Nascar has taken the coverage of the race away from the both and now everything said has to go thru Nascar first before reaching the public.
Both the race and the broadcast was a mess.
Never was a Harvick fan but I’d keep him and give him a chance to prove himself, lose Bowyer and Joy (it’s about time he retire) and bring in two new personalities (totally new as in, not presently a FOX employee). And while we’re cleaning house, HTF is Waltrip still around? Is there an army of fans that write to FOX praising him?
The mistake that was the worst was missing Reddick retaking the lead. I was watching the leader board while they were blathering on about something else and I noticed Reddick in front of Hamlin. I thought, “how come no one has mentioned that yet”? It seemed like a good amount of time between when I saw it and when they finally mentioned it. What could be more important than the lead of the race?
I agree about the dufus Waltrip. He must have something on the Fox management. Mike Joy is the best.
I like Mike Joy but he totally missed it and said Kesolowski wrecked Chastain at the end and Bowyer quickly said Byron.
The Waltrip crap (and I actually like the guy) is NASCAR trying to change to a Lifestyle event vs. a race to attract people who don’t bother to get a driver’s license. NASCAR was irrelevant to these people before and now they are making themselves irrelevant to race fans.
i’m beginning to think that bowyer doesn’t like having harvick in the booth. harvick comes off a lot more professional than bowyer and it was proven this weekend when harvick asked about bowyer’s saturday night activities. bowyer is still a party boy at heart. be interesting to see how the broadcast would be with just joy and harvick. all i know is i usually end up turning the volume down and just watching the race and if something happens on track or pits, i’ll turn the volume up to hear that. i’m trying to remember if in days gone buy when espn had the broadcast, if there was a buffoon in the booth. i can’t recall one.
Bob Jenkins and Benny Parsons! Two of the best. Benny was famous for spending all of his off-air time in the garage talking to the drivers and crew chiefs. When they called a race, it was all about the race and none of the other nonsense Fox seems to think we all care about.
Janice I agree with you, Bowyer doesn’t like Harvick in the booth. I’d be interested to see Harvick & Joy together
You think :)
Rock Bottom? That was a poor production, but I will see your missed shots and awkward silences and raise you one Digger. Fox obviously uses the DEI C team to produce these races, but I am enjoying Harvick in there. Didn’t like him on track after the early aughts, but have always liked him in the booth – he is a sharp analyst.
The blame isn’t all on the booth. Mike Joy is not only the best NASCAR broadcaster but is one of the BEST in all sports. He can only report what his director sends to him. The problem is in the technical team who miss what is going on. So there is where the problem lies.
Second, it will take some time for Kevin Harvick and Clint Boyer to develop chemistry. That takes time.
Post-race coverage is poor but that is dictated by network TV time constraints. It is one of the issues you face when you are on the “mother ship.” Ask CBS and Billy Joel going to local news and not showing Piano Man to completion.
Great article.
I have always liked Mike Joy. The one I really miss in the booth is Allen Bestwick.
Indeed, one of the best, along with the above-mentioned Bob Jenkins and Benny Parsons.
Saddest broadcast I’ve seen. Poor reporting.
I thought your comments about the broadcast were spot on.
Anyone who has been paying attention since Brian created his “product” realizes the networks have no intention to cover any actual racing. It is decided in the morning “product”ion meeting what the agenda is for the event. It includes as many commercials they can put out and highlighting the manufacturer who pays for the attention. Oh, right, and show the wrecks as much as possible!
The problem that I have seen when I have watched is that they only show certain drivers even if they are not running up front used to get to see what the rest of the field was doing and now just focus on a few drivers
Oddly enough, I guess a fire in the pits isn’t dramatic enough to get attention. lol
The subject never came up in the morning meeting.
Did you intend to use the word “vacillated” in your lead sentence?
It sure would make more sense than “facilitated” which actually makes no sense.
I blame the director and producer. It seems like they cue them to a particular area, like a bumper cam or in-car and just as Kevin and/or Clint start to explain what we are seeing the director cuts to something inane! Also, if the booth is going to talk technical stuff, please bring in Larry to explain it properly. I mean, I can’t blame Larry for not being excited to participate after that booth mess but he is there as the tech guy! He even has his own cutaway car!
Let’s put it bluntly. Racing TV coverage as a whole is terribly bad. Mike Joy a Squire wanna be with our the vocabulary. Lee Diffey at NBC not any better. The best solution for NASCAR turn down the volume and turn on MRN. Theonly reason I would have cable or would stream any thing is racing. It’s not worth it. Oh for the days of Squire, Economaki, Jarret, Bob Jenkins etc.
I have found Fox coverage of the NASCAR races very disappointing. They break away for commercials when they could go side by side. Something happens on track and you may never hear about it. Very poor camera views and angles. The producer should be replaced.
Texas was by far the worst covered race so far this year. Why did they need a hour and a half of prerace coverage. Most of that was junk.
As for the boys in the booth I think there is a lot of animosity between Harvick and Bowyer. Never been a fan of Bowyer anyway. Not sure what is going on with Mike Joy.
Can only hope Talladega will be better.
Lastly not a fan of the new Gen car. The races just seem boring. An the so called best drivers in the world can’t make it thru a restart without running over one another. Then the drivers don’t have to fix the cars so what do they care if they wreck them!
Maybe Bowyer should ask Harvick about making a right turn in the Talladega tri-oval while your car is running on 6-7 cylinders, deliberately causing a wreck so you can advance in the playoffs.
Yes. Someone should bring that up every time we visit Talladega while Harvick is in the booth. That is a major reason I don’t like him as a person.
That, and the time at Texas when he shoved Brad K from behind into Jeff Gordon to start the scuffle on pit road are the 2 main reasons that I don’t care for Harvick.
Also Fox was not keeping the leader board correct. I don’t remember what driver it was, but they said he was in 14th place and he was in 11th or 12th. That was the worst broadcast I’ve ever seen.
I must admit to being a NASCAR fan before it was on live TV. I have seen and heard many different announcers through the years. I would describe the current FOX team IMO, Mike Joy is very good at his job with facts, figures and history. Boyer is the goofy color commentator, and Harvick should be the more cerebral information guy. Unfortunately the Harvick/Boyer banter is all we get. The majority of their interaction is distracting, demeaning, and has NOTHING to do with the day’s race. Every week, the same nonsense, really? Harvick starts it, somehow Boyer puts up with it…
In the past I could have the TV on while working in my garage, and when I couldnt see the screen the announcers would describe the happenings of the race in a way that I didnt miss anything. Not these days.
Someone in the booth needs to tell us about the race in detail, thats all we want to hear. I’m afraid if Harvick cant do that… he needs to go.
Kurt, I agree. I often “watched” the race by just listening but not anymore. When the broadcast annoyed me enough (and I was plenty annoyed with Darrell in the booth – add in Mikey and I was gone baby gone), I used to go to the MRN/PRN feed and listen to that. Not sure if that is something still available via computer or app these days because I don’t have the bandwidth or interest to chase it down. Harvick has always been the guy with the smart mouth and he’s definitely quicker on things then Bowyer but then again, I’m not a fan of Bowyer’s so I may just be biased.
I was wondering when someone was going to notice the clear signs of a hangover that Boyer has exhibited at some of the races for sometime now. Anyone who has lived with an alcoholic knows when the person you are looking at is still living last nights party in their actions , eyes and breath.
If the rest of the audience didn’t see this hangover slip happening sooner than later and I thought it would end up much worse on air than it did.
But an alcoholic will keep drinking even when facing losing their family or job. They can’t stop themselves. That is until the house of lies comes tumbling down around them and the only recourse is rehab. SAD!
Things were off to a terrible start when, on lap two, they were showing the 2 and 23 battle for 8th and 12th somehow based on the graphics. For a brief moment, 12th was higher than 8th in the running order. On lap four, the 34 and the 19 were battling each other for 9th and 14th on the overlay graphics, with 14th ahead of 9th at first. On the leaderboard, they were battling for 10th, not 9th. That was followed shortly after with the 9 and the 7 being shown together, in 22nd and 24th. The graphics were part of the Fox broadcast and replay, but not in the Youtube version.
As others have alluded to, the problem is likely in the control room, and maybe above them. That explains the bizarre decisions on when to insert pre-taped stuff, and not covering other things. It might explain some of the strange exchanges between Bowyer and Harvick. I think they like each other personally. I take their banter as busting chops, but it doesn’t work in that setting. Is it their idea? Is it improv? I doubt it. As broken as Fox’s coverage is, it’s still heavily produced and managed and I doubt they have that much freedom in the booth. Perhaps some exec thought it would be a good idea to have Harvick and Bowyer clown each other. And we see why that’s a bad idea. I like when they relive old race memories, and since Harvick and Bowyer were teammates for a bit, they have an advantage there. You hear people say less is more. I think that applies here. The main thing is to cover the race as much as possible. They’ve gotten away from that too much.
Ya. You are right. I had some issues with the broadcast. They do such a terrible job at explaining things or showing passing. I recall a moment in the xfinity race the day before, Lap 10. They literally broke away from Herbst passing Love while Joey was explaining aero loose to go the commercial. Just to came back from commercial under caution because Daniel Dry wreck because that same situation happen to him. Even Joey mention it. I also enjoy Ross because you can tell Ross wasn’t looking at the camera.
The wave around procedure like they literally couldn’t point out the first car on the lead lap that didn’t pit or pitted and show the cars in front to show us who is getting their lap back. Also at one point they said 19 cars on the lead lap when there was actually 32. It was so bad. Also every week we get a Bowyer and Harvick jab at each other. It like in their contact. Like I don’t care about those guys at all. I rather have analyst that can explain what is going or a crew chief (felt like Larry Mac was absent most of the race) like when Larson tire fall off the wheel. That explanation by Mike Joy was so bad.
I don’t understand why Nascar or whoever thinks looking at the TV screen and not the track is good for coverage.
I don’t need 5 cameras on the first 3 cars. Time and time again they will cut away from a passed to show a leader or cut away from action to do a feature. They have race hub, pre race, post race, even stages if they weren’t money hungry for all their features. I want to see the racing.
I am so disappointed that Fox renews. I keep getting to watch the Commerical 500 each season opener instead of the Daytona 500.
Totally agree with everything you said. Keep up the good work!
I totally agree with Fox dropping the ball in Texas, terrible coverage and lagging behind and not giving us race fans the whole story!
I think it is bull everything is o. Fs1 instead of normal tv where I don’t have to pay outrageous prices for not good coverage. Have they noticed the price of inflation people can not afford to go to the track and not being priced out of watching it on TV.
Hey nascar,nhra get a f’n clue you will cause the downfall of these sports and even get me started on ev cars sights sounds a smells and prices brought people into it and now they are driving them away at Mach 5 SMARTEN UP PEOPLE¡!!!¡!!!!!¡!!¡!!!!
Phil, I’m glad I read your recap of the shortcomings of the FOX broadcast. I agreed with your take. However, I almost didn’t given the glaring error in your first paragraph adding a, who are you to complain, perspective for the reader. You stated that Texas Motor Speedway has “facilitated” over recent years when you seemed to mean vascillated. I don’t know if this was poor word choice or relying on autocorrect to fill in for you when you are the one doing the writing.
I personally miss Alan Bestwick. He seemed to keep the booth of announcers happy and provide great race coverage.
Would be better if they would spend more time on what is going on with the race than jawing and being comedians .Missed a lot of action on that race.
When will Fox get rid of that poor excuse of a broadcaster Mike Joy.Didn’t they have enough of his blatant incompetence last year? My God cut him off at the knees and move on! A pet rock has more brains than that idiot.
Interesting about the Bowyer/Harvick perceived situation. From what I remember we were always told they were friends off the track and their families were too. Interesting. Kevin Harvick is pric$%& and cannot seem to help himself with his big mouth, no matter what or when.
I really enjoy Kevin and Clint in the booth. Their banter is hilarious. Who cares if Clint is hungover, I mean NASCAR was founded on booze!
They are much better than NBC. Dale was an absolute snooze fest. Definitely fast forwarded or watched on mute.
I am a little apprehensive about the CW broadcasts also. I mean are we gunna have Buffy the Vampire Slayer calling races.
In my opinion FOX still has the best race coverage.
Michael Waltrip should have been banned from NASCAR. He embarrassed Toyota, Red Bull, and of course himself. Cheatin’ POS.
The fire was nothing. They had a fire extinguisher out there but they waived him off because the fuel burns off rather fast. No issues.
I can put up with Waltrip, His family has history in NASCAR, Bowyer is a lot better than I thought he would be. Mike Joy is a living legend. However, Harvick is annoying to me. All he ever does is throws jabs at Bowyer. It was like when the Busch Brother called an Xfinity race a couple years ago. Banter is one thing, but just picking on him all race is not just annoying, but shows that Harvick is just a Bully!
There have been many uncomfortable silences in the booth since they put ‘king harvick’ in there. Please remove him.
Much ado about nothing. I like the three and their anecdotal way if bringing the race to me. It’s informative and funny. They just do the talking. They don’t produce or direct so not their fault some things get missed. And if it bugs you how Bowyer and Harvick interact don’t watch. Like you said they know each other. You don’t know them. Just because you’re uncomfortable doesn’t mean a thing. I like the way they interact. Sounds like instead of writing garbage you missed your calling as a Director or commentator. It’s NASCAR. Not golf.
Nascar is so difficult to watch live, its a 3-4 hour commercial with breaks to see cars go fast before the next TV commercial break, this is usually when any ‘ACTION or strategy ” is missed live. Interesting question…how many find themselves changing channels and watching something of no interest like golf or baseball? No offense to either sport but NASCAR is a great promoter of other sports having so many breaks, TV commercials, yellow flags, side by side breaks a break before a break or the famous “live to the end” break. It’s sometimes difficult to watch taped because it seems so cut up and disconnected.
Amazing how F1 will have no passing and little racing but is so engaging without commercials? The announcers actually have meaningful dialogs and talk to you not at you.
Calling anything F1 “ engaging” is a stretch, especially the so called racing.
I hate the current F1 broadcast team, they get hyperventilating over any little nuances. But when there is so little passing for the lead they have no. Joined, I guess.
Harvick is better than I thought he would be, Joy is always full of , sometimes, useless, info, and Boyer is staring out the window looking for the beer wagon. YES .. missing days of Bob, Benny and Ned, but even they might not be able to save the broadcast from some of what we’ve been subject to the past few years. The COT, now this mess of a car, or so it seems.
But compared to that F1 stuff, at least they pass for the lead more than 10 times a year.
And freaking out about that itty bitty fire??? Really.. aren’t we better than that?
Spell check.. “ no choice” … apologies
Wow. Just, wow. You really need an editor. And if you have one, he’s fired. Like. For. Real.
So I have been a fan of NASCAR since the early 70s watching Richard Petty dominate. The sport has changed so much in a bad way that I don’t even make time to watch it anymore. The car are all alike with different stickers ( not STOCK car racing). I believe both NASCAR and Manufacturers need to get back to their roots with f racing. Definitely believe in improving safety requirements. But like the short track racing is about to die along with the nascar fans. It’s a shame.
Totally agree with you! As an avid longgg time NASCAR fan, the coverage is awful, too much talking about “other” stuff.. want to see the race and all aspects going on! All the “fluff” stuff should be some other time.., in their documentaries etc! I also don’t really like the road races etc… I like the old NASCAR!
The coverage always seems “ late” on the actual happenings!
Come on FOX. You can do better!