NBC cannot seem to buy a break so far this season.
Four weeks into its half of the schedule and it hasn’t had a race that wasn’t affected by rain.
This past weekend was one of NBC Sports’ jewel events, the Grant Park 165. After last year’s rain and darkness, NASCAR incorrectly chose to shorten the race from 220 miles (100 laps) to 165 miles (75 laps). Of course, then it rained again. Even an earlier start didn’t help anything as the race had to be shortened due to darkness again. Weak.
That said, NASCAR was proactive this time. It knew how long it had to race and communicated that ahead of time to the teams so it didn’t look like it was just winging it. NBC Sports took that information and spent a significant amount of time explaining just what was going to happen starting more than three hours in advance. At that time, it didn’t seem like it was going to come into play, but of course it did. I’m happy that NBC took the time.
Much like at Nashville Superspeedway last week, Countdown to Green started roughly 15 minutes early after the NTT IndyCar Series coverage from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course wrapped up. Compared to what we’re used to, this show was jam-packed with interviews. It was good to see.
There was also a piece about 23XI Racing’s new facility, Airspeed. That piece was repeated during the rain delay.
Going into the weekend, the thought was that it was going to be mostly dry. Clearly, that was not the case. It was already clouding up before the race and everyone was resigned to some precipitation. They weren’t expecting what we got.
It rained between the command to fire engines and the pace laps, forcing NASCAR to announce a change in climatic conditions, to use an FIA phrase, that allowed grid tire changes. Then, NASCAR allowed everyone to go backsies if they wanted to, all fully explained on NBC.
Those tire selections ended up being the major focus of the first part of the race broadcast. All but about seven cars started on slicks despite a damp track. For those selections, NBC chose to rely on its pit reporters for the most part. However, that is easily something that could have been displayed on the pylon with the different compounds at play. NBC did not do so until right before Corey LaJoie crashed. Had this been an IndyCar race, it would have been something that it wouldn’t have hesitated to do.
Once the race got underway, there was a good amount of racing for position. However, it was obvious just who was willing to be the most aggressive at the front. That man was Shane van Gisbergen. He was the only man willing to make moves entering turn 11. As you may remember from last year, that was the sketchiest part of the track and the last place to dry.
While much of the field was tip toeing around, van Gisbergen was trying to make hay. He eventually got the lead on lap 12 by splitting Ryan Preece.
The lapped traffic toward the end of the first stage was a little confusing. I think Rick Allen got it wrong with some of these drivers. He noted that a number of the drivers who were getting lapped were on rain tires. However, I’m reasonably confident that Joey Logano was at least on slicks after having stopped to switch under green.
Of the drivers that chose to start on rain tires, only Zane Smith was still on the lead lap in 27th place when LaJoie crashed. He then stayed out and took the lead for the restart. Honestly, I would have liked to see what those rain tires looked like when they were taken off of the cars that ran stage one on them. That did not happen on the broadcast.
LaJoie’s crash entering turn 5 came at the absolute worst possible time. NASCAR didn’t want to have stops affect the finishing order for the stage, so it kept everyone out there on slicks in the pouring rain until lap 21. That was completely ridiculous. I get what NASCAR is saying, but it created an unnecessarily dangerous situation for the sake of something that really shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Even though the running order was frozen on lap 17, we didn’t put out the stage results until everyone crossed the line since there was a high possibility that someone was going to wreck under yellow and possibly take others with them. That isn’t something that I’d want to deal with, but NASCAR forced this move.
NBC embedded itself with Tyler Reddick for stage 2, but you didn’t really get much out of it. Almost as soon as the green came back out, Chase Briscoe locked up and slid into the tires in turn 6, taking out van Gisbergen in the process.
During that caution, the rains picked up to the point where racing was impossible, resulting in a red flag. Viewers got plenty of interviews during the delay, at least 14 of them. Marty Snider did some interviews from Reddick’s pit box as part of the embedding, but that was really all viewers got from that.
The van Gisbergen crash robbed NBC of what was one of its biggest storylines for the day: van Gisbergen vs. Kyle Larson. The whole weekend was billed as being something along those lines. NBC got plenty of that on Saturday (July 6), especially early. Had Sunday been dry, you might have gotten more of that. It just wasn’t in the cards. The last thing anyone expected was for the two favorites to win to finish 39th and 40th.
Once the race resumed, there was plenty of strategy to explain. Everyone restarted on rain tires, but the question was when to switch. Christopher Bell did so a couple of laps before the end of stage 2. Others did during the stage caution. A group of five drivers got penalized for entering a closed pit under green. Then, you had Alex Bowman, who decided not to pit.
Different things were going on in the final laps on Sunday. NBC did a decent job covering some aspects of the race, but not so much others. For instance, Bell ended up hitting the wall exiting turn 2 on lap 55 as part of a stack up with teammate Martin Truex Jr. that collected Carson Hocevar. Bell drove away from the incident, but he ultimately failed to finish. No mention was made that he pulled off.
Brad Keselowski was third with three laps to go and finished 18th. I’m not sure what happened there. Perhaps his rain tires roasted themselves, but no context was provided.
Once again, the race ran over the scheduled time slot by a bunch. Unlike the broadcast from Nashville, viewers didn’t get a lot of post-race coverage this weekend. Viewers got interviews with Joey Hand and runner-up Tyler Reddick, along with a check of the points before NBC left Chicago to get to American Ninja Warrior.
I’m not really surprised at the lack of post-race coverage, given the situation. This race was on a holiday weekend and we’re getting into the summer TV season. Light fare, but shows that NBC wants to promote.
NBC had its Radio-style broadcast in play once again last weekend and it was very beneficial. With Dale Earnhardt Jr. taking a TV sabbatical in 2024, Dillon Welch was given his spot at turn 4. Welch did a good job of turn reporting along with Mike Bagley and Jeff Burton. Welch being in Chicago and Leigh Diffey being given the weekend off is likely why Charlie Kimball ended up as a pit reporter at Mid-Ohio.
The radio-style broadcast allows incidents to be reported on much more quickly. Otherwise, the broadcast would be more reliant on production. That said, NBC had 90 cameras on-site in Chicago last weekend, which is the highest camera count for a NASCAR broadcast that I’ve seen in quite a while. That is on the scale of some of the biggest ESPN NASCAR productions of the late 2000s.
Overall, I did enjoy much of the broadcast. I just wish NBC had some luck and could get through a NASCAR Cup Series weekend without a rain delay. The biggest struggles were likely toward the end of the race with everything going on. It simply couldn’t keep up. It had to be cognizant of those things. It’s tough, but it just had to.
That’s all for this week. Next week is a busy one. NASCAR has a tripleheader at Pocono Raceway for all three national-level series. INDYCAR has a doubleheader at Iowa Speedway. IMSA will be at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where LMP2 will be the headlining class. The FIA World Endurance Championship will be in Brazil as well. TV listings can be found here.
We will have critiques of the Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series critiques in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex will cover The Loop 110.
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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.