When Talladega Superspeedway comes up on the schedule, I get nervous.
As we all know, the 2.66-mile tri-oval in the middle of Alabama has a history of heck going down there. The recent issues with flipping cars had me a bit on edge.
Thankfully, no one ended up on their head this past weekend. That made me happy. That said, there are some issues coming out of Talladega that are going to have to be addressed.
Sunday’s (Oct. 6) YellaWood 500 will probably be best remembered for the huge crash on lap 184 on the backstretch when Brad Keselowski hit leader Austin Cindric and spun him out. Chaos ensued.
Criminy.
Looking at this crash and the sheer number of stranded cars after everything came to a head, you’d be surprised to find out that only seven cars of the 28 were eliminated in the crash.
Many more than just seven cars were stranded afterward. A number of cars were outright towed back to the pits, then continued after repairs. The thought was that such a move wasn’t allowed under the Damaged Vehicle Policy. Basically, NASCAR created a nightmare with its decisions.
Amy Henderson wrote about the issue in Monday’s edition of Big 6. There, she argues that perhaps the DVP should be a thing of the past.
It’s gotten exponentially worse since the Next Gen car was instituted in 2022 with the well-known issues with flat tires and dumb stuff happening on a near-weekly basis. It’s embarrassing to the sport at this point. I do not doubt that NASCAR doesn’t want to have Josh Berry ranting about this situation back-to-back weeks.
In regards to the coverage of this issue, the broadcast booth knew that the towing issue was controversial from the start. For example, Chase Briscoe’s crew chief Richard Boswell was on the radio stating that the series director told him that he could get a push and to prevent the safety crew from lowering his window net. Yes, Briscoe stayed in the race, but he lost six laps trying to get back to the pits.
Given how wild the racing was on Sunday, the idea that something huge was going to go down wasn’t surprising. So, the booth wasn’t really surprised that it happened.
However, that’s been the case at Talladega for decades. Take ABC’s coverage of the Big One in the 2000 DieHard 500 for example.
It should be noted that the Big One in 2000 wasn’t as much of a foregone conclusion as it is these days at Talladega. Drivers weren’t as aggressive back then as they are now (you could argue that Dale Earnhardt was, which is why he won so many of those races).
Superspeedway races in the past couple of years have seen instances of the entire pack slowing intentionally to save fuel. You saw some of that Sunday as well. It wasn’t really discussed all that much, but it happened. The solution to that was a lot of the four-wide racing that you saw, especially in stage one. The booth did inform the viewers when the field kicked it up a notch.
At a superspeedway, you don’t really have to make note of covering battles for positions as you do at other tracks. Effectively, the entire race is one long battle for a position that everyone can see.
What I want to know about are drivers who are in trouble. For instance, Denny Hamlin lost the draft late in the race Sunday while dealing with the damage from when he was involved in the Ryan Blaney–Ross Chastain crash at the end of stage 2.
Another notable driver who lost the draft was Ty Gibbs. Not sure how he ended up in that situation, to be honest. Ultimately, both drivers got bailed out by the Big One and finished 10th and 13th, respectively. I would have liked to see some coverage of how certain drivers lost the draft.
Remember that it’s much easier to lose the draft in the Next Gen car than it was with the Gen 6.
There is something that must be noted here.
Yes, we’re aware that the start-finish line is beyond the tri-oval down towards turn 1 at Talladega. We’re not dumb. It’s been there since the track was built, reportedly at the insistence of Bill France so that he could sell more seats down there.
Please don’t remind the viewers about that fact 20 times a broadcast. It’s completely unnecessary and annoying.
With Leigh Diffey in the booth, you don’t have to worry about anyone being up for a race. Sunday was no different. He was game for a good show and we got that mentality for the entire race.
The broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday made prodigious use of aerial shots to show the movement within the pack. Sometimes, it worked out great. Sometimes, not so much. With the Big One, NBC was using the aerial shot when it happened and it got a little too far behind Cindric while following Todd Gilliland, who was being lapped.
In the replay above, the booth talked about how the pack got stacked up, allowing Cindric to open up a gap. Unfortunately, the camera didn’t quite capture what led to the stack up. Gilliland appeared to be far enough out of the way that he wouldn’t have caused it.
The red flag and long caution in the closing laps meant that the race went over the time slot. As a result, viewers only got to hear from race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and had a quick check of the points before leaving for the news. Oh, and Stenhouse climbing the fence to the top, straddling it, then hopping to the flagstand. Jeepers, that was scary to watch.
Overall, I enjoyed the broadcast. Knowing that no one ended up flipping this weekend and everyone walked away made me happy. I have a couple of gripes as listed above. Arguments about inclusivity don’t work in superspeedway races since everyone is there, but they do need to watch themselves and not get too caught up in playoff storylines.
The point checks for the playoffs were on the pylon for the entire race on Sunday, which I found to be somewhat annoying. Granted, the Big One did cause big chances at the end of the race. I would have preferred that those checks were less onerous.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend, NASCAR has a home game as the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series will tackle the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. However, big changes have been made to the layout. In addition, the IMSA season wraps up with the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. TV listings can be found here.
We’ll look into NBC’s broadcast of the Bank of America ROVAL 400k in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex will look at Saturday’s broadcast of the United Rentals 250, which was a rather glitchy time.
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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.
Insisting on showing the points for such extended periods of time leave viewers with no way of keeping track of what is actually happening on the track.
since it’s totally irrelevant until the end of the race, an occasional BRIEF showing of the points would be more than sufficient.
I agree on the overblown emphasis on points. Hate the points as they run. No one cares. It doesn’t as sb said until the race is finished. Let people enjoy the race instead of hype
Show the points at the end of the event. Tease the viewers who care!
Keep the points off the screen. And I know he’s a good motorsports broadcaster – but Diffey’s accent isn’t NASCAR style. Get someone else, NBC.
Agree totally on both points. I don’t need the points jammed in my face all race long, just a brief update every 100 laps is good.
Also agree with the Diffey comment. I know he’s been an American citizen for 10 years , but for the love of Pete, can’t we get an American VOICE !! It IS a good ole USA sport, so quit trying to be cute , cutting edge, or whatever crap your trying to sell the AMERICAN public. And he tries way, way to hard to sound informed, enthusiastic and relevant.
Please send him back to Indy / sports cars… but they are probably glad he’s gone… and the way he says “ Maaazda” has driven me nuts for 10 plus years. He is no Bob Jenkins. RIP Mr. Jenkins…..
Careful, we may get DW back.
Or Mikey. Pick your poison.
BOOGITY! BOOGITY! BOOGITY!
Like choosing between being shot or stabbed!
How about the missing required speedway pieces from the 17 and 6? They shouldn’t have been allowed on the track if the rood rail and side skirt was missing. What if they were turned sideways and flipped? When did they become ‘missing’? What aero advantage did that give them?
Must be a parity thing…