Texas Motor Speedway has become something of a mess in the past 10 years.
Up until 2016, the track provided decent racing after a couple of terrible years at the very beginning. Then, a drainage crisis led the track to replace their 18-year-old surface, along with a reconfiguration of turns 1 and 2. Then, the decision was made to douse much of the track in PJ1 TrackBite to try to widen the groove.
It seemed to work okay at first, but they continued to use the solution for years. As a result, the natural groove widening never really occurred. When you hear TMS described these days, it’s usually with terms used for recent repaves.
To be honest, it kind of raced like a new repave, only with a jarring bump that would pick your wheels off the ground in turn 4 if you weren’t careful. Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer did a good job explaining that issue. Of course, Chase Briscoe, and especially Josh Berry, ended up getting burned by it.
All the time, I read on social media about how fans think that no one can pass at certain tracks, but then NASCAR’s own Loop Data disproves the notion. Sunday was an exception to that rule.
Passing was down Sunday by 44.2% over last year’s race. In addition, the number of caution laps was all but equal to last year (despite four more caution periods, there was only one more lap behind the pace car in last year’s race). As a result, cautions cannot be used as an excuse.
Honestly, I’m really not sure what led to such a drop in passing Sunday. There really haven’t been any major rule changes for intermediate tracks that would explain that level of a drop. The only explanation I could give is that it was cooler Sunday, but it wasn’t by that much.
The dearth of passing meant that Sunday’s broadcast on FOX Sports 1 saw decent stretches where there wasn’t all that much going on, especially early in the race. You would have a single-file stretch of cars that weren’t really battling with one another. That can be rather tricky to cover. It’s not like rain delays, but they did have to dig to a certain extent to try to make the race seem more exciting.
There was some action for position, but not all that much. FOX Sports did what they could to make the race look exciting. There are other strategies that could be used to supplement the broadcast in this situation. For example, FOX Sports could focus on drivers that were showing big gains early on. They didn’t do much of this. They gave some exposure to Joey Logano, who started 27th and had made some early moves. Granted, he was a far cry from where he ended the day.
A lack of coverage of some of these drivers resulted in a scenario where a number of the top drivers at the end of the race (Logano, Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, Erik Jones, etc.) really hadn’t gotten much coverage all day. It seemed like they all showed up out of nowhere. That’s not a good look.
Then, they started wrecking.
The wrecking and the pit strategies that came out of it resulted in a very different and much more interesting event. Michael McDowell’s quest to win with an alternate pit strategy was very interesting. As you all know, that didn’t work out all that well for him.
Post-race coverage was fairly brief since the race ran long. Despite that, viewers got interviews with the top-five finishers before leaving Texas.
Now, the way they went about getting those interviews was not courteous. Effectively, Regan Smith cut off the assembled media at the bullpen in order to get his interviews. Having been in post-race bullpens myself, the TV partners get priority there and are fully allowed to break up existing interviews to do theirs. I cannot recall seeing the interviews done like they were Sunday, though. Such a setup can create animosity between the different parties.
The broadcast was a little weird at times. For instance, there was a point during the race Sunday in which Chris Myers and Jamie McMurray were doing a live shot while McMurray was bottle-feeding a baby kangaroo. It should be noted that this was the same group that appeared on Tailgate Kings during NASCAR RaceDay, but it seemed really strange that this was taking place during the race.
There were some small things that came out of the broadcast that need to be highlights. For example, after the nightmare that was the end of the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway, FOX Sports broke out their computer technology in order to show how McDowell was able to retain the lead after a caution came out. Apparently, he beat Blaney to the last timing line before the yellow flew by one-thousandth of a second.
Seeing that makes me wonder if that computer technology is considered to be a shared resource in NASCAR race production. For example, in-car cameras are considered to be a shared resource, primarily because that’s all done by a third-party company, BSI.
If the computer technology that allows viewers to see who crosses a timing line, and when, is officially shared tech, then it could conceivably be used by the other TV partners for the NASCAR Cup Series and possibly The CW for the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Had we had it at Talladega (granted, under a different context, since it’s video evidence for the final lap), we would have had a more definitive idea of who was ahead when the yellow flew. Jeb Burton would have had more information when he did his interview.
Another minor thing to note is that FOX Sports showed the entire field taking the checkered flag Sunday. That was nice to see. It’s become a rarity these days as the network likes to show the crew celebrations instead.
The lack of racing for position hurt the broadcast Sunday, but that wasn’t FOX Sports’ fault. I don’t think anyone expected that. They did what they could and did well at times. Unfortunately, the result was mediocre.
I will say this for sure. It was better than last year’s broadcast from Texas. That was an outright travesty.
That’s all for this week. Coming up this weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will make their first visit of the year to Kansas Speedway. They’ll be joined by the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series. Meanwhile, the NTT IndyCar Series will race on the infield road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IMSA will be at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. TV listings can be found here.
In next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch, we’ll have a critique of the AdventHealth 400 broadcast on FS1 and anything else that tickles my fancy. In the Critic’s Annex, we’ll cover Friday night’s SpeedyCash.com 250 for the Craftsman Truck Series.
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.