This past weekend marked a couple of firsts. For TNT, it marked its return to the NASCAR Cup Series for the first time since 2014. It was also the first major race weekend for the newly-rebranded EchoPark Speedway.
Of the NASCAR Cup Series’ four TV partners in 2025, we haven’t heard all that much about the Warner Bros. Discovery portion of the season. We know that it’s the same booth (Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte) as Amazon Prime Video had, but Warner Bros. has different pit reporters. Danielle Trotta traded in the stage for the pit lane, while Alan Cavanna is back on TV.
I’m happy to have Cavanna back on pit road. He was likely the best pit reporter that FOX Sports had a couple of years ago on NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series broadcasts, then he was unceremoniously dumped. That move hurt the Truck broadcasts to a certain degree.
Obviously, the big thing that was added for this portion of the season is the In-Season Challenge bracket competition. I’m not a fan of it because it comes off as a massive gimmick.
That said, I thought the competition was going to dominate the primary broadcast Saturday night. It did not.
Granted, The Big One happening on lap 69 and wiping out half the field likely changed TNT’s plans regarding the bracket. It completely decided a number of the matchups right then and there. As a result, there wasn’t all that much discussion of it during the race. I’m personally fine with that since it meant that the race itself took center stage.
Now, it’s still possible over the next four weeks that it could still happen, but it wasn’t that big of a thing Saturday night.
Speaking of The Big One, the coverage struck me as a little odd. There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm here compared to the rest of the race, which isn’t something that I would have expected.
Perhaps this was because it was so close to a restart that the announcers weren’t expecting it, but it struck me as particularly low-key. That said, they had this crash covered from every angle.
Ultimately, a quarter of the field was knocked out due to the crash. You heard from some of the drivers, such as Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Corey LaJoie, but not from everyone eliminated. You didn’t hear from William Byron, even though he was (and still is) the points leader.
With the brief rain delay and the wreck, the race reached the end of the scheduled timeslot with 70 laps to go.
Despite the race ending nearly an hour behind schedule, there was still plenty of post-race coverage. TNT (and TruTV) had a number of interviews and a good amount of post-race analysis.
NASCAR Nation Post-Race is trying to be a little bit like what Prime Video did, but not really. You have the stage there and they bring drivers onto it, but it’s a more locked-down type of show compared to what we’ve had for the past few weeks.
Overall, I enjoyed the broadcast. Having the continuity in the broadcast booth from Prime Video is helpful, but you also had a lot of action to cover Saturday night. There were a couple of issues. For instance, the in-car audio when Christopher Bell crashed didn’t match his car.
The pit graphics are a bit of a downgrade from Prime Video. You don’t get a visual reference of who stays out under yellows, which was absolutely welcomed.
I went into this race expecting TNT to use the pylon from the streaming in-car cameras on the broadcast. That did not come to pass. Instead, TNT used a revised version on the left side of the screen instead of the right. I think the broadcast worked a little on it after the Prime Video portion of the season began. I find it functional and it works. The older setup is still on the streaming in-cars.
I should state outright that if you choose to DVR races during the TNT portion of the season, watch what you’re selecting. There is a possibility that your DVR may not pick up NASCAR Nation Pre-Race or NASCAR Nation Post-Race on TNT. It might pick it up on TruTV. That won’t be an issue for pre-race coverage, but it can be for post-race coverage, especially if the race runs long since TruTV has the Altcast. The Altcast is the Altcast, but it’s not the regular broadcast.
There is also an issue at present when it comes to replaying the race broadcast (and the Altcast) on Max at the moment. You can’t do it. You can replay every in-car camera from Saturday night, but not the race itself, which is not great. There shouldn’t be anything in the TV deal that prevents Warner Bros. Discovery from putting race replays on Max. Prime Video has all its replays on its site right now.
That’s all for this week. Coming up this weekend will be NASCAR’s third trip to race on the streets of Downtown Chicago. This time, the start times have been moved up, which will hopefully allow the Cup race to go the full distance, something that hasn’t happened yet.
Outside of NASCAR, the NTT IndyCar Series will be at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, while Formula 1 will be at Silverstone. TV listings can be found here.
In next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch, we’ll cover TNT’s broadcast of the Grant Park 165. Perhaps it won’t rain this year and stretch it past nightfall. The Critic’s Annex will cover the LiUNA! 150 from Lime Rock Park for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, a race that I was at, along with tens of thousands of other people.
We’re also going to talk about the Altcast this week since there are interviews on that broadcast that didn’t make the primary one. For example, Dylan Smith conducted this interview on the wheel nut during the red flag.
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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.