Talladega Superspeedway. It always makes my stomach churn when you know that you’re going to have 40 NASCAR Cup Series cars running inches away from each other for 500 miles.
Unlike other tracks, having the playoffs in play really doesn’t change a Talladega broadcast all that much. Most everyone’s bunched up together, so it’s easier to cover non-playoff drivers.
Compared to recent races, there was a lot more interviewing going on during Countdown to Green. Viewers got a half-dozen interviews on that show. Remember that this isn’t a very long show these days.
In addition, there was a piece where Denny Hamlin talked about taking his 60th career victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and where it puts him among the all-time greats in the sport. More or less, this is an extension of the post-race interview he did in Las Vegas, where he took a reflective tone.
Hamlin is the winningest driver in Cup history without a championship. While I have no doubt that Hamlin has thought about his place in the sport’s history privately, this is the first time he’s really talked about it publicly. He’s mostly been busy with his race team and acting like a wrestling heel at times.
That said, this was an interesting look at Hamlin’s standing in the sport. I think it’s very humanizing for Hamlin, especially given that his father has been having health issues. Heel behavior aside, you’ve been seeing a different Hamlin recently and that piece was an extension of that.
Sunday (Oct. 19) also brought the Cup Series back to NBC for the first time since at Daytona International Speedway in August. Going forward, the split of races on broadcast TV as compared to cable, along with race start times, will need to be addressed. I do not doubt that the ratings drop since NBC Sports returned in June is not acceptable.
That said, NBC’s return broadcast brought additional in-car cameras and the broadcast made use of them. Viewers got a lot of that coverage, especially from the bumper cams. Too much of that for my taste since you can’t really see much from them in the draft. That said, they weren’t sticking to bumper cams when the bumpers were locked together, which really doesn’t work well.
Prior to the NBC Sports portion of the season, NBC announced that it would only use NonStop breaks during green-flag action at superspeedways. It stayed true to its word on Sunday. The only time you saw full-screen commercials once the race went green was during cautions.
Race coverage was pretty easy to follow. After all, it is a superspeedway race. Outside of the pit stop sequences, almost everyone ran together.
The playoffs played a significant role in the broadcast, even though next to nothing really changed with it for much of the race. Chase Briscoe won and scored an automatic bid to the Championship 4. Other than that, the only time that there was a lot of movement was when William Byron and Kyle Larson had their issues on the final lap.
I found it quite interesting that we had as many issues with fuel on Sunday, knowing that everyone was able to stop with 20 laps to go for fuel after Cody Ware’s engine blew. It appears that drafting partners were so important on Sunday in a race with 77 lead changes that teams were willing to completely compromise their day just to stick with their teammate.
As a result, Chris Buescher’s crash into the inside wall on the backstretch completely changed the game since a number of drivers were forced to pit for fuel because they didn’t have enough for extra laps. This was a terrible strategy. It’s like they forgot that, dating back to 2010, 14 of 31 Cup races at Talladega went over the scheduled distance. They need to build that into any strategy.
To its credit, NBC Sports was all over this. With Talladega having a high risk of shenanigans, the chances of the race going beyond lap 188 were realistic. Ryan Blaney’s stop was 2.7 seconds under the Ware caution. Not much more than a splash of fuel. I feel like weight isn’t really a concern here. Team Penske would have been much better off waiting an extra second or so, knowing that you would probably get the positions back.
Post-race coverage for those watching on NBC was relatively brief. Viewers got an interview with Briscoe and a check of the points before leaving for the local news. Luckily, we had Peacock this week. On the expanded coverage, there were additional interviews and analysis from the Peacock pit box.
However, all of these interviews were with playoff drivers. If you saw the results of Sunday’s YellaWood 500, you’d notice that, other than Briscoe, none of the drivers who finished in the top five were in the playoffs. Todd Gilliland, who finished second and was right up in the hunt for seemingly the entire second half of the race, got nothing. At least we gave him his proper due.
That’s not right. The playoffs aren’t everything. As we know now, you have two drivers locked into, two of them in what could be a death struggle, and four others who have to win to advance. There really isn’t that much of a story there, at least not for Martinsville Speedway. You could play it straight.
In the case of Gilliland, he is a good story. Ty Gibbs ran well Sunday and deserved his due. Bubba Wallace was a half a lap from winning the race. Then, you have Cole Custer, who’s done next to nothing all year, but earned his second straight superspeedway top five. There are stories there, but NBC didn’t cover them.
Overall, this was a good race to watch on Sunday. Knowing that this is a superspeedway race, there was too much focus on the playoffs, especially after the race. I didn’t need to have constant point checks. That makes it very difficult to make any real use of the pylon to check positions unless the driver you were looking for was in the top 10.
The playoff focus also reinforces the “means to an end” nature of races that drives me nuts. Five hundred miles at Talladega means something to a lot of people. It’s more than just a way to get into the Championship 4. The sooner NBC Sports realizes that, the better.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend is another busy one. NASCAR will host a quintuple-header this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. The weekend will determine who will be in the Championship 4. In addition to the Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Whelen Modified Tour and Whelen MX-5 Cup will also wrap up their seasons on the paperclip. Formula 1 is making the 900-mile haul from Austin to make its annual visit to Mexico as well. TV listings can be found here.
Next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch will cover the Xfinity 500 for the Cup Series. The Critic’s Annex will cover the Love’s RV Stop 225 at Talladega for the Craftsman Truck Series. Over-the-air TV puts a lot more eyes on the Truck Series, for better or worse, even with a terrible time slot.
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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.