Welcome back to my 18th year critiquing race broadcasts here at Frontstretch. Crikey. We’ve come a long way from talking about the oversaturation of FOX’s Digger here.
For 2026, changes to the on-air talent on FOX’s NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts is pretty much non-existent. We will have the same broadcast booth (Mike Joy, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer) for the FOX portion of the season with Jamie Little, Josh Sims and Regan Smith back in the pits.
The changes will start from there. Little will be back on play-by-play for NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races in 2026, but she won’t do all the races. For races that Little does not work in the booth, either Eric Brennan or Brent Stover will be on play-by-play for those events.
Brennan is best known for his work with the zMAX CARS Tour for FloRacing, which resulted in a little work for FOX Sports 1 last year at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Stover has served as the play-by-play commentator for some of the ARCA races on short tracks (Ex: Berlin Raceway, Elko Speedway, etc.) the past couple of years. Brennan and Stover will also share play-by-play responsibilities on ARCA broadcasts for the full season as Little is not currently scheduled to return there.
Generally, I’ve enjoyed the work of both Brennan and Stover over the past couple of years. They’ll do a good job.
FOX Sports announced these changes in a press release on its FOX Sports Press Pass website. However, that article has been edited since then to remove almost everything except for the schedule.
As far as on-screen changes, during an episode of On-Track on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Larry McReynolds indicated that a new graphics package will debut this year for FOX’s NASCAR races. A listener posted about it on the r/NASCAR Reddit page back in January. Alan Cavanna took a screenshot of that post and put it on his social media.
I’m not really sure what that’s going to look like. However, FOX Sports had Super Bowl LIX last year and debuted its current NFL graphics there. This is an example of what is currently used on NFL coverage:
Now, a NASCAR broadcast is going to require a lot more things on the screen at any given time. Is it possible that the information gets moved to the bottom of the screen? Not out of the realm of possibility. After all, The CW does that for its coverage of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and that was generally accepted last year.
I’m looking forward to what that will look like. We’ll find out later this week.
Now, last week’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium? That broadcast did not have any new elements. It used the previous graphics that FOX Sports has used for NASCAR over the past few years except for the removal of the cartoon driver headshots.
The snowstorm that hit Winston-Salem apparently turned the event into an 11-day show (according to Mike Joy) for FOX Sports as the production crews turned up in the Piedmont Triad right about the time that the Rolex 24 at Daytona ended to set things up. Even without the snowstorm, it would have been debatable to get the show in as originally scheduled due to a lack of road salt and the inability to get rid of ice on local roads.
Pre-race for the Last Chance Qualifier was nonexistent. The cars were already on their pace laps when the broadcast got underway.
The big story here was Michael McDowell jumping the start. Harvick was all over this from the beginning. You can’t beat the leader through the restart zone at the start of the race. It cost him a spot in the main as he had a very quick No. 71 Chevrolet, but he only got back up to an 11th-place finish, one lap down.
The decision to take a full-screen commercial break during the LCQ was not exactly welcome. That did not happen at all during the 200-lap main. Then again, the green-flag runs were so short that they couldn’t have taken such a break after lap 40.
That said there was some decent racing to be had. Shame that this race happened so early in the evening that not many people got a chance to see it.
Speaking of the Clash, the 200-lap race will be best remembered for adverse weather, an excessive amount of wrecking, and the whole race being moved to FOX Sports 2 with 36 laps to go.
That’s rough. It appears that 499,000 viewers made the move over to FS2 with the race, which is a substantial number for the channel. Regardless, that is an apparent 79% audience loss for the race, according to Nielsen ratings published on Programming Insider just by changing the channel.
Why was the move made? The sleet and rain that showed up in Winston-Salem at the halfway point and the cavalcade of wrecking that followed resulted in the race running long by more than 90 minutes. FOX likely envisioned the race being done by 7:45 p.m. ET so that it could have some post-race coverage before leaving Winston-Salem to bring viewers The Masked Singer. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
It’s actually quite interesting to note that the ratings data indicated that viewership for The Masked Singer was below that of the race before it switched networks.
The wrecking that followed in the wet seemingly exasperated the booth and likely almost everyone in attendance. It took forever for the race to get in. With the caution laps not counting, teams started running out of fuel because by lap 150, they’d already run 275 laps.
In the future, NASCAR may need to institute new rules regarding how caution laps are counted in the Clash. A system similar to the Super DIRTcar Series where caution laps do not count in the final quarter of the race might be best here. Historically, NASCAR seems to struggle to get something like this right (Ex: The Truck races at Eldora Speedway where all caution laps counted and the crowd booed those laps counting off late in the event).
All those extra laps led to cars running out of fuel, most notably Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, something that was thought to be impossible. Eventually, NASCAR let everyone refuel, which angered a lot of people.
The level of wrecking led the broadcast booth to become frustrated, which is never good. Perhaps NASCAR should have waited a little longer before restarting the race since that was a legitimate full wet situation and NASCAR really hadn’t used the wet tires in a full wet situation on an oval yet.
Since the race ran so long, post-race coverage was very brief. Ryan Preece won the race and gave an emotional interview in which he dropped four F-bombs and explained everything that he had to do to get to where he is now. Once that was finished, the broadcast immediately left the track. Preece’s win was declared official way quicker than normal as well. Usually, that takes 90 minutes after the race, but it was more like 30 last week.
Overall, this was not the best showcase to start the 2026 NASCAR season for FOX Sports, but it wasn’t really their fault. Bad weather and chaos combined for a troublesome night.
There isn’t much to go on from last week for this season. There was decent action before it rained, but then shenanigans reigned supreme.
That’s all for this week. Coming up later this week is a busy five days of on-track activity at Daytona International Speedway. It’s a sextuple-header between NASCAR’s three national-level series and the ARCA Menards Series. In addition, the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park and the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna Speedway are ongoing. TV listings can be found below.
In next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch, we’ll cover the Daytona 500 and the new changes for this season. Meanwhile, the Critic’s Annex in the Frontstretch Newsletter on Friday will cover the Duels.
If you have a gripe with me or just want to say something about my critique, feel free to post in the comments below. Even though I can’t always respond, I do read your comments. Also, if you want to “like” me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, please click on the appropriate icons. If you would like to contact either of NASCAR’s media partners, click on either of the links below.
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Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email 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 Frontstretch 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.
The Masked Singer is a production of the Korean government (Munhwa Broadcasting). Don’t know what Fox’s deal with Munhwa is but it’s similar likely to Sony’s deals in Poland with state-run TVP for Sony game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (which the American Wheel will have a NASCAR episode filmed in November broadcast this week), then there are mandatory rules on broadcast. Munhwa could have told Fox “must air today, must move race that should have come Sunday”.
Glad to see you are back Phil. I look forward to your reviews and observations each week.
Thanks Phil. Good to know the cast for the races. As for the clash I watched until they put the wet tires on and they were still fooling around for too long. I changed the channel and when I came back I saw the masked singer show but didn’t realize they moved the race so I moved on