Memorial Day weekend is traditionally one of the sweetest weekends of the year with the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600.
However, the recent death of Kyle Busch overshadowed everything. Quite frankly, it took the fun out of it. I wasn’t at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but it seems like everyone was just trying to get through the weekend. That’s rough.
Sunday, May 24, was also the return of Amazon Prime Video to NASCAR coverage. Undoubtedly, the broadcast wanted to be celebratory at the Coca-Cola 600. That wasn’t in the cards.
As expected, much of NASCAR Live was focused on the memory of Busch. First, drivers whose careers were directly molded by Busch (Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace) were at the stage. All three drivers drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, a time that was key to their development as NASCAR racers.
Of the three drivers, Wallace was the most emotional about the situation. He described a conversation last year at Iowa Speedway where Kyle Busch expressed how proud he was of him after Wallace won the Brickyard 400.
That’s a big deal. Yes, at that point, Wallace and Busch had been racing against each other full time for more than seven years, but it just shows the level that Wallace had Busch on.
You also had Busch’s former car owner Joe Gibbs give his thoughts, along with Denny Hamlin. If there was an official in memoriam piece that aired during NASCAR Live, it was the piece that Dale Earnhardt Jr. voiced over.
Much of the pre-race coverage was fully focused on Busch, for better or worse. It really gave the idea that many people in the NASCAR industry didn’t want to be at the track.
Then, you had the pre-race ceremonies, which were rather hard to take. A lot of us were likely surprised that Samantha Busch and the rest of the Busch family even showed up on Sunday. It would have been perfectly reasonable for them to spend last week grieving on their own.
Regardless, they were all there for a ceremony where Steve O’Donnell spoke about NASCAR and the whole community being there for them. Kurt Busch laid down eight flowers on the No. 8 that had been stenciled into the FieldTurf.
The focus was overwhelming enough that Prime Video didn’t really preview the race much during the show. With only 45 minutes of practice (that was partially interrupted by rain) and no qualifying, it was truly unclear who was going to be the strongest on Sunday. That said, the broadcast was definitely prepared.
Also, during the race, Prime Video had a silent lap eight in honor of Kyle. While nothing was said to this degree on the broadcast, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a regular thing on NASCAR broadcasts for the remainder of the year.
It quickly became apparent on the broadcast that tires were going to be quite the issue. Cording started to show up around laps 45 to 50. With 100-lap stages, that meant that if you pitted too early in the stage, you could have issues towards the end.
Viewers could see the problematic tires that didn’t really discriminate. Chase Briscoe had a slight with it on the inside shoulder. Carson Hocevar had it far worse.
During the race, there’s only so much that you can do to fix the cording issue. One is not to run as hard. It’s obvious what would happen if you did that. You also can’t really fix camber issues like Briscoe had during the race.
Steve Letarte determined that the only way to prevent it would be to alter pit windows so that you’re not running 55-60 laps on a set of tires. That still gave teams some wiggle room, but not as much as they would have liked.
Tires clearly meant something all weekend in Charlotte. Staying out on worn tires was generally not a good move and the teams generally welcome that.
As compared to the FOX Sports broadcasts, you have a very different feel. It’s one that is generally more focused on the on-track product. There aren’t really any shenanigans going on.
The racing Sunday night was pretty decent. It seemed better than last year, but the available data doesn’t support that. According to NASCAR’s Loop Data, there was slightly more passing per lap under green (14.4 per lap as compared to 14.3) than last year. Of course, the total number of passes differs since Sunday’s race only went 373 laps, but had 23 more laps under caution as compared to last year.
There was enough action towards the front to keep viewers satisfied. That said, the coverage was a little too front-centered for my taste.
Post-race coverage was substantial as Prime Video has committed to a full hour of post-race coverage after each of its five races. During that time, viewers probably didn’t get as many interviews as you’d think. Eight of them.
We had Daniel Suarez multiple times, including on stage, along with Shane van Gisbergen. Spire Motorsports founder and co-owner Jeff Dickerson also went up on stage. That’s a rarity knowing that we don’t hear from him all that much, especially with the ongoing lawsuit between Spire, Chris Gabehart and Joe Gibbs Racing.
This situation probably brought out the best in Corey LaJoie here. He has first-hand experience working with Spire, and specifically, crew chief Ryan Sparks. He knows how Sparks ticks and that greatly informed his commentary.
The revolving expert chair is still a question mark for me, but that’s not because of anything Carl Edwards did or did not do Sunday. It’s solely because of the circumstances.
Next weekend, we’ll have Mark Martin at Nashville Superspeedway to chip in with some thoughts. As for the “remote observations” that Prime Video noted in its press release last week, we know what that means now. After the race, they noted that Edwards is going sailing in the Atlantic Ocean starting this week. Apparently, he’s going to chip in from his boat at some point. That’ll be interesting to see.
Overall, Prime Video’s return to NASCAR occurred under terrible circumstances that would be very difficult for anyone. Pretty much everyone involved (on-air, at least) had some relationship with Kyle Busch, and not having him around so suddenly was always going to have some effect on the broadcast.
That said, I liked most of what I saw Sunday night. When I watch a Prime Video race broadcast, I’m getting the basics. I get battles, I get context for what’s going on, and I don’t get stupid stuff.
Even if silly stuff shows up, there will be a point to the silliness. Last year’s puppet pieces are an example of that (we didn’t have it Sunday). Those pieces helped explain certain things that could come into play in the races and they were pretty dead on. Perhaps there will be something similar this year starting at Nashville, but Prime Video cut it due to the tone being inappropriate.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend, NASCAR has another tripleheader, this time at Nashville Superspeedway. The NTT IndyCar Series travels to Detroit for a date with a tricky street course. IMSA will be on the undercard.
We will have a critique of Sunday night’s Cracker Barrel 400 in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex in the Frontstretch Newsletter will cover the mess that was the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, a race that featured Eric Brennan in the booth.
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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.
I really thought the folks at Prime did a fantastic job given the incredibly sad and compress schedule following the news of Kyle’s passing. They had to rewrite and pull a whole new set of clips for Sunday. Amazing.
Only negative I personally felt was having Corey Lajoie at the studio. Not sure why they used him but he doesn’t have the personality for that role.
Good review Phil, as usual.
Agree that it was a tough weekend for all of NASCAR, incredibly strong was the Busch family , so impressive to see.
The pre race was subdued, and respectful. Just about right considering everything going on for such a big race , yet horrible circumstances.
The rest of the day / night was a tough one… dodging rain and the delays made for a disjointed event. But I thought that the Prime folks did a good job holding it together.
Agree that Dale tends to hog the broadcast, going rogue and doing play by play… Letarte wasn’t too wordy and brings NEW insight that the old timers on Fox don’t.
Also agree it was nice to have real network not focusing on self promotion and gimmicks and hanger on broadcasters.
Somehow the right guy won, as RCR was out to lunch, and we can now heal and remember.
Also agree on the Indy take above… Buxton is a clown, over hyping everything , as the other 2 guys at fine and informative.
The graphics however were horrible..especially the ones after pit stops.. no showing who gained or lost positions, took tires, etc…. just awful.
Wonder If Daniel Dye was rooting for Malukan …. ?
I think Prime did a nice job honoring Kyle and his family. It was heartbreaking. As far as the race coverage goes, I agree……way too light on covering all of the race action and seemed to focus most of the broadcast on those who were running in the top five. I wasn’t impressed.
I thought the Busch family handled themselves incredibly well as far as
getting answers to the questions everyone was thinking or asking. Putting out the cause of death eliminated a bunch of rumor and speculation. Attending Sunday as a group gave the masses a chance to show their sympathy en masse instead of a steady stream of well-intentioned and sincere individual expressions of sympathy. Now they can try to process this like a normal family ‘ship’ that’s lost its rudder.
This is a tough situation whether you’re famous or not.
The broadcast did an excellent job of blending respect for the tragedy and doing their job of broadcasting a sporting event. I think everyone did their best and it came across as such.
Just as last year, I felt Prime’s coverage was a cut above anything other NASCAR networks are bringing to the table. They hit the perfect mix of showing NASCAR is still an elite sport, while not lapsing into hyperbole and trying to make it look even more important than any sport really is. (Looking at you, Will Buxton on Indy broadcasts.)
Camera work is top notch, picture quality is great, and graphics show what knowledgeable fans want to see, to keep a finger on the pulse of the race. Also, yet again Dale Jr. called out things off camera, proving he’s watching the whole race, not just what’s up front or on camera at any given time.
As has become my habit, I watched on a delay, and mostly just watched the start of the race as well as all of the final stage. The rest bores me to tears, as other than a wreck, stages two and three matter very little.
My big issue with Dale, is while he’s obviously very knowledgeable and on top of the action, he tends to venture into the play-by-play role at times, which kind of does a disservice to Adam Alexander. He needs to stay in his lane in that regard.
I was really shocked to see Samantha and family at the racetrack. It was probably good for them to be with their Nascar family and a small sense of normalcy if only for a night. I just hope it was their choice and not forced upon by Nascar. It was heartbreaking to watch. I didn’t notice it live, but watching Little Larson going up to console his buddy Brexton was pretty cool.
Buxton just grinds on me. Him screeching with excitement before the cars even got to turn 1 to start the race was so over the top. But then again, I can’t stand fake drama and there was a lot of that from the booth during the entire 500. About the only thing bad about the 500 though. The race was once again better than the Cup race.
Yeah, I can see that thought about Junior stepping on Alexander a bit. I do not understand why so many sports feel the need for three announcers, other than MRN’s template of having announcers cover specific sections of the track. The only other place I recall it working was decades ago on Monday Night Football.
Completely agree on Buxton. The shame is if he would just stop trying so hard, all the skills are there. He seems to genuinely enjoy and respect the sport, and does his homework. He just can’t help himself but to make nearly every sentence an example of why hyperbole is seldom a good thing. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I felt Ken Squier was often guilty of this as well.
Squire was definitely guilty of that as well, but not to the extent of Buxton, for what its worth. Like you said he tries too hard, when its not necessary. Last lap, have at it but the first turn of the race?