Sonoma Raceway started off the TNT Sports portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season. Yes, you have the same broadcast booth in play, but there’s a different feel to the broadcast quality.
We at Frontstretch received a press release from TNT Sports last Tuesday to help promote their coverage. In there, it mentioned that “In-race coverage to feature up to 40 cameras per race, ensuring fans don’t miss a second of the high-octane action.” If that is so, that is a significant decrease in camera count from what Prime Video was doing during its portion of the season.
Prior to the Coca-Cola 600, Prime Video put out a release that indicated that 70 or more cameras would be in use at each race. Needless to say, being down 40% of your cameras means that you won’t be able to cover as much. This is likely part of the reason why there was a quality drop from Prime Video to TNT last year despite having the same broadcast booth.
There are some changes to the on-air personnel this year. NASCAR Nation has a completely new cast. Last year, Shannon Spake hosted it with Jamie McMurray and Parker Kligerman. This year, Marty Smith is taking a brief sabbatical from ESPN to serve as host. McMurray is still there and Steve Letarte also joins in like he did on Prime Video. While I’m used to seeing Marty on TV, it’s typically in a reporter role. He really doesn’t have a lot of hosting experience outside of Marty & McGee.
Jimmie Johnson was there to add some additional input Sunday, and a lot of that seemed to be based around his recent trip to Le Mans and doing an interview with Radio Le Mans while buzzed. Apparently, this is the laid-back Johnson that showed up in that interview, or as Dale Earnhardt Jr. has dubbed him, “Jimmie Jam.”
Alan Cavanna is not pit reporting this year. Instead, Spake is back in the pits. I want to say that she hasn’t pit reported on a regular basis since the early 2010s when she was with ESPN.
Danielle Trotta is once again back in the pits this year, but I feel like she would be better on NASCAR Nation than as a pit reporter. There’s just no inflection on her commentary down there. It seemed strange to me.
During NASCAR Nation, there were some weird audio issues. Microphones were dying and audio was just cutting out. There were also some echoing issues. Not a great start.
The main feature of NASCAR Nation was a sit-down interview that Earnhardt conducted with Shane van Gisbergen. The topics here were pretty much what you’d expect (trying to improve on ovals, potential threats in the race, etc.).
Race coverage-wise, this was not necessarily the most competitive race. Yes, there was passing, but with only one caution for cause during the race, things got a little spread out.
Thing is, it seemed like this broadcast was very focused on a certain number of storylines and didn’t really want to adjust much. In other words, there wasn’t a whole lot of action to be shown.
NASCAR’s Loop Data bares this out. This year’s race had nine fewer caution laps than last year, but averaged nearly 17 fewer passes per lap under green. Even with that being in play, it seemed like TNT didn’t actively search out battles.
Most everything on this broadcast was centered around van Gisbergen and whether someone could take the fight to him. My guess is that most fans would say that this race wasn’t all that exciting to watch. TNT didn’t do anything to help dissuade that notion for most of the race.
Even with the relatively short race, it still ran right up against the timeslot. Post-race coverage (NASCAR Nation Post-Race) actually had quite a few interviews along with post-race analysis. Not bad for not having the sheer amount of time that Prime Video has at their disposal. That said, they did go long by about 20 minutes. That surprised me since TNT had the basic cable premiere of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Sunday night.
One of TNT’s main draws is the In-Season Challenge, the bracket competition that pays beaucoup bucks to the winner. I was a bit worried that it was going to play a much bigger role on the broadcast knowing that this wasn’t a superspeedway race, but those fears were unfounded.
There really wasn’t that much talk about it. You’d see updates about the matchups every now and then. Denny Hamlin talked about his matchup with Ty Dillon during NASCAR Nation Pre-Race and that was the only time spent on it there. On NASCAR Nation Post-Race, they reviewed who advanced as well. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if that discussion increased in the coming weeks.
Dylan “Mamba” Smith is back on the broadcasts this year, but it was more or less blink and you missed him Sunday. I think he had one brief piece during the race about the spotters on top of the hill, and that was about it. Last year, he had a much bigger role since TruTV had a true Altcast. This year, it’s more of a simulcast. I don’t know what they’re going to do with his role this season, but making him invisible was not likely part of the plan.
Overall, this wasn’t the best race. It seemed like the storyline was “Can anyone beat van Gisbergen?” and that was it. It turns out that no, they couldn’t beat him.
There just wasn’t all that much here to make this broadcast stand out. I came away from it reasonably informed, but a little bored. I would have liked to see more racing for position Sunday. You got some towards the end of the race with the varying pit strategies, but much of the race seemed like a dud.
In situations like that, you have to search a little more to make the broadcast more enjoyable and inclusive. You could even use the ridiculous In-Season Challenge as a crutch for this, but they chose not to do it.
Perhaps, things will be a little easier for TNT next weekend when they’re at an intermediate track. Road courses are notoriously difficult to cover at times. When you’re down cameras and by extension, personnel, it makes it that much tougher.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend, NASCAR returns to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019. The NASCAR Cup Series will headline with the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and the ARCA Menards Series on the support bill. Meanwhile, the NTT IndyCar Series visits Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Formula 1 will be at Silverstone. TV listings can be found here.
We will bring you a critique of Sunday’s eero 400 from Joliet in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. In the Critic’s Annex, we’re going to look at how IMSA and NBC Sports handled the curb issues in Saturday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge LP Building Solutions 120.
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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.
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