Racing in Georgia in the middle of the summer can be tricky. It’s almost always going to be hot and humid. With those kinds of conditions, thunderstorms are pretty common and that’s what we got Sunday night.
It’s also why this is a special Wednesday edition of Couch Potato. The race ended at nearly 2 a.m. ET early Monday morning (July 13). Everyone at Frontstretch was completely wiped out, including our own Michael Massie and Landon Quesinberry, who were reporting at EchoPark Speedway. As a result, this column and most of the others this week have been pushed back a day.
Entering this past weekend, a lot of the discussion was centered around the potentially intentional wrecks at Chicagoland Speedway. One involved Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith, while the other involved Austin Hill and Shane van Gisbergen.
While the Hill-van Gisbergen spat didn’t really get a lot of airtime on the broadcast, I doubt that one is truly over. The Hocevar-Smith issues did get a lot of airtime, even though it was the lesser of the conflicts at Chicagoland. Why? Mainly because of the comments made after their meeting with NASCAR officials.
During NASCAR Nation Pre-Race, TNT had Hocevar on the stage to talk about things. The first thing Marty Smith asked Hocevar was quite simply, “[Zane Smith] called you a coward. How do you respond to being called a coward?”
Watching this at the time, I thought, “Oh man.” Not that Marty asked the big question. As far as I’m concerned, that’s why TNT hired him to be on their broadcasts. This was a direct line of questioning that we don’t always get on NASCAR broadcasts. It’s more that Zane was being a bit harsh.
Hocevar’s response was interesting as well. He says that he doesn’t care about the whole situation. However, it seems more like he doesn’t understand why Zane’s angry at him. For a lot of drivers, the anger towards Hocevar goes back many years. Corey Heim and Nick Sanchez are likely in that boat.
It’s almost like a sign of immaturity. He has his goals and he’ll do anything to achieve them, and to a certain degree, that endears him to fans. That, and getting a Cutting Crew song stuck in his head while leading the race. However, he doesn’t seem to understand that people have memories. If you’ve wronged them along the way, they might not just stand by and take it.
Also of note, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in reference to the 2004 EA Sports 500, dropped an S-bomb in reference to when he was fined for cussing in victory lane (2004 was his career year with six wins). If you remember that period of time, it was the worst possible time to use a fleeting expletive on live television. That occurred less than nine months after the “wardrobe malfunction” (more accurately described as Justin Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson), which emboldened the FCC to crack down on everything. He effectively was forced to pay NBC’s FCC fine, in addition to a points penalty back in 2004.
Of course, this race aired on TNT, so the FCC can’t come after Earnhardt. This awkwardly rolled into a piece where Earnhardt interviewed Chase Elliott. Here, the topics of discussion involved the pressure of racing in the shadow of a famous father and the Drive to Design paint scheme that he ran in cooperation with the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Earnhardt can obviously commiserate with Elliott in regard to the former. He admitted that he couldn’t have run his father’s number in Cup, something that Elliott has embraced, for better or worse. That’s interesting knowing how many fans were pestering him to do just that in the 2000s.
It was obvious from the start that weather was probably going to affect this race in some way. I was constantly checking the RadarScope app to see where the storms were in relation to the track. Everyone else was as well. I believe that this is part of the reason why stage one was so spread out.
At first, the coverage didn’t really mention the possibility of rain, but the dark clouds that could be seen on the broadcast made it pretty obvious that something was afoot. As stage two continued on, you started seeing more updates since the weather would affect the strategy from the teams. At that point, the idea was simply getting to halfway since it could be an official race if it rained after that. As we know now, that did not happen.
With the red flag, having a lightning hold pretty much puts the kibosh on what you would normally do during the interruption. Marty Snider and Danielle Trotta set up shop in what I think was a room in the Media Center and did a couple of interviews. Meanwhile, Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray and Marty Smith were in what seemed like a portable studio discussing some of the storylines of the race.
Of course, with everyone hanging out in their motorcoaches and lightning still in the vicinity, they couldn’t provide all that much coverage from the track. It wasn’t that long before the coverage left the track and went to episodes of Wipeout. While I don’t mind the big balls and so on, some other viewers might not have been fans of the choice since it had nothing to do with racing. There were intermittent cuts in until 11 p.m. ET, when the coverage returned to EchoPark Speedway.
There was still 45 minutes remaining before the engines restarted at that point. As a result, viewers were able to get some more interviews, including Bubba Wallace asking Ryan Blaney about his nap and Blaney not realizing that he was on live television.
For much of the race, the coverage was centered on the very front of the field. With the way this race turned out, that meant that Blaney was almost always front and center.
With this strategy, yes, you never missed anything at the front, but if someone was progressing through the field, you would have no idea how they got anywhere. You’d only notice them if they got into the top five. If your favorite driver wasn’t up there, you were completely dependent on the pylon to figure out where your driver was. I don’t like this strategy.
If anything, it got worse as the race went on. When the race was spread out during stage one, it wasn’t so bad since it was possible to actually have a split-screen of the action at the front and further back.
Despite the race finishing around 1:48 a.m. ET, there was still a decent amount of post-race coverage. That said, compared to recent weekends, the number of interviews were down. At that time of night, I sort of don’t blame the drivers. They’re sleepy just like everyone else was. While they’re still pumping adrenaline right after they get out of the car, they were likely feeling it 10 minutes later
I do find it interesting that they brought out Waffle House food on the stage. Yes, Waffle House is based in Norcross, Ga., only 50 miles from the track. Anyone who has driven in Northern Georgia is likely familiar with the fact that once you get outside of Atlanta, there is a Waffle House at almost every exit off the interstates. It’s uncanny. I do find the food dry and somewhat overpriced nowadays.
Overall, this was a very long day (apparently, everyone pulled a 14-hour day, according to Marty Smith at the end of NASCAR Nation Post-Race). No one seemed to drag at times.
The race was dull at times, especially early on. It picked up after the rains came. I felt that the coverage was centered at the very front too much knowing that there wasn’t that much action up there at times once it picked up. I found the earlier portions of the race more inclusive.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend will see the NASCAR Cup Series return to North Wilkesboro Speedway for their first points race there since 1996. It will also be the first 450-lap race there (all previous point races at North Wilkesboro in NASCAR’s Modern Era have been 400 laps, 250 miles). They’ll be joined by the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series the day before.
The NTT IndyCar Series will be at Nashville Superspeedway for a 300-mile jaunt on the 1.33-mile tri-oval. Formula 1 will make their annual visit to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the Grand Prix of Belgium. TV Listings can be found here.
We will have a critique of TNT’s broadcast of the Window World 450 in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex in the Frontstretch Newsletter will cover Saturday night’s Focused Health 250, another race that took quite a while to run.
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.
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