On Sunday (Sept. 6), Darlington Raceway hosted the opening night of the Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series. As opposed to past years, there is likely to be a shift in how the races are covered, especially later on. Since there will be no eliminations, things will progress in a more natural fashion.
That said, this setup tends to become an all-encompassing nightmare from which you cannot escape. The race becomes a means to an end.
For this year, NASCAR and Darlington decided to move up the race by a full hour. I’m not really sure of the reasoning behind that. I can tell you that it was not the reason for USA Sports Pre-Race starting at 4:30 p.m. ET. That was pre-arranged as part of the original start time being earlier. The broadcast seemed to indicate that the 4:30 p.m. ET pre-race start was solely due to weather, but it was not the case.
The start time was moved up again by about 10 minutes due to the potential for thunderstorms. Luckily, the big boomers more or less steered clear of the track.
USA Sports Pre-Race being scheduled for only 30 minutes makes it a little hard at the best of times to preview races. The start being moved up to avoid potential thunderstorms made it even harder to preview the event. Despite that, there was a piece where drivers such as Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace described how difficult it can be to race 500 miles at Darlington, one of the last really long races left on the calendar.
Sunday night’s race may be best remembered for Brad Keselowski’s run-in with Carson Hocevar early in the race. The incident seemed rather unnecessary.
With 10 laps to go in the stage, it’s understandable to try to grab some spots, but at a place like Darlington, you have to be careful in doing so. Hocevar seemed to just dive bomb Keselowski, then drifted up into him, which put the No. 6 Ford in the wall. Then Hocevar hit Keselowski again, spinning him out.
Jeff Burton described this incident as exactly why everyone keeps getting angry at Hocevar and I can see that. This stuff just keeps happening. Drivers want to be able to run hard around other drivers, but it seems like Hocevar’s peers can’t really trust him on the track.
Hocevar may find himself in an Ernie Irvan-type situation sometime in the near future. Back in 1991 at Talladega Superspeedway, he stood up in front of his fellow racers during a drivers’ meeting and apologized for his on-track conduct. That conduct included sparking multiple crashes, such as the one where Kyle Petty suffered a broken leg.
Fans like to follow someone who isn’t going to back down on the track, but you have to measure that aggression. Hocevar arguably doesn’t know how to do that, or rather he does and doesn’t care. If this social media post is any indication, it might be the latter.
Needless to say, Keselowski was not happy about it. Media members caught up with him after the race and he didn’t mince words.
Much of the race was centered around pit strategy. Darlington is well-known for being really hard on tires. Given the stage lengths, the questions were about when you would pit and (later on in the race) how many times you would pit in each stage. This became even more important with the general lack of cautions through much of the race.
The broadcast really hammered home that even a single lap of difference between pit stops could affect things. A driver staying out one extra lap during a pit stop sequence lost the lead because of losing three seconds on his in-lap.
This was even more key when Kyle Larson chose to stay out during the final caution with less than 30 laps to go. At the time, there were roughly 23 laps on Larson’s tires, but only five of them were under green. He also had three others (Austin Cindric, Joey Logano and Ryan Preece) who stayed out with him.
Afterward, Larson stated that he thought staying out was still the right move after he finished fifth. This was one position behind where he was when the pits opened on lap 340. Christopher Bell, who ultimately won the race, was the first driver off pit road with four fresh tires.
Racing-wise, the race seemed pretty competitive, much more so than last year’s race. Even though there were 24 lead changes last year, Chase Briscoe led over 300 laps. No one led more than 99 laps on Sunday.
NASCAR’s Loop Data indicates that there was actually more passing under green last year (12.4 per lap as opposed to 12.0). It was just closer and more competitive up front.
USA Sports did a decent job showing some of the on-track action on Sunday. You had good battles for position. However, anything involving the Chasers took precedence. I don’t particularly care whether someone is in the Chase or not. I want to see some good action. I don’t need it to be curated between a specific group of drivers.
If Josh Berry is kicking butt and getting himself into the conversation, I don’t want him to pop up out of nowhere. I want to see him in the process of getting up there so it isn’t a surprise that he’s a factor. Then again, given his recent form, maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that he got up there.
Post-race coverage was about average. Viewers got a number of post-race interviews. With 10 of the top 11 finishers being Chase participants, all post-race coverage was centered around them. Berry was the only non-Chaser in the top 10 and he got excluded. I wish that wasn’t the case, but NASCAR cut the positions of drivers required to go to the post-race bullpen to No. 2-5 and other Chase storylines (in recent weeks, that had been required up to the seventh or eighth-place finisher).
Overall, there was some decent racing Sunday night. It was a good race. USA Sports needs to be cognizant that this isn’t a 16-car race. It’s a 36-40 car race and there are plenty of stories out there. Understandably, TV can’t cover everything, but being as inclusive as possible in coverage will only benefit you.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend, NASCAR moves on to World Wide Technology Raceway, where the Cup Series will headline a weekend of racing. The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will serve as primary support. The ARCA Menards Series will be on FOX at Salem Speedway, while Formula 1 will make its first appearance at the new Madring in Madrid. TV listings can be found here.
In next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch, we’ll cover Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 from World Wide Technology Raceway. The Critic’s Annex in the Frontstretch Newsletter will cover Saturday’s Fleetio 200 from Darlington.
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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