I’ve suddenly remembered that I haven’t blogged about NASCAR
since Daytona. I did keep some notes,
but nothing that materialized into a post.
So, let’s catch up here a little with some random observations.
Fox Sports took my advice about the race ticker. Thanks.
Unfortunately, that’s the last nice thing I’m going to say about them in
this post.
Danica, when not good enough to win or finish well, makes
sure to wreck to get airtime for her sponsors.
You watch. I’m right.
Full house in Darlington . Great crowd in California . Bristol ,
terrible crowd. What? Lesson, good races and good weather attract
fans. Somewhere between the repave, bad
economics around Bristol ,
and changing race dates has really hurt attendance at one of NASCAR’s show
tracks. Something must be done!
Two of the coolest looking cars I’ve seen so far are Kyle
Larson’s Clorox car from Phoenix and Ricky
Stenhouse’s Zest car at Las Vegas . I feel silly writing this, but at the same
time, wouldn’t be too proud to own little die-casts of them.
NBC is eagerly anticipating taking over NASCAR coverage from
ESPN next year. They’re even doing a
NASCAR show now. From a personal
standpoint, I’m looking forward to their coverage too. Kelli Stavast will be part of their
crew. Need I say more? (Running gag.
Just go with it.)
Up to date now. The
biggest news in NASCAR should probably be the emergence of Chase Elliot, Bill
Elliot’s son, in the Nationwide series.
He’s won two in a row, including Darlington ,
not a rookie friendly track. More on
this story as it develops.
After Daytona, two of the best races have been Fontana and Darlington . These are two races that the drivers are
fighting the track more than each other.
Is my memory faulty or didn’t Fontana
used to be a terrible race? The degraded
track surface there is tearing up tires the way that the old Darlington
surface used to. Darlington
itself is still hard on the tires, but harder on the drivers. The competition was mainly between the
drivers and the Darlington walls. There were no winners in the conflict, only
survivors.
Kevin Harvick would make the least mistakes and take the
victory. I went back and read a Darlington blog from 2009. I was shocked. There, Jimmie Johnson started in the back,
worked his way to the front and finished second, which is exactly what happened
here in 2014.
There was a full house in Darlington . It was the only way to see the race. They say fans are staying home so that they
can watch sporting events on their big screen TV’s from the comfort of their
own homes. This makes sense for NFL
attendance, but the theory breaks down with NASCAR given how bad the TV
coverage is. Nothing like spending good
money on a TV so you can watch commercials while the race is going on. Don’t worry, if there’s any significant
action during the break, they’ll show it on replay. Given the amount of commercial time, this
statistically very likely. NASCAR is a
bit like PBS. The constant pledge breaks
tend to destroy the value of the content.
TV Coverage-wise, this had to have been one of the worst
races of the season, including the rain delays.
Every time they went to commercial, which was frequently, they came back
under caution, they’d show pit stops and replay the crash, and then go back to
commercial. Thankfully, they’d come back
in time for the restart (a couple of years ago, they weren’t).
I predict eventually coverage will consist of this: they’ll
show the first lap full screen, the next nine laps in a small window, then
three hours of commercials with a one minute race update every five minutes,
then the last ten laps full screen (not including Green, White, Checkers
restarts). Wait, that wasn’t much of a
prediction. It’s what we’re basically
getting now. Since I’ve actually seen
races with limited to no commercial interruption (the way God intended), I
can’t put up with this mockery of race coverage. As soon as somebody can explain to me how
they can broadcast 45 God**** minutes (plus extra time) of Angola vs. Poland in a World Cup match
uninterrupted, but can’t show 15 ****ing minutes of a NASCAR race without going
to commercial, twice, I’ll stop complaining.
I’m imagining Fox Sports showing that Bradley/Paciquiao fight. “You don’t need to
show all three minutes of a round. We
could jam in a minute of commercials.
The audience probably won’t miss anything.” Joe Buck could call the fight and demand
replays on every hit, wondering if it was a legal hit. Tim McCarver could come out of retirement and
complain that the fighters aren’t hitting each other where he tells them
to. Larry McReynolds could provide
between rounds commentary as the fighters get filled up on their Gatorade Fight
Fuel and several other branded products.
(McReynolds only function in NASCAR broadcasts is to remind everyone of
the tire and fuel sponsors. He could be
replaced by an mp3 file, played on cue.)
Daryl Waltrip could provide the clichés and license out the return of
Digger, the canvas gopher.
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