Homestead sees improvement in NBC’s inclusiveness

Homestead-Miami Speedway was the site of the final race weekend of the NASCAR season from 2002 to 2019. During those years, racing fans have seen a lot of interesting sights and good racing. In 2020, NASCAR chose to move the Championship 4 race weekend to Phoenix Raceway. Overall, it hasn’t been the best decision, like our own Chase Folsom I talked about Monday.

Sunday’s race (October 23) will likely be remembered for Kyle Larson have a momentary error of judgment in the final phase. This caused him to run first to the back of Ryan Blaney braking for pit road. He then locked up and hit the Fitch barriers at the start of pit road (Note: The Fitch barrier is a direct reference to sand barrels, as they were invented by sports car driver John Fitch in the 1950s).

Now it seemed like Rick Allen was more or less in shock. I’ve never seen anyone slide into the barrels like that before and I don’t think Allen has either. Usually, if someone destroys the barrels, they will have already destroyed them first. This was not the case here.

NBC was able to obtain audio from Larson’s radio that indicated he misjudged Blaney’s slowdown. Yes, Blaney was going slower than Larson, but the replay with the speed overlay two minutes into the clip above probably illustrates the situation best. Larson was going fast enough that even if Blaney wasn’t there, I don’t see how Larson would slow down enough to reach pit road speed. Remember, the spot where Larson hit the barrels was exactly where speed starts on pit road.

Last week, I thought Larson had more or less cleaned up his act when it came to the desperation moves, and then he removed that move. Usually his desperate moves in the past have resulted in hitting the outside wall by trying too hard.

Compared to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Homestead saw the non-playoff drivers being able to fight a lot more. Brad Keselowski was in the race until he found himself in the wall on the restart immediately after Larson’s encounter with the barrels. Then he dropped back and finished 28th with five laps to go.

You also had a non-elimination Through the Field driver in stage two, which is good to see. Drivers here like AJ Allmendinger, Corey LaJoie And Aric Almirola I got punched.

It was good to see. Let’s face it. There are more than eight drivers in this race. There are a lot of stories in a 400-mile race at Homestead and Sunday’s race was no exception. The Las Vegas show didn’t really look like that for most of it, as I noted in last week’s review.

The race itself on Sunday saw a decent number of overtakes. NASCAR Loop Data indicates 474 additional passes in the race despite five fewer laps under green. There have also been many more leadership changes this year (25 compared to 11 last year). This was mainly due to Larson being eliminated early.

As you probably know, Dale Earnhardt Jr. competed in Saturday’s Contender Boats 300, placing in the top five. Earnhardt clearly had a lot of fun during the race, aside from the instances where he found himself in Josh Berry.

What does this mean for Sunday’s show? This meant that Earnhardt had first-hand knowledge of the circuit. Conditions Saturday were nearly identical to those faced by NASCAR Cup Series drivers. The NASCAR Xfinity Series race started 45 minutes earlier than the Cup race, but the extra 100 miles and red flag effectively meant they finished at the same time.

Earnhardt reportedly chose to race at Homestead because he wanted to race against the wall. He did a lot of it and brought his knowledge of what it’s like to run up there to the show. Unfortunately, the differences between the Xfinity cars and the Next Gen car these days are significant enough that much of it isn’t applicable.

The end of Sunday’s race saw some strange things happening. Due to the red flag raised by Larson’s slide into the barrels, the broadcast dragged on for a long time.

NBC chose to take a commercial break during the payback round, which is very rare. In doing so, viewers missed Christopher BellPost-race celebration. Although I think that burnouts are rather passé these days, it seems like a very bad choice to me. The only explanation I can give without lambasting the network is the possibility of a mandatory commercial break on NBC after the race. This is possible since he left the network as soon as he finished speaking to Bell.

Otherwise, it was a mess. It was entirely avoidable, but he wasn’t willing to give the show three or four extra minutes.

Bell’s interview was the only post-race coverage broadcast on NBC. On Peacock, viewers got a few more interviews, all with playoff drivers or team owners (Joe Gibbs). Peacock’s coverage often begins before the race ends, but it didn’t begin until after Bell’s burnout ended.

Compared to Las Vegas, it was a more competitive race and simply more enjoyable to watch. It was competitive and NBC did a better job being more inclusive in its coverage. It wasn’t just drivers in the playoffs, all the time.

However, the post-race coverage was an absolute disaster. The seemingly random commercial that cut the celebration from the broadcast wasn’t random. I know some fans were upset about this. NBC needed to plan this a little better so it wasn’t so abrupt. I understand his desire for access to local news (at least in the eastern part of the country), but this plan was bad. Fortunately, there was additional coverage after the race on Peacock.

Tires were a big topic during the race, but unlike Saturday’s Xfinity race, we never really saw what good and bad wear looked like on the broadcast. Are the teams and/or Goodyear being more careful with the bigger tires on the Next Gen car, or is it just that NBC never really got a good look at them? Either way, since the track is apparently exhibiting Darlington Raceway levels of wear these days, they should let viewers know.

It’s all for this week. Next weekend, the Cup Series and Xfinity Series Championship 4 schedules will be set at Martinsville Speedway. Thursday evening also sees the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season wrap up at The Paperclip. Formula 1 teams will also travel approximately 910 miles to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City for the Mexican Grand Prix. TV programs can be found here.

We’ll have a review of the Xfinity 500 broadcast from Martinsville, at bare minimum, in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Front stretch. The reviewer’s appendix will cover Saturday’s Contender Boats 300.

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