ONE: Does DirtVision Need to Get More Selective With Interviews?
Ryan Gustin’s heat race interview on Friday heard the driver tell DirtVision’s Hannah Newhouse that nobody wanted to be racing at Bristol and that the racing there sucked. Kyle Larson slammed World of Outlaws late model officials for penalizing him for being late to staging, remarking that such calls are why teams are leaving the WoO tour.
Even defending series runner-up Chris Madden got in on the action, letting loose that the redraw process the WoO uses to set the front rows for their feature races was stupid and did the strongest cars in the field no favors.
The drivers delivering on-track and on @dirtvision / the @BMSupdates PA tonight 🗣 #BristolBash pic.twitter.com/Z3JUWfXffL
— Roger Slack (@RogerSlack) April 30, 2022
Listening to all of this criticism (and it came off harsher on-air then it does me writing about it), it had me wondering if DirtVision, the official outlet of the World Racing Group, didn’t need to start being more selective about the drivers they interview.
That’s a dangerous suggestion. I was covering NASCAR for Frontstretch in the pre “boys, have at it” era when secret fines and probation were a real thing for drivers that spoke out against that sanction, with the consequences being drivers forced to remain silent or present a face as vanilla as Jimmie Johnson. Stifling criticism and personality is a surefire way to make a bad PR situation worse.
But in the case of this weekend, especially in the case of Larson and Madden, it was hard not to feel like the Outlaws were just being piled on. Madden’s detesting the redraw procedures the Outlaws used is a point of discussion in big-time late model racing (by contrast, the competing Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series uses a straight up lineup for heat race winners to set their fields), but it’s also a constant, known before any cars show up for an Outlaws race.
Larson’s comments were even worse, coming…
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