FOX Just Doesn’t Show the Goods in Bristol

On paper, covering an event at Bristol Motor Speedway shouldn’t really be all that difficult. It’s a half-mile oval. You can place cameras all over the place and cover it like the laser beams in the diamond vault in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Evidently, at least when it comes to FOX Sports, that’s not actually the case.

Food City Dirt Race

If one were to take one major thing away from FOX’s coverage from the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt track last weekend, it would likely be that the track surface was the best that it’s been for Bristol’s three NASCAR dirt weekends to this point.

I’m probably not going to argue with that. Drivers had options, both on Saturday and Sunday. It was good to see. Tony Stewart (back in the booth just for this week before returning to his NHRA duties next weekend in Las Vegas) in particular gave Bristol Motor Speedway on-air dap. He’d know what makes a good racing surface since he’s spent significant time over the years creating one at Eldora Speedway.

In a TV context, that’s swell. However, there’s more that needs to be focused on.

Back after Daytona International Speedway, I talked about how FOX has a new head producer for NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts this year in Chuck McDonald.

McDonald comes from a football background, a place where it’s pretty rare for notable things to happen outside of the general camera shot unless it involves something in the stands. Of course, McDonald’s point race debut didn’t go all that well as fans went nuts over the commercial breaks.

I already gave my piece about the commercials in the aforementioned Daytona critique. Quite simply, they’re a necessary evil.

What has continued to be an issue is the production just being slow to react to issues on the track. That is bad in all forms of auto racing and it was a serious issue on Sunday.

One example was on lap 96 when Daniel Suarez spun out and Joey Logano got collected. I’m not really sure what happened here, but Logano’s rear suspension broke, putting him out of the race. Suarez was able to continue but finished down the order.

The most blatant example of the slow reaction was when Michael McDowell had his second 360 on lap 99. You heard the booth call the spin and McDowell’s recovery, but viewers saw diddly squat of it. In fact, we didn’t see it at all until the next caution.