Talladega Superspeedway is an interesting place, TV-wise. Much of the field stays clustered together, so on paper, it would be easier to cover all the action. Or is it?
Sunday brought the NASCAR Cup Series back to Talladega for what turned out to be 521.36 miles of action. As compared to the eight previous superspeedway races with the Next Gen car, things were a little different.
The previous eight events have been marked by teams falling off of the draft and a near-complete inability to work additional lanes. There were no major rule changes for these tracks since Daytona International Speedway, but it appeared that teams were able to maneuver a little more. There were times when there were three separate competitive lines during the race, something we haven’t seen since the last generation cars were racing.
In addition, it appeared to be harder for teams to lose the draft Sunday (April 23). Only a couple of drivers did all day. Only BJ McLeod lost it on merit all day, which seems like a record. The others were due to penalties or on-track incidents.
That would mean that FOX would potentially have more stories to cover since everyone would be closer together. Not so much. The coverage on Sunday was clustered more towards the front of the field and there weren’t really that many stories covered unless something unusual happened.
Given what we know about superspeedway races, it shouldn’t be the case. You normally have a more substantial cast of characters in the hunt. If anything, Sunday’s race might have been more front-focused than Martinsville Speedway.
This race ended with a series of pretty serious incidents. We got a couple of interviews (taped), most notably with Kyle Larson. Larson mentioned in his interview that his cockpit was a mess. That is due to the contact that Ryan Preece made with him in the crash on lap 190.
I’ve never seen anything like this in my 30+ years of watching NASCAR. It appears that when Preece T-boned Larson, a roll bar failure occurred. That is something straight out of the 1970s that should never happen. The broadcast never really brought attention to that. It should have, not only because it was frightening, but because that could have had terrible consequences. They dropped the ball. The single-source supplier likely dropped the ball here as well. They did note how vicious the hit was.
NASCAR, as it should…
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