In recent years, the March race at Phoenix Raceway has become very important due to the track’s standing as the host for championship weekend. This past weekend, the new rules package was the big story entering the race.
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That said, it wasn’t explained quite as much as I would have liked before the race. The hope was that it would improve racing on shorter tracks. In practice, the cars were a little faster than last year, but there wasn’t all that much tire falloff.
I noted that there was an 8% increase in the number of passes made over this race last year. Baby steps. The problem is, it wasn’t all that noticeable.
What likely stood out to me was that it seemed that FOX skimped on pit reporters for Phoenix. It only had Jamie Little and Regan Smith down there. Likely the most noticeable difference is that it didn’t have anyone doing infield care center duty other than Bob Pockrass. This situation was brought home when Joey Logano (and Corey LaJoie) crashed out of the race after Logano was hit by John Hunter Nemechek. Luckily, Frontstretch was there when Logano emerged.
In its defense, FOX did play footage from this availability. It came on lap 280, likely 15-20 minutes after the availability happened. That just doesn’t seem right.
Yes, I’ve admittedly been confused as to what in the heck Pockrass’ official role is with FOX Sports. He doesn’t get to write much these days since FOX Sports rarely has its talent write at all. Seems like it’s just paying him to ask questions on his cell phone and review news for one minute a week (“The Business with Bob”) and that’s about it.
Granted, I envy the fact that Pockrass is the kind of person who garners a substantial amount of respect from the general public just for being knowledgeable. It says something that there were a couple of random people in the pits at World Wide Technology Raceway last year bowing in his presence.
In my experience covering NASCAR races for Frontstretch, Pockrass is always at the infield care center to get the scoop when the heck goes down. If you’re not going to properly staff the pit reporter corps to the level so that one of them can go get the interview, provide Pockrass with a cameraperson and a monitor and have him do the interviews for TV. It’s not like he wouldn’t be there anyway.
There were some gripes in our general…
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