NBC cannot seem to buy a break so far this season.
Four weeks into its half of the schedule and it hasn’t had a race that wasn’t affected by rain.
This past weekend was one of NBC Sports’ jewel events, the Grant Park 165. After last year’s rain and darkness, NASCAR incorrectly chose to shorten the race from 220 miles (100 laps) to 165 miles (75 laps). Of course, then it rained again. Even an earlier start didn’t help anything as the race had to be shortened due to darkness again. Weak.
That said, NASCAR was proactive this time. It knew how long it had to race and communicated that ahead of time to the teams so it didn’t look like it was just winging it. NBC Sports took that information and spent a significant amount of time explaining just what was going to happen starting more than three hours in advance. At that time, it didn’t seem like it was going to come into play, but of course it did. I’m happy that NBC took the time.
Much like at Nashville Superspeedway last week, Countdown to Green started roughly 15 minutes early after the NTT IndyCar Series coverage from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course wrapped up. Compared to what we’re used to, this show was jam-packed with interviews. It was good to see.
There was also a piece about 23XI Racing’s new facility, Airspeed. That piece was repeated during the rain delay.
Going into the weekend, the thought was that it was going to be mostly dry. Clearly, that was not the case. It was already clouding up before the race and everyone was resigned to some precipitation. They weren’t expecting what we got.
It rained between the command to fire engines and the pace laps, forcing NASCAR to announce a change in climatic conditions, to use an FIA phrase, that allowed grid tire changes. Then, NASCAR allowed everyone to go backsies if they wanted to, all fully explained on NBC.
Those tire selections ended up being the major focus of the first part of the race broadcast. All but about seven cars started on slicks despite a damp track. For those selections, NBC chose to rely on its pit reporters for the most part. However, that is easily something that could have been displayed on the pylon with the different compounds at play. NBC did not do so until right before Corey LaJoie crashed. Had this been an IndyCar race, it would have been something that it wouldn’t have hesitated to do.
Once the race got underway, there was a good amount of racing for position. However,…
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