Talladega Superspeedway is known for a number of things.
Tight racing, high speeds and shenanigans. Both on and off the track. The GEICO 500 race weekend provided plenty of both.
As we know, last weekend’s race at Texas Motor Speedway was not a good time for FOX Sports. The AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 broadcast could be best described as atrocious with missed important aspects of the race and just bizarre antics.
My hope going into Sunday (April 21) was that the broadcast would be better.
Thankfully, it was. Then again, we are talking about Talladega. Normally, it’s pretty hard to screw up Talladega.
That said, I had some issues, most notably with the last-lap wreck coming to the finish.
We now know that Corey LaJoie fully rolled his No. 7 Gainbridge Spire Motorsports Chevrolet over in the crash. You couldn’t tell that in the live shots of the wreck due to the smoke.
It seemed like it was a long time before it was acknowledged on the broadcast, something like seven minutes. I didn’t do this when the broadcast was live, but I went back and timed it with my iPhone’s stopwatch function.
Doing that, I determined that it was nearly two and a half minutes before Clint Bowyer referenced a car (LaJoie’s) on its side. The clock continued and it was nearly eight minutes before we saw definitive proof of LaJoie’s lazy roll.
That’s too long.
Knowing that everyone got out of their cars on their own and walked away, that could have been quicker.
There were some strange things on the broadcast. For instance, FOX had Jim Gaffigan in a bed surrounded by food, talking about Talladega during pre-race coverage.
This was puzzling.
There was some good content on NASCAR RaceDay to be had.
Josh Sims had a good piece on the importance of spotters at tracks like Talladega.
To that degree, he talked with Tab Boyd and TJ Majors about their roles in superspeedway races, which differ significantly from a regular race. We also heard from Joey Logano and Ross Chastain for the drivers’ view. I thought it was quite educational.
Kevin Harvick was apparently pretty busy in the days leading up to Talladega as he was in multiple features on the show. In one piece, he went to what appeared to be a TopGolf facility (can’t say for sure) and interviewed Joe Gibbs Racing’s drivers. The topics here were more or less what you expect for 2024…
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