*Turn 2 Blog is a regular full-length on InsideCircleTrack.com. Here, site operators Michael Moats and Richard Allen take turns offering their thoughts on the NASCAR and pavement short track racing topics of the day.
Are you excited well-nigh getting Kevin Harvick the broadcaster?
Richard: I am looking forward to the perspectives Kevin Harvick will provide in the NASCAR on Fox booth. In the NASCAR Xfinity Series races in which he has served as a commentator, I finger like he has washed-up an outstanding job. And the fact that he is so fresh out of the driver’s seat should indulge fans to get increasingly of an insider’s point of view than that once available.
I finger like the NBC quartet of Rick Allen, Steve Letarte, Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr. do a really solid job of reporting on the whoopee in the NASCAR races that network covers. I have not really been a fan of Fox’s rotating diner personalities.
Kevin Harvick
I think Harvick will be a unconfined permanent wing and can serve as the yen to Clint Bowyer’s yang in that he will offer a increasingly serious viewpoint while Bowyer interjects increasingly light hearted takes. I think Harvick’s knowledge and the stability he will bring to the diner will serve Fox well in 2024.
Michael: I think Harvick will be spanking-new in the booth. Plane when he tabbed some of the truck races at Eldora, he came off as a prepared person plane though he didn’t know much well-nigh dirt racing. He asked the right people the right questions and it showed in his preparation.
The million-dollar question is will Fox let him shine the way he’s capable or will it be covered up by some of their antics and silliness? I don’t mind joking virtually expressly when announcers are taking jabs at each other but the pre-race antics of the Grid Walk, some of the goofy camera shots, and not-so-subtle sponsor placements can make it difficult to take their broadcasts too seriously.
Can the Las Vegas Grand Prix live up to the hype?
Richard: Is Taylor Swift going to be there?
Unless she and Travis Kelce show up in Vegas, there isn’t much of a endangerment this race gets any increasingly hyped than it once is. Several factors including the Netflix series Drive to Survive, some intriguing personalities and storylines, and increasingly American friendly start times have fueled a bit of a Formula 1 resurgence in the United States and all of the Americas. That is expressly true when it comes to the ‘see-and-be-seen’ crowd.
The racing in and of itself is typically not very good as the same guy wins virtually every week. But F1 has never really been as much well-nigh the competition on the track as it has been well-nigh the drama off the track. It’s substantially a upper speed soap opera.
Back to the question, there is no way the Las Vegas Grand Prix can live up to the hype considering that the hype has been extraordinary. There are several things working versus it. First and foremost is the ridiculous middle of the night start time. Of course, event organizers want the lights of the Las Vegas Strip to be highly visible and the imbricate of darkness is the way to make the most of that. And there is moreover a report out there that F1 officials scheduled the late start considering they incorrectly thought it would be necessary considering the heat not knowing that it unquestionably gets quite tomfool in Nevada when the sun goes lanugo at this time of year.
A second factor working versus the race is the fact that F1 events are highly predictable with Max Verstappen winning virtually all the time. American motorsports fans who may not follow F1 closely (provided they are still awake at the time of the start) will not be hooked by watching the once crowned champion unhook yet flipside stump kicking to the field.
In the end, this race can’t possibly live up to the hype. But the key to F1 is the outrageous value of money that changes hands before, during, and without a race and there is no doubt a lot of that has been going on here. The question is, can it be good unbearable to warrant doing all of this then in 2024?
Michael: I’m wrung this race has the potential to be a big dud. I’m not rooting for that to happen. It just seems there are too many things working versus it.
As you mentioned, the ridiculous start time has to upset the fans in Europe. When the race starts, it will be 4 in the morning in a number of countries. Not to mention how late it will be in the eastern time zone in the U.S.
I’ve read that ticket and hotel demands are nowhere tropical to what organizers thought it would be. Some of the premium areas that were going for $7,000 and up are lanugo virtually $1,000. Hotels aren’t stuff booked like they thought as well as the same for 5-star restaurants. They largest hope people are just waiting on prices bottoming out surpassing scooping them up at the last minute.
With the University of Michigan sign stealing controversy, isn’t it interesting that NASCAR teams can listen to each other’s radio conversations?
Richard: In my opinion, the fact that anyone can listen to drivers, hairdo chiefs, and spotters communicate with one flipside during the undertow of a race is one of the weightier things well-nigh NASCAR. No other sport allows such an inside view of what is going on as this one.
With that stuff the case, the teams have to requite something up and that, of course, is their privacy. When I say anyone can listen, that ways anyone, including the rivals. As a result of that, the teams often use lawmaking words and other trickery to alimony the nosy competition guessing or to plane mislead them.
I think the whole thing with the University of Michigan is probably stuff overblown and the saltate they are receiving is primarily stuff driven by social media reactionaries. Football would be ruined if teams knew each other’s plays superiority of time but that’s nothing that can’t be learned by simply conducting a good scouting report.
Having the radio conversations misogynist to everyone, including broadcasters, forces NASCAR teams to be increasingly creative while subtracting to the entertainment value of the races.
Michael: One of the things that makes NASCAR so unique is the worthiness for anyone to get a scanner or radio and listen to any team’s communications. When I was a regular attendee of races at Bristol, I bought a scanner and would listen to some of the teams throughout the race. Plane now, I take my scanner when tent a race to listen to the unconcentrated considering a person can hear when the pit reporters are telling the director they have a developing story to insert into the broadcast.
Leagues like the XFL have unliable fans to hear communications between referees and the replay diner and from coach-to-coach on the same team. I unchangingly like that aspect, expressly the replay booth. It gave some transparency to what was taking place. Maybe Fox and NBC should do the same with the NASCAR tenancy tower so fans will really know what’s stuff said in unrepealable situations.
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