What William Byron executed in Iowa was astonishing. The Hendrick Motorsports driver last pitted on lap 206 of the Iowa Corn 350 race. But then he squeezed 144 laps out of his fuel cell at a track where the fuel window is roughly 100 laps. This fuel mileage victory, however impressive on Byron’s part, was made mind-boggling due to NASCAR’s broadcast.
Last weekend, NBC Sports took over NASCAR’s broadcast from TNT. Announcers like Leigh Diffey, Jeff Burton, and Steve Letarte were in charge of running the booth. Despite their charismatic voices leading the drama of the race, a glaring slip-up caught the attention of NASCAR experts.
NASCAR’s sloppy numbers elicit frustration
When Amazon Prime took over broadcast duties, its unique features were wildly popular. From a comprehensive post-race coverage to a double-box commercial format, the streaming giant introduced many good things. Among them was also a proprietary AI Burn Bar. It accurately displayed the amount of fuel for each driver to the fans. And people dearly missed the burn bar in Iowa. Journalist Jeff Gluck and Denny Hamlin pointed out that the NBC broadcast was incorrectly estimating William Byron’s fuel situation. Apparently, the broadcasters’ calculation did not consider the exact amount of fuel that each driver takes during a pit stop.
Similarly, experts on the ‘Rubbin’ is Racing’ show took shots at this lack of accuracy. Quigs, who has a degree in aerospace engineering, rolled out his seasoned opinion: “I didn’t like it. The way they did it…When you add a number onto it…you have a meter in there or something that says the actual fuel. Which I’m guessing they’re basing off on how much fuel is in how many laps or whatever. I don’t think you should throw a number on there if it’s an estimate…Maybe you add a bar or a battery-type thing that is going red when it’s close to the end. But I don’t think you should have a percentage if you’re just guessing.” Co-host Large did not mince his words at all: “It was f—ing useless, it was useless, right? They gotta change that f—ing thing.”
According to Denny Hamlin, the NBC Sports broadcasters went low on their efforts. He agreed with the Rubbin’ is Racing experts: “I’m wondering are they assuming everyone is filling their tank up full every time because they’re not. So, when they’re trying to calculate on TV and tell you how much fuel each car has, are they assuming that they went in for a pit stop, so their tank is full now? That’s not the case. They need to figure it off the amount of seconds they were on pit road, not just a pit stop.” The Joe Gibbs Racing driver dropped from 11th to 24th in Iowa after facing a multitude of issues.
As it turns out, the inaccurate fuel numbers were not the only shortcoming. Other NASCAR experts pointed out another glaring slip-up by NBC.
Reverting to the old problem
Well, we all know why NASCAR fans did not like FOX Sports. The sport’s 20-year-old broadcasting partner had many inefficient features, like patchy camera work and mismatched commentary. Probably the most prominent problem was ill-timed commercials. We saw a resurgence of the same at last weekend’s Cup Series race in Iowa. William Byron led the first 64 laps and the last 74, and during the first stretch, he had faced a terrific charge from Brad Keselowski. Just when the RFK Racing driver/owner was pushing Byron hard for the lead in the first stage, NBC made a big blunder. It cut to a full commercial.
When the NBC broadcast came back, the spicy moment was all but over. This slip-up created waves of frustration among fans and NASCAR experts alike, as Bubba Wallace‘s spotter, Freddie Kraft, said recently. He reflected on that moment of disaster in a ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’ episode, “It must have been when they were all, like the leaders, it was a four-wide battle in front of the leaders for the lucky dog and then the leaders were on their a–. I was actually commentating this for Bubba, I was like, ‘They’re getting ready to wreck up front here because they’re racing their asses off for the lucky dog.’ And then I think Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) was the one that got flushed out.”
Clearly, NASCAR has some things to clean up with NBC’s recent Iowa venture. Let us see if the upcoming race at Watkins Glen International pays heed to the fans’ protests.
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