Darlington on TV: "Where the cars were going down like noobs in Call of Duty"
Did anyone else have to stop and rewind their DVRs during the prerace when Chris Myers said that? My brother and I looked at each other and reached for the remote because we were in disbelief that (A) Myers dropped a Call of Duty videogame reference and that (B) it was used during a NASCAR race.
As prerace host, Myers struggles at times to keep up, something that seems pretty surprising given that he's been Fox's studio host for all 10 years of it's coverage. However, there are moments where he can't properly define the action on the track, and relies on Jeff Hammond to bail him out.
Another head-scratcher from the prerace was Fox's need to have a segment showing viewers how the wave-around works. Are there that many fans out there that don't understand what's going on? (Insert overplayed joke about NASCAR fans' intelligence here.) I understand explaining it during the race to educate a very casual fan who may only tune in once or twice a year, but the presentation with Hammond and Darrell Waltrip was straight out of a NASCAR for Dummies textbook. And while part of the appeal of Hammond and Waltrip is their relatability, it doesn't help a telecast when a championship driver and crew chief are -- truthfully or not -- exclaiming that even they don't understand a fairly simple rule.
The Good: Hey, we saw the first pit stops of the evening live. That's always a good thing. The interviews with Jimmie Johnson and AJ Allmendinger were good and timely.
The Bad: Maybe it's because of the layout of Darlington, but there were more than a couple incidents that weren't in the vicinity of a camera. I realize that a camera can't be on every single car, but usually most every incident is near a camera. The audio that Fox played from Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car? That was apparently more than 100 laps old at the time Fox played it.
The Overall Grade: B-. This is simply based on race coverage, and while Fox had another four-hour race on their hands -- something that's not their fault -- it was a better broadcast than the last four-hour debacle.
