The high banks of Michigan served ESPN quite well on Sunday afternoon. Allen Bestwick started the day with the NASCAR Countdown show. Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty were alongside. This was a one hour program.
This time of year, the challenge for ESPN is to mix stories about making The Chase with the stories of winning the race. That challenge was again on display in the pre-race show. Strangely, Dave Burns narrated a poem that was set to NASCAR video footage. Update: Now being told the narrator was ESPN feature reporter Chris Connelly.
Marty Reid, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree handled the call of the race from the TV booth. Reid kept his excited tone while continuing to come up to speed with the teams and personalities in the sport. Petree was much more vocal than in the past while Jarrett continued to be the statesman for the sport.
On pit road was Dr. Jerry Punch, Vince Welch, Mike Massaro and Dave Burns. The pit reporters were key to this telecast and were very busy. This big track needs effective updates from the reporters assigned to the various teams.
ESPN recovered from a terrible Nationwide Series telecast on Sunday with a big change in approach to the race coverage. Wider shots and many split-screens put a lot more of the racing on the screen and eliminated the single shots of cars and long periods of simply following the leader.
Both Reid and Bestwick continue to push the agenda of continued excitement and pumping up the stories of the actual race. Coverage included a ton of focus on the Chase early, but that faded among the actual racing and the stories unfolding on and off the track.
ESPN made good pictures and had no technical problems. In-car cameras worked great, but once again burned the director as key passes from the in-car perspective just make bad TV. As usual, replays from in-car angles are great.
This was a very different presentation of NASCAR on ESPN. We want to know what you thought of this coverage. Please take a moment to leave us a race wrap-up comment focusing on the TV coverage. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for stopping by The Daly Planet.
