Couch Potato Tuesday: Confusion Reigns at Indianapolis

Indianapolis is historically one of many largest race weekends of the second half of the season. As everyone knows, the Goodyear tire debacle of 2008 was roughly a demise knell for the Brickyard 400. NASCAR and Goodyear seemingly by no means made amends for that, and attendance cratered from there.

Beginning final 12 months, the previous Brickyard 400 was moved to the infield street course. It nonetheless attracts a considerably related crowd to the ultimate years on the oval, however it’s extra unfold out.

Final 12 months’s race had curbs breaking and large crashes. This 12 months’s race can be remembered greatest for the ultimate restart and the chaos that ensued.

Once I was watching this reside on Sunday, I assumed to myself, “What!  He can’t try this!” This was actually Ross Chastain taking the “Joker” on the ultimate restart. For the uninitiated, a “Joker” is an alternate route on the observe, usually seen in Rallycross. The FIA Touring Automotive Cup makes use of such a setup on the Vila Actual avenue course occasion in Portugal. Let’s simply say that the joker lap at Vila Actual is simply one of many bizarre issues about that avenue course.

Now, in that circumstance, everybody is meant to do it as soon as per race. That isn’t the situation that’s speculated to occur in NASCAR.

This situation created confusion as Chastain actually got here out of nowhere to get himself into the lead briefly. After the race, Tyler Reddick described it thusly:

“I used to be like, uh-oh. However that was a situation that had been talked about. In case you get bottled up, what do you do? Take the entry street.”

Had Chastain used the motorbike loop to cease, he seemingly would have completed wherever he in the end did on the observe. Since he didn’t, NASCAR slapped a 30-second penalty on him, which dropped him to 27^th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. seen that Chastain had gone straight at flip 1 when he did it, however didn’t appear to note that it was Chastain on the time. Austin Dillon additionally did it and bought hit with the identical penalty (not talked about on the printed).

The decision picked up with Chastain combating tooth and nail with Reddick for the win. Reddick’s final move for the win on Chastain in flip 13 might be one of the vital spectacular passes of the day understanding that he pulled it off on the skin of a flat flip. The one Chastain placed on Reddick on the fast flick chicane was equally so.

The entire mess on the penultimate lap made for a particularly messy name because the sales space had to determine simply what the deuce was happening in progress. I really feel like NASCAR penalized Chastain fairly a bit earlier than they introduced it on the printed. Within the clip above, you may see when the penalty announcement was made on-air.

Submit-race protection was pretty substantial, and the content material that was unique to Peacock did present extra worth. Nevertheless, the entire timing factor was actually bizarre. The NBC broadcast from Indianapolis was scheduled to run till 6 p.m. ET Sunday. It did. Once I went onto Peacock to verify it, it talked about a begin time of 5:45 p.m. for the post-race present.

What did that imply in observe? It implies that the feed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports activities App reduce out in the midst of the common post-race protection, claiming that the protection had concluded when it actually hadn’t. I don’t perceive that transfer.

Fortunately, I’ve a wise TV, so I converted to Peacock at that time. It seems that the actually attention-grabbing stuff ended up unique to Peacock.

As an illustration, the clip that confirmed Ryan Blaney deliberately spinning out Daniel Suarez solely aired on Peacock. Previous to that, you had Parker Kligerman’s awkward interview with Richard Childress, the place you could possibly inform that he was nonetheless offended over the entire contract mess with Reddick, even if Reddick simply gained the dang race.

The entire intentional spin of Suarez doesn’t make sense to me. It looks as if Suarez bought hit by Austin Cindric and that bounced him into Blaney. Suarez additionally didn’t spin him out. AJ Allmendinger did (though I do admit that I initially thought that Suarez turned him). The entire state of affairs was ridiculous, however Suarez is innocent right here.

Sunday’s race additionally noticed the weird state of affairs of Chris Buescher’s automobile bursting into flames on pit street. This resulted from contact with Bubba Wallace that moved the precise facet exhaust. That contact on lap 2 pushed Buescher into Chastain, who spun out. Buescher defined this example Monday.

Two ideas come out of this. One is that NASCAR may need to look into this so as to stop related fires from occurring sooner or later. Sure, it was a large hit, however I’m certain they’d need to know why a hearth would end result from it quarter-hour later.

Additionally, had Buescher gotten out of the automobile when the fireplace was burning, he would have been pressured to go to the infield care heart and he would have been out for the day. That may be a ridiculous rule that has to vary. He’s fortunate that he didn’t find yourself ingesting a bunch of the fireplace retardant materials. Truthfully, I’m completely satisfied that he appears to be like OK proper now after that mess, though he’ll in all probability want a brand new fireplace swimsuit. Whereas sure, a hearth swimsuit is meant to guard you from fireplace (which it did right here), I don’t assume the fits just like the retardant materials very a lot.

Early on within the race, there have been a spate of incidents as drivers had been wiping out underneath braking and going off into the grass. I didn’t actually perceive why nobody appeared to assume that this was going to be a problem.

I can’t declare to have ever been, however Indiana in late July is usually fairly scorching and humid. That’s an everyday factor. This race was one week later than when ESPN used to kick off its portion of the Cup schedule with the Brickyard 400 underneath the earlier TV deal. Warmth was at all times a problem there.

Additionally, observe began at 9:35 a.m. ET Saturday morning. Except it’s going to be ridiculous outdoors that day, you’re more likely to get first rate situations at the moment. It’s not going to be consultant for a race that went inexperienced after 3 p.m.

I’m not shocked that the observe temperatures had been 25 levels greater than in qualifying. The groups must compensate for that temperature distinction of their setup.

With NASCAR and INDYCAR sharing the weekend in Indianapolis, there have been a number of alternatives for cross-promotion. I’m good with that. I’d anticipate nothing much less, particularly understanding that NBC Sports activities is a media companion for each sanctioning our bodies.

Doubtless the largest crossover was that James Hinchcliffe performed a job on each the Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Sequence broadcasts. Hinchcliffe helped out on Countdown to Inexperienced and spent the race Sunday with Dale Jarrett. I’m probably not certain that he added a lot there with Jarrett, however I assumed he did a reasonably good job on Countdown to Inexperienced. Hinchcliffe has by no means raced in NASCAR, however I wouldn’t thoughts seeing him give it a strive in some unspecified time in the future. On Saturday, he hung out within the sales space. I’ll cowl that within the Critic’s Annex later this week.

As well as, you had a bit with Patricio O’Ward and Suarez speaking about their experiences collectively racing in Monterrey, Mexico. The 2 drivers are seven years aside in age, however there was a time interval by which they had been each karting within the Monterrey space when Suarez was about 15 and O’Ward eight (they didn’t race towards one another, however knew of one another and had been a minimum of pleasant on the time). The 2 are mates and hold observe of one another’s racing. Fairly attention-grabbing.

Racing-wise, there was a good quantity of racing for place available, however it tended to be clustered across the restarts. Regardless of the madness towards the tip of the race, this was pretty unfold out. I believe NBC may have finished higher regarding the quantity of racing for place proven.

Total, this was pretty middling by race broadcast requirements, however it could have been introduced down by confusion. Everybody was confused on the finish of the race. A whole lot of unusual issues went down. Intentional incidents that made no sense, considerably uncommon mechanical failures, Buescher’s fireplace, joker laps, and Allmendinger’s medical points after the race.

I believe that the Peacock present was finished by the point he bought out of the infield care heart. They had been solely in a position to give small updates on him as a result of that’s all they’d. With the assistance of Harrison Burton (who had his personal journey on his approach to a third-place end), Parker Kligerman was in a position to describe what in the end occurred to broil Allmendinger in his automobile. We had a extra definitive replace on Allmendinger on our personal YouTube channel.

That’s all for this week. Subsequent weekend, the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Sequence can be at Michigan Worldwide Speedway for his or her sole go to of the 12 months. They’ll be joined by the ARCA Menards Sequence. NTT IndyCar Sequence groups can be in Nashville for the second annual Massive Machine Music Metropolis Grand Prix. GT America can be on the undercard. IMSA can be at Street America, the place the 2023 season schedules can be unveiled. TV listings could be discovered right here.

We’ll present critiques of the Cup and Xfinity races from Michigan in subsequent week’s version of Sofa Potato Tuesday right here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex within the Frontstretch Publication will cowl a mixture of the INDYCAR race from Saturday with Earnhardt Jr.’s visitor look, together with Xfinity and NASCAR Tenting World Truck Sequence motion. Clearly, that’s numerous content material, so the plan is to have a number of editions.

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