With NASCAR’s national series off last weekend, I am going to look at the NTT IndyCar Series this week. It made its annual jaunt to Elkhart Lake, Wis. for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America, a 55-lap duel. It was an interesting weekend.
Entering the race, the biggest story of the weekend revolved around Will Power and his multiple issues during practice on Saturday (June 17). First, he was badly balked on the run down to Canada Corner by Romain Grosjean, then crashed with Scott Dixon.
This whole scenario was rather messy. For Power, it’s not necessarily out of character. If you’ve ever listened to his episode of Dinner With Racers, he talks a lot about actually fighting or wanting to fight people on there. It is apparently a result of where he grew up (Toowoomba, Australia, roughly 80 miles from Brisbane), where a significant percentage of clout apparently came from how good of a fighter you were.
I generally don’t approve of fighting in racing since it just embarrasses you and everyone around you, but IndyCar is not the kind of series to heavily penalize people for arguing. If you want that, there’s the Intelligent Money British GT Championship, where that happened last weekend.
The situation actually gave IndyCar a little more exposure than normal. Most races don’t get highlights on SportsCenter these days outside of the Indianapolis 500, but this mess did, including Power’s comment that he wanted to punch Grosjean in the face.
As you can imagine, INDYCAR Live started off with this situation. The whole thing was over the top. You still got a number of interviews as well, but pre-race coverage was very short.
TV guide listed pre-race as being 30 minutes long. In practice, it’s more like 10-15. This is not like NASCAR. The race broadcast started at 1:30 p.m. ET on my guide. At 1:30 p.m. ET, the cars were climbing the hill, 10 seconds away from taking the green. Keep that in your back pocket for future INDYCAR race broadcasts.
Once the race got going, there were a couple of things that stood out. One is that Leigh Diffey was not 100%. It appeared that he was suffering from a case of laryngitis, and his voice continued to get rougher as the race went on. It was very tough for him, as Diffey wrote here:
Like a number of the drivers recently, Diffey has had a busy last few weeks. Memorial Day weekend was the Indianapolis 500. Then, there was the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. After Detroit, he flew to France to help out on Eurosport’s broadcast of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That feed was only available to American viewers if you watched the alternate feed on MotorTrend+.
Diffey’s voice was actually pretty good at the beginning of the race, but it didn’t take long for trouble to start. To be fair, the IndyCar race ran up against both the Grand Prix of Canada and Race No. 2 for Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS from Virginia International Raceway. With the VIR broadcast on my computer while the IndyCar race was on the TV, it made me think there was a technical issue with my TV because it sounded like an audio issue. A re-watch confirmed that there was no issue.
The race had a lot more incidents than Sonoma Raceway for the NASCAR Cup Series did, but it was about as competitive at the front of the field. Colton Herta dominated until he pitted too early for his final stop. That allowed Alex Palou to run him down and pass him for the win.
Behind Herta, there was a good amount of racing for position to be honest. The smooth pavement made it a little easier for drivers to stay together provided they stuck to the groove. If they went wide, all bets were off.
As a result, the cameras weren’t focused at the front of the field all day. Those who chose to watch IndyCar were likely presented with a much more lively race than what you had in with the Formula 1 race in Montreal as there was plenty of action to be had. The stats more or less back it up. The problem is that the detailed stats don’t go back very far.
Alongside Diffey, you had Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe’s still relatively new in the broadcast booth, but he’s driven the current version of the Dallara. He brings quite a bit to the broadcast. I still think he’d rather race, but he effectively ran out of options to keep his career going.
As for Bell, I did a sit-down interview with him for the site back in 2017. Here, I asked him about what he’s learned in the booth. He described being “dropped into the firestorm” when he started doing TV.
With Paul Tracy no longer being on the broadcasts, Bell has become the more outspoken member of the broadcast booth. Mind you, he’s never going to be as outlandish as Tracy was. He’ll never proclaim that Marco Andretti’s next ride would be with Uber. Regardless, I think he’s assumed a different attitude over the past year or so as something of a counter to Hinchcliffe.
In last week’s column, I talked significantly about how FOX seemed to miss a lot of incidents at Sonoma. The spins for Josh Bilicki and Aric Almirola were used as evidence. That was clearly not a problem Sunday at Road America. If the incidents weren’t caught live, there were plenty of replays. That’s how we got this picture of Grosjean popping a wheelie.
Post-race coverage was fairly extensive. Unlike NASCAR coverage, NBC Sports builds in a half-hour for post-race. If it can’t do it for whatever reason, then it can just put it on Peacock. That wasn’t necessary Sunday as the race ended early enough to give viewers content before that half-hour period started.
Here, you got interviews, a check of the points and some analysis. You also got some additional content that helped to explain things such as why Marcus Armstrong rejoined the track at a slow speed right in front of Palou on the final lap.
Overall, I felt much more informed Sunday during the INDYCAR race than I have during recent NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts on FOX. There were a lot of things going on, but you were good.
The on-track action was pretty dang good. This race was nowhere near as spread out as Road America races can get, which made for good racing. Remember that the entire second half of the race ran clean and green, so there was still plenty of racing after that point for position. I’m happy with what I saw. Hopefully, Diffey’s voice is a little better for Watkins Glen International this weekend.
Remember that the NASCAR Xfinity Series still has a standalone race at Road America at the end of July. If Sunday’s race is any indication, it will be wild, knowing that drivers are going to be all over the place.
That is all for this week. Next week, the NBC Sports portion of the NASCAR season begins with a tripleheader at Nashville Superspeedway for the NASCAR Cup, NASCAR Xfinity and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Meanwhile, IMSA will be at Watkins Glen for Sahlen’s Six Hours at The Glen. TV listings can be found here.
We will have, at the bare minimum, a critique of the Ally 400 in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. In the Critic’s Annex, we are going to do something different this week. ESPN debuted The Grandstand Sunday, an alternate broadcast of the Grand Prix of Canada with Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett. We will look at that and how it compared to broadcasts like the Manningcast that ESPN had for Monday Night Football.
If you have a gripe with me or just want to say something about my critique, feel free to post in the comments below. Even though I can’t always respond, I do read your comments. Also, if you want to “like” me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, please click on the appropriate icons. If you would like to contact either of NASCAR’s media partners, click on either of the links below.
FOX Sports
NBC Sports
As always, if you choose to contact a network by email, do so in a courteous manner. Network representatives are far more likely to respond to emails that ask questions politely rather than emails full of rants and vitriol.
Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.