TNT Missed A Good Race

By Mark Young

Not to steal any thunder from my blog brother Kurt Smith in The Infield, I feel really compelled to write about the abysmal TV coverage of the race on Saturday night.  Granted it was the last race before the Chase and there was plenty of drama because of it but I think that we as race fans were royally ripped off.

I would have posted this sooner but figured for the sake of the boss man pulling my post due to censureship I needed to wait and cool off a bit.  This telecast had to be the worst one I have ever seen.

To start with let's talk a bit about the over-coverage of the Chase contenders.  If I was a sponsor of one of the 40 other cars there that night I would be contacting TNT (NBC's generic sibling) and express my outrage at the complete lack of coverage not only of their cars but of the race in general.  I am really anxious to find the statistics showing how much airtime was spent actually covering the race on Saturday night.  The last half of the race was missed because of all of the commercials that we had to endure.  The remote control at my buddy Dave's house was a smoldering mass of melted plastic because we used it so much.  I guess I should thank TNT in a sense for all of the commercials and so should ABC because we spent as much time watching the Ohio State vs. Texas game as we did the race.  It is absolutely ludicrous to run four sets of commercials in a 20 minute time span.  TNT was on the air for four laps then commercials, then another five laps and another set of commercials and what for?  A bunch of interviews from drivers after the race who have ten more races to look forward to.

What about Dave Blaney?  What about Ken Schrader?  What about Scott Riggs? I think they all had great finishes but then again I am not sure because TNT didn't bother to give us a rundown on the final results of the race!!!  It would have been really neat to hear what those three guys had to say after very good runs but NOOOOO.  We had to stick a camera in Tony Stewart's face right after he got out and ask him how he felt about not making the Chase and we all know it is because everyone expected a curse-ladened tirade.  They were just looking for him to blow up, I am glad Tony held his tongue and took it like a man.  No offense to Denny Hamlin's parents as they have a lot to be proud of, and so would I if I were his father, but come on people we heard them talk before the race and during qualifying.  Same thing with Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr.  They both had crappy runs and were lucky to make the Chase but there was more to that race than 11 guys.

Was it too much to ask for five minutes out of TNT's precious time to talk about the race that had just finished instead of the ten races yet to be run?  I hope the ESPN/ABC guys took some serious notes and remember what was aired Saturday because I am sure there are many fans like me who will remember this next year.