Last weekend's broadcasts had two standout stories: the John Wes Townley - Spencer Gallagher scrap and Tony Stewart winning at Sonoma. I've already covered those two stories
in detail on Tuesday at Frontstretch. I won't really be touching on them here, but I will say this much: I'm on the fence on FOX Sports getting Jim Ross to add his commentary to the fracas.
Yes, it's better than just splicing audio from (insert WWE Pay-Per-View here), but NASCAR has battled for years a stigma that compares them to pro wrestling. I wouldn't have made the move that quick. Guess FOX Sports wanted it to go viral. Also of note, Ross referred to Townley as a "smark," or "smart mark." That is the sign of someone that would be a big wrestling fan, but also someone who understands the inner workings behind kayfabe (the reality that is being presented). Interesting.
Also on Saturday night, the primary pre-race feature was a "Where are they now?" piece where Ray Dunlap caught up with Ron Hornaday. It's been two years since Hornaday raced, but none of that was his fault. His career prematurely ended due to the Steve Turner - Harry Scott, Jr. business relationship collapsing in 2014. At the time, Hornaday's No. 30 was shut down despite having full sponsorship for the rest of the season. It was a real Bush League way to effectively end someone's career, a reason why Hornaday stated that he isn't really retired. He never did. People just stopped calling, which is a shame.
Today, Hornaday is building UMP-style Dirt Modifieds (as opposed to the Northeast-style DIRTcar Modifieds that I'm used to covering on a regular basis here in New York) and fielding a car for his grandson. Hornaday had always been a hands-on racer, so he views this endeavor as getting back to his roots. I'm happy that he seems to be having fun with this new venture, but that wasn't my biggest takeaway from the piece.
During the conversation with Dunlap, Hornaday revealed that he basically didn't see his own family on a regular basis for something like four years when he first drove for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. It was something like 1999 before Hornaday moved his family to North Carolina as he was already established out in California. That must have been an incredibly frustrating experience for Hornaday. Granted, he was very successful, but very lonely at the same time. That's probably part of the reason why he was so willing to take people in.
Let's move on to the Cup broadcast from Sunday. Here, pre-race coverage had a couple of interesting pieces that I did not have time to note.
One of them was a one-on-one segment where Danielle Trotta interviewed Sherry Pollex at a winery. Here, the discussion was centered upon Pollex's battle with ovarian cancer and a recent decision to ditch her wigs. Pollex views the latter choice as an empowering move, as to say, "yeah, this is me now, get used to it."
Pollex's entire battle against cancer has been an empowering experience and this piece was no exception. It was nowhere near as sad as previous interviews with her have been. Today, she's feeling upbeat and positive. It shows.
Second, Ryan Blaney took viewers to the Ford Performance Center, where he did some time in the official simulator in order to prepare for Sonoma. In all honesty, this piece of machinery is impressive. My understanding is that it costs approximately $3 million but has everything you could possibly want in a testing apparatus. Definitely not cheap to practice on though....
With last weekend in the books, the FOX season is now over and probably not a minute too soon for some of you. I have a few concluding thoughts. One: the cheerleading has to stop now. It's getting ridiculous and makes the whole sport look bad. Let Mike Joy do his dang job for once. He's the play-by-play commentator and by extension, the man in charge of the booth. Darrell Waltrip needs to stop thinking that he's running the show; in reality, he's not even the most well-known analyst in the booth anymore. The broadcast is not about you, DW... it's about the racing.
Jeff Gordon did well in his first year working the booth. However, his Hendrick Motorsports ties are evident throughout his race-long analysis. If we have another situation like Pocono with the hip checking, what Gordon needs to do is explain how he got his information. If it comes from Hendrick Motorsports, he has to be transparent about that. Otherwise, accusations of bias will follow suit. This issue has been an ongoing problem with the Waltrips for years and Gordon has been tagged by association. It bites for Gordon, for sure but he has to be a little careful. Gordon doesn't have to stay away from any topics (other than the ones that FOX Sports mandates) just because Brad Keselowski got upset.