Denny Hamlin said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast this week that this past Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Sonoma Raceway was a “tough watch” for fans watching the race on FOX.
Hamlin explained how the flurry of cautions early on in the race resulted in long stretches in between restarts and the broadcast cutting to commercials.
“It [was] a good opportunity for FOX to get their commercials out of the way because they definitely have some ill-timed commercials at times,” Hamlin said. “It’s frustrating inside the car when you’re trying to get a rhythm. … Certainly, it’s a tough watch on TV because the cautions are just so long. The pace laps are so long that you’ll spend on a general easy cleanup caution 15 minutes, maybe 20 under caution. And you’re just like — you’re gonna hear some storytelling from the booth for a little while. You’re gonna see some old highlights from 1950 and ’60, you’re gonna see a couple people in the stands eating snow cones and these cameras kind of pan off into the wilderness.
“I don’t know. It’s a tough watch for that 15-20 minutes.”
Despite the long periods of no racing, FOX still managed to average 2.89 million viewers for its broadcast of the race at Sonoma. The race featured seven cautions before the halfway point of the 110-lap race, eclipsing the amount of yellow flags in the previous two races at Sonoma combined. Perhaps a newly paved racetrack had something to do with it, but whatever the case, it was clear drivers were being more aggressive than perhaps ever at Sonoma.
Kyle Petty predicts more aggression from drivers on road courses in the future
Kyle Petty doesn’t believe this was a one-off occurrence. Speaking in a NASCAR.com video, Petty said he believes this kind of racing will become the norm at road courses going forward, which he hopes will translate to short tracks in the future as well.
“This was aggression,” Petty said. “It was ‘I’ve got to get it, it’s all about me.’ And that’s what this car makes these guys do on these road courses. It makes them do things that normally they may bide their time. When their time came, they took it come heck or high water. And that’s why we saw so many cautions yesterday. I think this is what we’re going to continue to see on road courses with this car. Aggression, aggression, aggression. At the same time, I hope we start to see this same type of racing on the short tracks in the future.”
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