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Coke Zero Sugar 400

Motorsport

NASCAR Race Review: Harrison Burton holds off with the big Daytona summer win over Kyle Busch following a last-lap shootout on Wood Brothers Racing’s 100th win milestone

by Sports Benches

It was a huge night full of The Big Ones for the Ford cars upfront where they dominated each and every stage but tonight’s Cup race at Daytona was about Harrison Burton in the No.21 for Wood Brothers Racing. 

He was the one who just got away with his first career Cup win, his first Playoffs opportunity and also his team’s 100th race win – even though he won’t be coming back there next season with Josh Berry already confirmed to replace Harrison due to his underwhelming regular race results since he first replaced Matt DiBenedetto back in 2022. 

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t that bad in Cup after all when you look back at some good Top 5/10s before. He was battling mid-pack from the start before a series of yellows particularly throughout Stage 3 went his way with lots of track position & extra adjustments on pit road. All he had to do is get that race lead ahead of the final lap restart & hold off through the checkered flag and there he is holding off Kyle Busch (No.8 Childress Chevy) to get that breakthrough moment he was hoping for in a race that was so unpredictable twice a year at this same Daytona race track.

Wishing Harrison all the best wherever he ends up next year as it’s his night tonight in victory lane.

Shoutout to Cody Ware following a brilliant night to bring his No.15 Rick Ware Ford home in 4th, so does Parker Retzlaff in 7th for the part-time No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevy; Meanwhile, Daniel Hemric continues to be so good at the big tracks in 9th for Kaulig also in a Chevy & there was bunch of Toyotas filling in the Top 10 with Christopher Bell (No.20 Joe Gibbs) in 3rd behind Kyle and Harrison.

One more regular race now to go before the Playoffs going into the Labor Day weekend next week at Darlington Raceway with another two special shoutouts – Leigh Diffey in his debut at NBC’s new lead NASCAR Cup caller & his co-commentator and former NASCAR racer Jeff Burton who also celebrated his son’s big breakthrough moment from upstairs.

As said, his time at Cup for the most part hasn’t been that great other than a handful of Top 10s prior to this as we would’ve liked but he’s grateful for the sponsors backing him every step of the way like Dex Imaging.

Again, I’d like to see him end up at Rick Ware Racing & stay being a two-car team since Justin Haley is most likely going to Spire Motorsports to replace Corey LaJoie despite Haley being around here for one year but he’s a top asset to them anyway with lots of $$$ or a returning top Xfinity ride would do it if Harrison wants it – it’s up to him.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on NBC’s NASCAR coverage going uninterrupted under green for a few Cup races later this season but with side-by-side ads rather than full screen commercials

by Sports Benches

First, there was a massive shake-up in the lead announcer role yesterday when it comes to calling the Cup races for NBC with Leigh Diffey now confirmed to replace Rick Allen beginning this weekend at Daytona. Now coinciding with Leigh’s full-time debut, NBC now wants to air the whole race uninterrupted but still work around ads while under green for three Cup races this season including this weekend followed by two Playoffs races at Atlanta next month & Talladega in early October.

So in other words, when the NBC NASCAR commentary booth advises viewers that we go into an ad break – we won’t be seeing a whole few mins screen that is full of commercials. Instead, we will see side-by-side/split-screen commercials while the race goes on under green. If a caution comes out though, then they may as well throw a few mins of full-screen ads before you won’t miss a single thing just in time before the restart. So that’s the whole process based on today’s announcement.

For those hoping for ad-free racing like we currently see in Supercars and Formula 1 on Foxtel back here in Australia, this won’t happen just yet until at least the middle of next season when Amazon and TNT/Max will air a few Cup races each in the mid-summer. Both Amazon and Max are paid streaming services where you will need to pay to watch the races as this is something NASCAR wants to see over the next seven years of their next TV rights contract whether or not if it will benefit their fanbase where we are at a time now that viewers are tuning in more from their devices than those who are on cable TV.

I’m not sure whether or not if NBC wants to go ad-free at some point other than full-on green flag racing with just a handful of split commercial breaks when they got the paid Peacock Premium service, but probably too early to say at this stage when there’s a lot of sponsors/advertisers out there pouring $$$ to promote/market their business nationwide.

While a few of the NBC Cup races later this season aren’t really ad-free, but at least it’s a good start to have the whole race uninterrupted so we all know what’s going on from start to finish without missing out anything while they were out.

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Motorsport

NASCAR News Today: NBC NASCAR makes an official lead announcer change ahead of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 this weekend at Daytona

by Sports Benches

It’s official!! Rick Allen called his last Cup race yesterday in the rain-delayed FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway for NBC with Australia’s own Leigh Diffey will now replace him for the top job as the network’s main Cup announcer starting at Daytona this weekend. Analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte will remain unchanged whom they will both welcome Leigh into the booth while Rick will continue to call Xfinity Series races for the rest of this season including the last eight Playoff races that will also be an NBC Sports production for the CW Network.

And for those wondering who will be taking Leigh’s spot when it comes to IndyCar at least in the short-term on NBC before it moves to Fox next year, it will be veteran Indianapolis sports & motorsports broadcaster Kevin Lee. You can also hear him this week with the hour-long highlights races from the Gateway St. Louis 500 weekend on 9Go starting today at 12-1pm, Saturday afternoon at 2-3pm and overnight Sunday morning at 2-3am. 

So yeah won’t be the same without Leigh for those tuning in regularly on IndyCar, especially when it was on one of the Nine free-to-air digital channels during the week. But for us NASCAR fans, it’s a big boost seeing him commentate the Cup races more often now as NBC’s main NASCAR announcer – he will call the second-half season races including the Championship 4 Finale in Phoenix this early November. And if you want to hear the best of Leigh, Foxtel/Kayo is the only place to watch the NASCAR races live here including on-demand replay content.

Other than that, it’s been a long time coming for Leigh to step up into another top job he wanted for a long time on top of his Track & Field duties, having recently called the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris for NBC. NBC will keep the Cup rights for another seven years going into 2025 under the next NASCAR TV rights contract and Leigh is the perfect commentator to help bring us these good and bad moments from start to finish – how good!!

And on Rick, it’s been a pleasure hearing you commentate over the best of the last 10 years including at a time when you, Dale Jr, Steve and Jeff were a stunning four-man group called The Booty Boyz until the end of the last year after Dale Jr. left. We wish him all the best in the near future.

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 weekend race at Daytona will be on a Sunday morning here since it’s a Saturday night race rather than on a usual Monday from 9.30am AEST.

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