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Leigh Diffey

Motorsport

NASCAR Shoutouts after the 2024 season-finale: Chris Buescher the best non-Playoffs driver outside the Top 16 Points, more farewells & a few exciting things to look out for going into 2025

by Sports Benches

And now we roll off with the shoutouts for the final time in season 2024 aside from yet another Team Penske season where Joey Logano got his 3rd Drivers’ Championship there for the Blue Oval Ford as we start with Chris Buescher. Shoutout to Buescher as the best non-Playoffs driver of 2024 after he came home 9th in the No.17 Ford for RFK Racing. Who knows what he could do next year? When Kroger is expected to be onboard soon & he and Brad Keselowski will be able to see their team add a 3rd chartered car imminently.

So does Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford) after they finished their last race as a whole team together with No.10’s Noah Gragson being their best driver of the day in 12th. I know he’s already signed up to Front Row Motorsports next year but we’ll have to wait and see what happens since FRM has been in a court yard fight alongside 23XI Racing with the sport lately re. charters.

Don’t forget Harrison Burton over in 16th even though he wasn’t the best for Wood Brothers Ford over these last three years but still made his first and the team’s 100th win come true at Daytona’s summer race. Although Wood Brothers will be in good hands with a handy racer in Josh Berry next year, but there’s more to come from Harrison when he will step back at Xfinity level with another Ford outfit at AM Racing – wishing him the very best of luck.

Then we look at the 2017 Cup champ Martin Truex Jr. who also competed his last race as a full-time driver. Now he may not have been able to convert into a race win from pole, but still one of the best racers to watch including the last decade over the best of Toyota Cup teams. 

Going down a position in 18th, how about also the best rookie on show Carson Hocevar in the No.77 Chevy for Spire Motorsports? He’s got a bright future ahead straight out of Trucks, especially with Spire growing more and more every race weekend alongside Justin Haley in the 7 — and they’ll soon be joined by veteran Michael McDowell in the 71 next season after his decorated seven-year stint with Ford’s Front Row Motorsports.

And if that’s not enough, how about we give a big shoutout to Australia’s own Leigh Diffey, who now calls America home & also recently became NBC’s lead NASCAR race commentator at least for Cup. We continue to see and hear the best of Leigh at the highest of racing levels whether if it’s Motorsport or Athletics/Track and Field as sure there will be more memorable NASCAR calls by the Diff going into next year and beyond. Well done Leigh & have a well-deserved break.

Yes, we’ve also heard the best of Rick Allen over the past decade up until late August before Leigh took over, having called the Xfinity season-finale race live the other day for The CW under NBC’s production. But again, we thank him for what he’s done as wishing him good luck wherever he ends up next season.

So there we have it, the 2024 NASCAR season is finally over after 36 points races plus two extra weeks of non-points fun and excitement. We cannot wait to go all over again for season 2025 under a new TV rights contract with a huge focus on the streaming part as it rolls on. For now, your champion is Joey Logano for the 3rd time after he fended off Blaney that justified another glorious Team Penske moment with another silverware yet again. 

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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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Motorsport

Thoughts on Leigh Diffey expecting to call his last IndyCar race at the Iowa Speedway doubleheader this weekend before the Olympics and most likely NASCAR later on

by Sports Benches

This weekend’s IndyCar Series race doubleheader at Iowa Speedway will be Leigh Diffey’s last race on the call after just over a decade, even though there’s six events left on the calendar this season before NBC Sports will bow out on a high with Fox Sports set to take it from here going into 2025 and beyond where they will show all races live including the annual Indianapolis 500 race on free-to-air. We all know he will be calling Track and Field during the 2nd week of the Summer Olympics over in Paris, France in early August for the network, which is a position that is so legendary since he first called the races at a Olympic event four years ago in Tokyo, Japan on top of various top-level races like the World Champs in the past.

Lots more to come when he will be back calling the Olympics Track and Field once again for the 2028 edition in Los Angeles followed by his hometown reunion for the Brisbane edition come 2032 – the time when NBC’s current Olympic contract will be expiring by then unless they renew for a lot more down the track from the last time the network signed their big Olympics renewal with the IOC that dates back to May 7th, 2014. There’s even more exciting news for Leigh post-IndyCar – even though it still hasn’t been made official but close to 100% likely – is that he will be well and truly expected to replace Rick Allen as NBC’s lead NASCAR Cup Series announcer once the Olympics is done alongside Steve Letarte and Jeff Burton. This won’t affect his other commitments such as Supercross and the early season IMSA races when NBC is not doing NASCAR, although he might miss the a rare Cup race or two for the World Championships in Track & Field if required during the odd years.

We don’t know when he will be begin calling the NASCAR races again but most likely when the Playoffs start around September with Leigh getting the promotion. Meanwhile, Rick Allen – who is currently calling the Cup races at the moment – will only keep his Xfinity Series gig for The CW – whether if it’s just the short term under NBC’s production just for the Playoffs or on a permanent basis ahead of its first full-time season next year with all races also free-to-air.

Seems like having a three-man booth suits the network’s style more off the back of good banter and chemistry that Leigh forged with James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell in IndyCar rather than the four-man group they’ve done with NASCAR for several years until the end of last season. Then at a time when they’ve renewed their commitment to air NASCAR for another few years not long later but only at Cup level; like the Premier League, NBC would want to go differently without Dale Jr. & now Rick.

For now, things won’t be the same without Leigh calling the open-wheel races at all once he wraps up NBC’s IndyCar coverage at Iowa with Kevin Lee expected to take the baton until the finale at Nashville Superspeedway. He’s been great presenting/calling these races firstly with Formula 1 of course before he got the chance to call the Formula 1 & IndyCar races for NBC at the same time back in 2013 while being the first overseas announcer to call the Indianapolis 500 when NBC had full rights to IndyCar for another few years from 2019 until the end of this year. We’re glad that he’s had one hell of a ride to see it for himself and the wider motorsports community as we can’t wait to hear what Leigh soon enough after the Olympics.

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Thoughts on Australian-American Leigh Diffey potentially replacing Rick Allen as NBC’s leading NASCAR commentator for their Cup races after the Olympics later this year

by Sports Benches

Here’s another thing happening right now within the world of NASCAR and having heard about Dale Jr heading out the door from NBC lately to Amazon and TNT Sports after his contract has expired at the end of the 2023 season, we could see another change in the commentary box at NASCAR on NBC and Australia’s own Leigh Diffey could be back calling NASCAR races again since 2019 when Homestead last hosted the Championship 4 event under the channel’s additional Hot Pass coverage before it went to Phoenix. But this time he could be there more often on top of his current IndyCar duties towards the end of the 2024 season in Rick Allen’s place, who would call the first couple of races until the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France starts in late July & then hand to Diffey after the Olympics is done. Although it seems Allen will still be there a bit longer by calling all second-tier Xfinity Series races this year regardless of what happens during NBC’s Cup days since it will be their last year covering series before it heads over to CW beginning from 2025-2031. It remains to be seen what the coverage will look like when they will be back onboard for another term but this time only on Cup race days for the last 14 races of the season down from 20. Same thing will apply with Fox who will always still cover the first half season races before Amazon and TNT Sports will take over the mid-season races but will only have Daytona 500 and All-Star practice & qualifying.

From a three-man ex-drivers booth experiment, a recently used four-man commentary team to a joint TV/radio coverage at road course events, having Diffey onboard to call the races as a lead announcer would be the next greatest thing to happen if that’s true where we will have a regular new voice from outside the US to reflect the sport’s fast growing International footprint. You can hear him right now on the main IndyCar broadcast for NBC alongside James Hinchcliffe & Townsend Bell via Stan Sport (Live & on-demand) & 9Go (highlights) here during every IndyCar race. He’s been there to make a name for himself firstly here with the V8s on Network Ten, then did a bit of World Rallying and World Superbikes for the BBC in the UK, but we all know he’s been the most successful at a place he now calls home even as a naturalised citizen in the United States of America – firstly with Fox Sports/Speed followed by NBC where he’s been there for over 10 years now. He’s got the chance to lead the Formula 1 races for the US audience before during the first couple of years before it went to ESPN/ABC as well as the Indianapolis 500, Supercross and IMSA Sportscars a few years later amongst other sports like Rugby Union, Bobsleigh/Luge & also Track and Field where he will be part of NBC’s Olympic team once again for Track & Field later this year.

Regarding Rick Allen, he hasn’t been bad who used to call the whole Truck Series season when Speed Channel existed at the time between 2003 and 2013 and he too deserved to make the step up into calling the higher level races at a network like NBC when they came back again to replace ESPN and ABC back in 2015 – with Mike Joy still not going anywhere at FOX for a little longer until he wishes to retire anytime he likes. But while he has some detractors along the way, lots of people wish Allen Bestwick was still calling the races even after ESPN left. Maybe it could be the perfect time to give Diffey a chance to shine alongside Steve Letarte and Jeff Burton instead of Allen going forward. When NBC successfully renewed the Premier League soccer rights a few years ago that will cover until the 2027-28 season, they replaced Arlo White with Peter Drury as the network’s main commentator while retaining Lee Dixon and Graeme Le Saux. I’m sure there won’t be much complications for Diffey to balance both IndyCar and NASCAR races like Drury does with the Premier League at both NBC & its Comcast sister company Sky Sports since the network will only be covering on race days at Cup level while still being able to call the Indy 500 should they renew IndyCar again once the current three-year contract is up at the end of the year. Watch this space as his old motorsport colleague Matt White said when we could see Leigh Diffey replace Rick Allen upstairs sooner rather than later.

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IndyCar returns on free-to-air in Australia for the first time in 15 years, but only through one-hour highlights on 9Go

by Sports Benches

It’s been a long time coming since an American motorsports series such as IndyCar were last shown on Free to Air in Australia in 2008 on the Seven Network, after these open-wheelers no longer race on the streets of Surfers Paradise in Gold Coast, Queensland.

There was also every race in Champ Car/IndyCar back then for the North American races other than the Gold Coast, having been tape-delayed on Tuesday mornings at 12 am/1 am either on Nine or Ten. Although both networks did cover the annual Indianapolis 500 race live through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Fifteen years on, the Nine Network brought it back this time as one-hour highlights of every race on Thursday 2-3 pm via their digital channel 9Go. It comes after their subscription streaming partner, Stan Sport, who recently snatched the Australian IndyCar TV rights off Fox Sports/Kayo, will air every practice, qualifying, and race, live without ads and on-demand.

And fans will not have to wait long now to subscribe and tune in to Stan Sport for tomorrow’s season-opener at a Street Circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida, 4 am AEDT.

We would’ve loved to see Nine simulcast the annual Indy 500 live with Stan Sport on 9Gem in late May, but then not many people here will stay up all night & watch it in the early hours of Monday AM. The only way Nine will air an IndyCar race live is if the IndyCars return for a weekend racing here like they did in the past, but someone local has to promote it where none of them are willing to take this step forward any time soon.

For now, it’s great to hear fellow Aussie Leigh Diffey commentating for host broadcaster NBC Sports throughout the 2022 IndyCar season, including the Indianapolis 500, both on Stan Sport and 9Go.

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