The NBC Sports Group made a big splash last year when they got back into the NASCAR game, taking over a portion of the six-race TNT mid-summer run and all of the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races that used to be on ABC and ESPN, including the playoff-type ‘Chase for the Championship’, for both the NBC broadcast network and the Peacock’s fledgling cable home, the NBC Sports Network.
Come 2014,
a season and a half away from NBC’s first broadcast under it’s new contract,
and they’ve made another splash, hiring away Steve Letarte, who currently
serves as crew chief for the #88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, driven by the
most popular driver in NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
This is a huge
move for Letarte (who previously had success with Jeff Gordon, before a
Hendrick reshuffle of crew chiefs a couple of seasons ago), who will step from
the pit box at the end of this year to the NBC broadcast booth in 2015, and a
huge move for NBC, one that is already making waves around the sport.
More than
that, it’s a sure sign that the Peacock network is ultra-serious about their
second bite of the NASCAR cherry. This is a brilliant hire, and will go nicely
alongside their previously-announced race analyst, former driver Jeff Burton
(who, like Letarte, will be active at the race track this year) and
play-by-play announcer Rick Allen. They’ve made some very smart hires. Not that
I expected any different. With the money NBC is paying NASCAR, they need to
ensure maximum return, and this is but the first step.
NBC, who
will be responsible for bringing viewers coverage of the final 20 Sprint
Cup races and 19 Nationwide Series races each season from 2015-2024, have
definitely done their
research. Executive Producer Sam Flood is no fool. This is a TV savvy guy,
famous for putting concepts together – like the NHL Winter Classic – and making
them into something big.
To a point,
NBC’s followed the FOX Sports method, and then taken it one step further. In
Letarte, the Peacock has enlisted the services of perhaps the most-scrutinised
crew chief in the NASCAR world, purely because his driver happens to be the
most-scrutinised driver in the 43-car field week in, and week out. You don’t
need me to tell you that Junior Nation is hugely prevalent at every NASCAR
racetrack, and there are many hundreds of thousands more tuning in to Sprint
Cup races weekly.
The fact
that Letarte, whose #88 team enjoyed a solid 2013 – Earnhardt Jr. qualified for
the Chase for the Championship after a solid points year, albeit one that did
not include a visit to Victory Lane – is coming across from NBC suggests, I
think, two things: this is going to be a very serious NASCAR foray for the
broadcaster who lost the rights following the 2006 season to ESPN/ABC; and,
perhaps more so, represents the sort of pressure that has been heaped on
Letarte’s shoulders.
Consider
the frustration amongst many Dale Junior fans. He’s won but one race in the
last three seasons, though he’s made the Chase each of those three years, so
there’s a sign that things might be on the uptick – and this season should be a
good indicator of that. Consider: only one victory since the much-publicised
move across to Hendrick Motorsports from Dale Earnhardt Incorporated.
The garage
is firm in it’s belief that driver and crew chief have good chemistry. It just
hasn’t translated into wins…yet. Chase berths, yes. Wins, not quite. In that
regard, this might be the worst sort of timing for Earnhardt, who could
rightfully call 2013 his best season in years. Now, he’s faced with a sort of
lame-duck year with Letarte, before a new crew chief comes in for 2015, and
everything changes again. Will this set Earnhardt back? Or will it propel him
forward?
Letarte was
transferred from Jeff Gordon’s #24 Chevrolet – where he and the superstar,
Gordon, won many races and seemed to have pretty good chemistry – to Junior’s
#88. The thing is, that’s not just a race car. With an Earnhardt, you take on
more responsibility than just winning races. You’re The Guy to hundreds of
thousands of rabid fans. If you don’t win, people start pointing fingers. Not
at their favourite driver, who can do no wrong, no matter what happens out on
the track – but at the crew chief.
We can
debate whether that is fair or not, but, regardless, it’s the sort of intense
scrutiny that follows a crew chief of a star driver around like a bad smell. Letarte
probably can’t escape it. Generally, it’s the crew chief who’s the first guy to
go when there are troubles – or, at least, perceived troubles – with the team.
I mean, no owner’s going to fire the guy who sits behind the wheel until
they’ve tried everything, right?
Especially
not Dale Earnhardt Junior, who commands a solid sponsorship commitment from,
amongst others, the US National Guard. He’s almost bulletproof in that regard.
He doesn’t win often (though but he does manage to be there or thereabouts) but
he’s popular enough that big-time companies line up to get their brand
somewhere on the #88 Chevrolet. So, when things get rough, the crew chief gets jettisoned.
Rightly or
wrongly, a lack of results (AKA a lack of visits to the Victory Lane) is what
Letarte’s been dealing with for three years: a world of expectation. It’s not unfair
to say that the Earnhardt-Letarte combination hasn’t really hit it off, at
least in terms of wins. As I said earlier, wins are what makes the racing world
go around. You need them to survive. Aside from that, he’s one of the most
visible crew guys in the garage, and it’s not unreasonable to think that, just
maybe, he’s had enough. Not of Junior, but of what comes along with being
Junior’s crew chief. He might also simply want a new challenge. You can’t blame
a guy for that.
On Junior as
a race car driver, you might also make the argument that he actually ran better
at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, the team founded by his late father, and run by
his stepmother, Teresa. Certainly, he won more at DEI. Race victories, after
all, are what makes the world go around. It brings sponsorships dollars in the
door, and earns drivers nice, fat contract extensions. In that way, it’s a
shame that Junior’s relationship with both his step-mother, his cousin, Tony
Eury Jr., and Eury Junior’s father.
So Letarte,
at the relatively young age of 35, gets to step away from the furnace after nearly
two decades of loyal service for Rick Hendrick’s growing NASCAR empire, and
into a nice, air-conditioned broadcast booth, assessing what crew chiefs are
doing, rather than being in the position of having to make the big calls,
which, of course, go a long way to determining whether your car ends up in
Victory Lane or finishes off the pace and a lap down, mostly forgotten by the
TV broadcast and fans…except that Dale Earnhardt Junior is never forgotten by
either. Letarte gets to be at the track but with half the stress.
You can’t
blame Letarte for this. It’s nice to be wanted, and it sounds like NBC pursued
him pretty solidly for this role in the broadcast booth. His expertise will be
invaluable, and is a breath of fresh air, for the crew chiefs broadcasting
races this year (Jeff Hammond, Larry McReynolds and Andy Petree) have been out
of racing for a while. Yes, they are all champion crew chiefs, but they havent
had the sort of hands-on experience with the new cars, which are markedly
different to cars from days gone by, that someone like Letarte has had, and his
knowledge of the quirks of these new generation models will result in viewers
being significantly more informed about what’s going on up top on the pit box.
After all,
it’s an adjustment – minor or major – that often is the difference between a
win and second place. Is there going to be a broadcaster on NASCAR television
in 2015 with a better handle on the new generation Sprint Cup Series cars? I
say no. That’s what makes NBC’s hire such a novel, game-changing one.
Throw in Burton,
who will drive a partial schedule this year for Michael Waltrip Racing, and has
a full season of experience with the new car, into that mix, along with the
fresh voice of Rick Allen, and you’ve got arguably the most cutting-edge
broadcast booth that has ever called a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. If anyone
thought that NBC wasn’t looking to make a giant splash ahead of the beginning
of their contract…well, this string of announcements puts an end to that!
A good move
for NBC Sports, and a good move for Steve Letarte. Who knows? It might even
turn out to be a good move for Dale Earnhardt Junior, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment