2023 NASCAR Cup Series Race Fifteen Gateway

Cars in the field: 36
Pole: Kyle Busch (8)
Outside pole: Ryan Blaney (12)
Stage: 45-95-100
The race started on time and was red-flagged for lightning on lap 5 of 240. The red flag period was an hour and 45 minutes.

Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (8) wins stage one.

The race broadcast suddenly disappeared and they went to the studio. The radio broadcast switched to the Martinsville race when Chastain did the ‘video game move’. That was followed by NASCAR Today from a Gateway race when Casey Atwood was racing. The 1999 season. The television broadcast returned simply apologizing for the technical difficulties. Adam Petty is in the race. It’s a Busch series race.

FS1 is reporting that the teams have lost internet which they use to communicate. Mike Joy repeated ‘technical difficulties’.

Restarting on lap 101 of 240.

The radio broadcast continues to broadcast the 1999 Busch race pre-show as they race gets back underway.

Happily Kenny Wallace is in the booth. It’s nice to have him back. Kenny used to talk too much on a broadcast, but he can’t hold a candle to the babbling idiot that is Clint Bowyer on the television broadcast. Frighteningly Michael Waltrip is also in the booth. Mikey also tends to babble. He’s rarely getting a word in as Bowyer is using all the oxygen, as usual.

Ryan Blaney (12) wins stage two.

MRN reports a crew member was hit by a car. Kim Coon said it appeared to be a member of the Erik Jones (43) team. Possibly Erik hit a member of his crew. She reported a team member said there wasn’t enough room. The guys was loaded into an ambulance and taken away.

Red flag following a hard crash into the outside wall by Noah Gragson.

MRN reports: Noah Gragson exploded a brake rotor going in. Possibly Corey LaJoie ran over a big chunk of that.

Caution is back out.

There’s a tow truck loading up the 42 car in front of a Dierks Bentley stage set up. I wonder if Dierks played last night, will play tonight, or later? I think I’d love to see him in concert.

Thomas Hatcher – front tire changer on 43 – has been transported to a local hospital for further evaluation. He got hit in the center of the hood while carrying the tire from the one side of the car to the other. Jones seems to have a bad habit of hitting his crew members. I’ve seen it too often.

MRN reports that it never rained at the track though there were thunderstorms around the track.

Restarting on lap 217 of 240 with Kyle Busch (8) and Kyle Larson (5) on the front row.

Austin Dillon (3) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr (47) tag the wall to bring out the caution on lap 216 of 240. Austin Dillon (3) turned on Austin Cindric’s (2) hood into the outside collecting Stenhouse.

MRN is reporting the field is red-flagged on lap 222 of 240, for the third time today, at 2051 eastern for SAFER barrier repair.

TV showed a guy sleeping. If you’re trying to show how much fun the fans are having, showing a fan sleeping is counter-productive. They have also spent a lot of time showing kids. If only they were able to shoot the race as well as they are able to show fans in the grandstands (who also aren’t paying attention to the on-track action) maybe they would accidentally show some exciting racing.

Cars are rolling around under caution. The red-flag period was only about five minutes.

Restarting on lap 225 of 240 with KyBu and Kyle Larson up front.

And now with 14 laps to go we’ve started the Samantha Busch watch portion of the event. Seriously. They need to stop that. I want to see racing, not people watching racing.

Caution on lap 235 of 240 for Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace losing a brake rotor and hitting the wall.

We’re constantly being tortured with video of Samantha Busch while Clint Bowyer is talking over Mikey about the exploded brake rotor.

Restarting in overtime with KyBu and Larson still up front.

KyBu gets the early lead.

Hamlin takes second from Larson

KyBu gets the white flag 2115

We are stuck with a split-screen on the television broadcast in the final laps of the race instead of only showing the finish.

Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (8) wins.

MRN reports it is 12 years to the day since Richard Childress and Kyle Busch went toe-to-toe in the garage. Twelve years since RC took off his watch. RC promised that if Kyle wrecked one of his cars again he would whip his ass. He said he was a man of his word, and when Kyle crashed one of his cars, RC kept his word in the garage area after asking someone to hold his watch. Legendary story – glad MRN remembered when.

We are continually plagued with a split-screen of Samantha throughout the on-track post-race interview with Kyle Busch. They really need to give us a break with that.

That was a long race and a busy race with a worthy winner. It wasn’t great to watch. The television viewer spent too much time seeing people in the stands, the race surface, bumpers of cars, sides of cars, everything but on-track action from OUTSIDE the cars. The IndyCar race broadcast was also marred by shots through the windscreen that caused the viewer to be unable to see what actually occurred on-track during incidents. Often it seemed the NBC broadcast didn’t actually have decent video from outside the car of incidents. The FS1 NASCAR broadcast did frequently have video of the event, but we only saw it in replays. The idea behind watching a race live is to see the action live. If we wanted to watch replays we could simply watch highlights of the event instead of the event itself. It seems the television broadcasts are not aimed at fans of racing since they seem bound and determined to show anything but on-track tracing in a manner that allows fans to enjoy racing.

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GO 48 & 9!!!!