Heading into Sunday’s Ford Ecoboost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, four drivers are contenders to win their first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. The four drivers, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman, represent four different teams and three different manufacturers. Whichever driver finishes ahead of the other three will take home the title. This unique situation has granted SportsCenter a special opportunity to follow all four drivers heading into the final race of the year.
SportsCenter has embeeded reporters with each contender and aired live segments from the various race shops throughout the week. From an ESPN press release:
The Wednesday night editions of SportsCenter will air interviews and reports from that evening’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship contender’s press conference in Miami, including the four drivers and their team owners, while Thursday’s SportsCenter reports will follow work back at the race shops and what the drivers are doing in South Florida before on-track action begins Friday.
Dave Burns will follow Logano from the Penske Racing headquarters, while Ryan McGee will report on Hamlin from Joe Gibbs Racing. Mike Massaro will report on Newman from Richard Childress Racing and Marty Smith will be with Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing.
ESPN will also air a two-hour edition of NASCAR Countdown leading up to the final race on Sunday. This special edition of Countdown will recap the week that was and feature all four drivers live before they race for the title. During Sunday’s race, ESPN will have cameras fixed on all four drivers and show their running position on screen at all times.
Which driver will win? That’s anyone’s guess, but this rare finale should be exciting and it’ll be fascinating to watch ESPN’s coverage of the preparations heading into Sunday. It’ll be the final race for the network before coverage moves over to NBC and Fox next year. This final week’s wall-to-wall coverage shows that ESPN isn’t treating the NASCAR finale as a lame duck. But of course, once ESPN loses NASCAR rights next year, the question remains how much coverage the sport will get and whether it will go the way of the NHL.
Comments are closed.