A lot of NASCAR’s appeal goes beyond just any individual race. Elements like the circuit’s history and the different tracks matter, as does the race weekend environment and how different it is at each track.
A new Home Turn special from the company’s own NASCAR Studios and Bluefoot Entertainment (known for many projects, including the long-running and much-lauded True South food and culture series on SEC Network) is a way to showcase that.
Host Jay Busbee (known for his work at Yahoo Sports) spoke to Awful Announcing about that before the debut of the Daytona-focused special (ahead of Sunday’s Daytona 500 at 1:30 p.m. ET on Fox), which may potentially turn into a series. He said the concept here perfectly aligned with how he views NASCAR.
“I love NASCAR as an entire entity, not just a sport,” Busbee said. “I love the whole actual on-track cars going around, I love the strategy, I love the vibe of that. But I love that NASCAR, it’s like college football in a way, there’s no other sport that is that much of an event that surrounds the actual competition itself.
“Baseball game, basketball game, you park your car, you go to the game, then you leave, that’s it. NASCAR, you are committed, sometimes for an entire weekend, and it’s a full-day experience. It’s a tremendous experience, it’s a very communal experience. …I like the community, the generations that are involved in that.”
Daytona was the perfect track to launch Home Turn, considering its history and the attention it gets. Busbee even joked that its pre-Super Bowl history (the Daytona 500 began in 1959, eight years ahead of the Super Bowl) gives it a leg up.
“Daytona is, of course, the Super Bowl of NASCAR. Although, it precedes the Super Bowl, so they should call the Super Bowl the Daytona 500 of the NFL. But they don’t, you know, that hasn’t stuck yet.”
Busbee said that the added spotlight made for ideal timing here.
“All the country’s attention is focused on NASCAR and on this big event this weekend. And so it was a natural fit to tell the story of Daytona because the story is so interwoven in the history of NASCAR itself. It made for a perfect fit. There’s a lot of people with a lot of of eyes on it, and so it was the right time.”
But Busbee is optimistic this can work at tracks beyond Daytona.
“We have a whole lot of other ideas for every single other track. All the other 30-some races on the NASCAR schedule, every single one of those tracks has its own set of stories, and those are the things that we would like to tell.”
He said this project came together from an idea by NASCAR Studios. They contacted Bluefoot, who then brought in Busbee.
“This is a project that was created out of NASCAR Studios. They have some contacts with Bluefoot Entertainment, the guys that create True South over at SEC Network. I have worked for them before, they were brought in on the project, they knew of me and they wanted me to host, so they brought me over. I’m serving in the host role, the same as John T. Edge on True South. And so John T. and [director] Tim Horgan basically brought me on board. We started talking last year, summer time, and then November we did a scouting trip and December, we did a couple more trips to film, and here we are.”
Busbee said the Bluefoot team has been a delight to work with.
“They’re just the best. Top to bottom, the men and women that work at Bluefoot are just true, true professionals, but in the best kind of way. They’re great hangs too. …But they’re so good at their jobs. You know what it’s like to be in a press box with people who are so good at their jobs and yet good people to hang out with too. And you can be hanging around a joker and then the switch goes on and bang, everybody is dialed in.”
Busbee has also been exploring the cultural side of sports for a long while. Beyond his Yahoo work, he has a long-running free weekly Flashlight and a Biscuit Substack newsletter that explores Southern food and culture with a side of sports. He said that started as a way to explore things that didn’t fit on Yahoo.
“Sportswriting is my first love, Yahoo Sports is my employer, they have been tremendously wonderful to me over the years, sending me literally all over the world. But I like all of the elements on the margins too. And so there’s some things that wouldn’t fit in on Yahoo that work for other venues, and some writing too. Obviously, Yahoo Sports is not going to be particularly interested in my writing about music or food, as they shouldn’t be: it’s a different thing. But I love doing that.”
Those cultural elements play a role in sports, too, though, and he said they inform his sportswriting.
“All of that combines to me. I’m much more of a culture and a storytelling guy than an analytics guy. I’m not hostile to analytics or anything like that, obviously. But I love the culture around sports and I love the stories that you’ll tell in the stands or in the press box or after the game. That’s what I thrive on. And so the centerpiece is Yahoo Sports and then everything else radiates outward from there.”
Busbee hopes that Home Turn can combine some of that culture and sports for both existing and new NASCAR fans.
“I hope we can turn this into a series where we can make NASCAR fans feel like there’s a larger community. If one person goes to The Dairy Bar or goes to Snack Jacks because of what they saw on our show and says, ‘Hey, I saw you on TV,’ you know, bang, we’ve got a winner there To me, it is all about that community, those larger connections. What makes you a real sports fan, what brings you the greatest joy as a sports fan is when you’re part of something larger than just yourself.”
NASCAR Studios’ involvement is interesting here, as this fits in a larger lineup of leagues emphasizing and getting involved with shoulder programming. From long-running series like HBO/NFL Films’ various Hard Knocks projects and all-access boxing series like 24/7 to the F1-focused Drive to Survive from Box to Box Films (which has prompted both a lot of Box to Box followups in other sports and a lot of unassociated projects that still get labeled as “X sport’s Drive to Survive!”) to other efforts such as a MLB/Netflix Red Sox docuseries, golf’s Skratch, NHL docuseries and podcasts, and a variety of NBA and G-League efforts, it seems like many sports organizations are trying to figure out how to keep fans’ interest beyond live events. NASCAR has done this themselves with docuseries like Full Speed and other projects, and Busbee said it’s crucial for leagues to expand their horizons this way.
“NASCAR, like all sports, is trying to figure out how to thrive in this new world. And it’s not enough just to show the game. It’s not enough to show the race, it’s not enough to show the tournament. You’ve got to have a more complete storytelling approach. You’ve got to make people invested. And this goes exactly to the point of what I was saying. What gets people connected to a sport is feeling like there’s a personal connection there.”
However, he said NASCAR faces particular challenges because its competitors are individual drivers.
“NASCAR has a tricky thing that other sports don’t always have. In NASCAR, you make a connection with the driver, and then if the driver retires, that connection is in a way severed.
“If you’re a fan of the New York Yankees, it’s Jerry Seinfeld’s line about rooting for laundry. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Roger Clemens or Derek Jeter or Aaron Judge, you’re still rooting for the pinstripes there. But if you were rooting for Jeff Gordon or Dale Junior and he retires, you don’t automatically go and root for the next guy in the 24 or the 88. It’s a tricky balance that NASCAR has to walk.”
He said NASCAR’s surrounding community stands out, though. And he thinks the organization is doing a good job of spotlighting that through NASCAR Studios, their new FAST channel with Tubi, and more.
“What they’re trying to do is tell all of these cool stories because there are so many cool stories in a NASCAR track,” he said. “I mean, anyone that has not been to a race, get to one, just even one. I’m not saying you’ll become a NASCAR freak, I’m just saying it’s something unlike you’ve ever experienced. And so there are so many little behind-the-scenes stories to tell, things that are perfect for TikTok, things that are perfect for short-form video. And so NASCAR Studios is trying to tell these kinds of stories on a more regular basis.”
Busbee hopes Home Turn will find an audience and fit into that picture.
” We’re all looking for new ways to tell stories,” he said. “Hopefully, this is one that will connect with people.”
