FOX NASCAR at Bristol Motor Speedway Quotes & Programming Schedule

NASCAR 04/14/2015

FOX NASCAR broadcasts a race near and dear to its heart this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. In recognition of FOX Sports broadcaster Steve Byrnes’ courageous and ongoing battle with head-and-neck cancer, FOX Sports, in coordination with Bristol Motor Speedway, Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI), Stand Up To Cancer and NASCAR, is naming the April 19 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES race from Bristol the FOOD CITY 500 IN SUPPORT OF STEVE BYRNES AND STAND UP TO CANCER. The event, live on FOX on Sunday, April 19 (1:00 PM ET), pays tribute to Byrnes, a NASCAR television mainstay for 30 years, while also serving as a vehicle of support and awareness for all those battling cancer.

FOX Sports offers 18.5 hours of live coverage of the NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES and NASCAR XFINITY SERIES from Bristol, culminating with the NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES race live on FOX, with pre-race coverage beginning on FOX NASCAR SUNDAY at 12:30 PM ET.

Mike Joy leads the FOX NASCAR booth from the half-mile track with analysis from NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip and former crew chief Larry McReynolds. The trio is joined on pit road by Jamie Little, Chris Neville, Vince Welch and Matt Yocum. Chris Myers hosts the network’s coverage alongside analyst Michael Waltrip. Myers also hosts FOX NASCAR SUNDAY from the famed Hollywood Hotel alongside Darrell and Michael Waltrip.

Adam Alexander calls Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY SERIES race on FOX Sports 1 at 1:30 PM ET alongside Michael Waltrip and four-time NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES champion Jeff Gordon in his second consecutive race in the booth for FOX Sports. Gordon, in his final year of competition, also is scheduled to offer analysis from Talladega on May 2 (1:30 PM ET) on FOX. Gordon is one of five NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES drivers announced as part of a rotation in the FOX and FOX Sports 1 booth for FOX Sports’ coverage of the 2015 NASCAR XFINITY SERIES season. Also scheduled as guest analysts are defending NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES champion Kevin Harvick, 2012 champ Brad Keselowski, Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer.

Reporting from the pits at Bristol are Welch, Neville and Yocum. NASCAR RACEDAY – XFINITY, FOX Sports 1’s pre-race show, airs at 1:00 PM ET, hosted by Danielle Trotta alongside analysts McReynolds and Kenny Wallace.

NASCAR RACEDAY, hosted by Trotta with McReynolds and Wallace, kicks off Sunday’s coverage at 12:00 PM ET on FOX Sports 1, and includes: interviews with Carl Edwards and Harvick.

FOX Sports GO, the critically acclaimed app that provides live streaming video of FOX Sports content at home or on the go, offers live streaming of all NASCAR programming in 2015. Customers of participating video providers may access the live streams of the race through the FOX Sports GO app for iOS devices, as well as on desktops through FOXSportsGO.com. For the latest NASCAR news and information, please visit www.FOXSports.com and follow @NASCARonFOX on Twitter.

Below are quotes from FOX NASCAR analyst/former crew chief Larry McReynolds on the week’s headlines and the race ahead, as well as the full FOX NASCAR programming schedule from Bristol:

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER JIMMIE JOHNSON OR KEVIN HARVICK LOOKS STRONGER GOING INTO THE NEXT FEW RACES:

“I can’t say one of them has a bigger advantage than the other. The most amazing statistic is Johnson and Harvick have won the past six mile-and-a-half races. More unusual is that they keep alternating, and when Johnson won his three, Harvick was runner-up. I can’t decipher which one of them is stronger at this point in the season, but there is no question they are the two best teams in the sport right now.”

MCREYNOLDS ON WHETHER ECR ENGINES NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT ITS ENGINE PERFORMANCE AT THIS TIME:

“It’s not time to panic yet. While ECR Engines has had some issues and failures, let’s keep in perspective they have a lot of motors out there every weekend between the three Cup Series teams at Richard Childress Racing and their three alliance teams (Nos. 47, 78 and 13), on top of some one-race deals from time to time. They’re not blowing up four or five engines a weekend, although they certainly have some issues to address. If I’m RCR, I’m not panicking nearly as much about my engines as I am about my cars’ performance. They have the same parts that Stewart-Haas Racing and Hendrick Motorsports do, so why can’t they compete with them?”

MCREYNOLDS ON HOW THE RACING SURFACE AT BRISTOL HAS EVOLVED IN THE YEARS SINCE IT WAS RECONFIGURED:

“Bristol gets an unfair reputation because after the track was reconfigured, the racing changed a bit. Many fans think a driver being forced to lay the bumper to another driver to pass, and in some cases wreck him, like we usually saw with the ‘old Bristol,’ is good racing. To me, good racing is being able to run side-by-side, which is what we’ve seen since they put the new surface down and ground down the top groove a few years ago. When they first concreted Dover in 1995 and Bristol in 1992, it took a while before we had any type of good racing whatsoever because the concrete took a while to rubber up. Asphalt takes rubber because it’s somewhat porous and rubber can get down into the holes. Concrete isn’t porous, though, and rubber lays on top of the track. It took a while for both Bristol and Dover to be ‘raceable’ when they concreted them. Both ate tires faster than teams could bolt them on. But what I saw last year at Bristol is the surface starting to take a little rubber, and it still has two grooves of racing, which makes for a great show.”

MCREYNOLDS ON THE BEST NEW DRIVER/CREW CHIEF PAIRING IN 2015:

“There were probably a record number of new driver/crew chief combinations to start the season, and several are bearing fruit. Two stand out to me for different reasons. Denny Hamlin and Dave Rogers are the only new combination that has visited Victory Lane. So, they’re probably the most successful. But the most surprising, and also extremely successful, is Martin Truex Jr. and Cole Pearn. They have scored seven consecutive top-10 finishes in 2015, and only Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick have done that. I don’t know how you could say the Truex/Pearn duo hasn’t produced the most overall fruit.”

MCREYNOLDS ON BRISTOL OFFERING A “CLEAN SLATE” FOR TEAMS:

“Bristol serves as a clean sheet of paper for teams because its characteristics aren’t relative to any other track they’ve competed on yet this season. Although Martinsville is also a half-mile track, the two aren’t relatable. Many teams feel like they’re getting a clean slate at Bristol. Look back last year at Bristol — Roush-Fenway Racing swept the top two finishing positions with Carl Edwards winning and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finishing second. If a team has been struggling the first part of the season, whether in the aero, chassis or horsepower departments, they get a fresh start at Bristol because these categories don’t matter nearly as much as mechanical grip does. Some teams might get a chance at redemption this weekend.”

NASCAR ON FOX & FOX SPORTS 1

AT BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY PROGRAMMING SCHEDULE

*All times live unless otherwise indicated & subject to change

Friday, April 17

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES PRACTICE (12:00-1:30 PM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY SERIES PRACTICE (1:30-2:30 PM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR RACE HUB WEEKEND EDITION (2:30-3:00 PM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY SERIES FINAL PRACTICE (3:00-4:30 PM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES QUALIFYING (4:30-6:00 PM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

Saturday, April 18

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES PRACTICE (8:30-9:30 AM ET) (FOX Sports 1)

NASCAR XFINITY SERIES QUALIFYING (9:30-11:00 AM ET) (FOX Sports 1)