Jeff Gordon has spent more than half his life in NASCAR — 34 of his soon to be 54 years. First he was a driver, then became a broadcaster, then was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and since 2021 has served as vice-chair of Hendrick Motorsports, essentially the No. 2 man behind team owner Rick Hendrick (and Hendrick’s hand-picked eventual successor).
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Gordon has seen numerous changes in the sport, lots of ups and downs, was involved in some great rivalries (especially with the late Dale Earnhardt) and remains bullish on the sport’s future.
Gordon, who recently appeared on the Rubbin Is Racing podcast, believes there’s still plenty of room to grow the sport, not only geographically — like Canada and overseas — but also mechanically and technically.
One specific area Gordon is bullish on has been the five-race TV package on Amazon Prime TV. There have been a number of innovations both on the screen as well as behind the scenes, and Gordon is all for them.
“I look at (the) weekend at Michigan (which was Prime’s NASCAR debut) and you had things that were happening on pit road, strategy, fuel mileage and it’s really hard for fans at home to follow along with that,” Gordon said.
“The more that you can paint a picture and make it easier for fans to understand what’s a driver doing to save fuel, how many laps does he really have (left), is he going to run out or is he not going to run out?
“Before it seemed like it was a lot of guessing game. (Now) there’s technology out there, there’s data coming off the cars that I just don’t know if we’ve done a good enough job over the years of tapping into all of it and utilizing it to the fullest.”
Amazon initially experimented with data and analytics in its NFL game broadcasts and has now brought that same technology to NASCAR.
“They’re really about analytics and bringing that to the fan,” Gordon said. “They also know they’re catering to a younger fan base and so that’s sort of what they demand. One thing that I love that I saw (at Michigan) was the race off pit road.
“We always see the race off pit road but what do they do they say here’s who stayed on track and then from this position down here’s how many tires they took and here’s how they came off pit road and I know as a viewer and as a fan, that’s what I want to know.”
One Amazon Prime innovation Gordon quite enjoys is the so-called “burn bar,” which illustrates to fans the same exact information drivers and crew chiefs are watching closely when fuel mileage (burning whatever remaining fuel you have left in a car) comes into play late in a race.
“I love the fuel burn counter,” Gordon said. “As a driver using the throttle, how that’s affecting that number. I think there’s ways that we can even take that to the next level, but they’ve done a really nice job.
“And then on top of that, you’ve got Steve Letarte and Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., that are doing a nice job complementing the graphics.”
Comparing Amazon to FOX
But for all the compliments Gordon gave Amazon Prime’s NASCAR telecasts, he also lamented how FOX Sports has essentially struggled with keeping up with the times or being innovative.
“It’s hard to change, it really is,” said Gordon, who previously was part of the FOX NASCAR broadcasts.
He went on to point out how FOX has seemingly always done the same thing a certain way, uses different and unique camera angles and sequences of action both at the front of the pack, as well as mid-pack and further back if it has an impact on the field or the overall race.
“It is very difficult to be there in person, to really understand,” Gordon said.
“It’s hard to really capture that through the broadcast. But most of the time it’s also very difficult to change something the way you’ve been doing it when you have a very fresh look at something because you’ve never done it before like Amazon, I think it’s a little bit easier to incorporate some of those new ideas,” he concluded.
