NASCAR Talladega Preview
On Sunday, Mike Joy leads the FOX NASCAR booth with analysis from NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip, four-time champ Jeff Gordon and former crew chief Larry McReynolds. Jamie Little, Chris Neville, Vince Welch and Matt Yocum cover pit road. Chris Myers hosts FOX NASCAR SUNDAY's pre-race coverage (12:30 PM ET), alongside analysts Michael Waltrip, Gordon and Darrell Waltrip. This weekend at Talladega, NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES qualifying is live on FOX on Saturday at 12:30 PM ET, immediately preceding live NASCAR XFINITY SERIES coverage.
Adam Alexander calls Saturday's XFINITY Series race with analyst Michael Waltrip and driver analyst Denny Hamlin making his FOX Sports booth debut. Hamlin is one of seven NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES drivers announced as part of a rotation in the FOX and FS1 booth for FOX Sports' coverage of the 2016 NASCAR XFINITY SERIES season. Also scheduled as guest analysts are former champions Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards and Danica Patrick. Reporting from the XFINITY Series pits at Talladega are Chris Neville, Hermie Sadler and Vince Welch. Danielle Trotta hosts pre-race coverage on NASCAR RACEDAY-XFINITY (2:30 PM ET on FOX) with analysts McReynolds and Kenny Wallace.
FOX Sports recently launched HUBCast, a weekly podcast with NASCAR RACE HUB host Adam Alexander in which he is joined by various guests, including some of the biggest names in racing, to debate the hottest topics in NASCAR. To subscribe and download, please click foxs.pt/1RQAs09 for iTunes or foxs.pt/1qTW3ig for Google Play Music.
Below are quotes from FOX NASCAR's McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip on the week's headlines and the race ahead, as well as the full FOX NASCAR programming schedule from Talladega:
On NASCAR mandating five lug nuts be tight per wheel beginning at Talladega:
"My biggest question — and the biggest question in the garage right now — is how will NASCAR police this? How will they enforce four wheels with five lug nuts each per 40 race cars without pit road officials? They probably have a plan in place, but I don't know what it is. This tells me that the most important time teams better ensure they have five lug nuts tight per wheel is post-race. And at Talladega, where we see very few four-tire stops, it's tough to predict when you'll change tires for the last time and thus need to make sure you have five tight before you pull off the track and into clear view of NASCAR officials."
–Larry McReynolds
On the dominance of Joe Gibbs Racing since 2015:
"Those four drivers and teams are all but flawless. Yes, they had tire issues at Bristol and have had some pit road issues, but on any given weekend, any of those drivers and teams can go to Victory Lane. If you go back to the Sonoma win last June, a JGR car has won 16 of those 30 races. In the short-track category, they've won roughly half of the races since 2009. That's pretty remarkable, and there doesn't appear to be an end in sight to this dominance."
–Larry McReynolds
"The Joe Gibbs Racing domination certainly is something to behold right now. I challenge anyone to name a track they can't win at right now – you can't. They're virtually unstoppable."
–Darrell Waltrip
On the favorite to win at Talladega:
"If it's not a Joe Gibbs Racing car, my money is on Dale Earnhardt Jr. to stop the JGR onslaught this weekend. He loves Talladega, and he's riding a lot of momentum into one of his best tracks."
–Darrell Waltrip
On Tony Stewart's return to the car last weekend at Richmond:
"He was pretty impressive. Tony hadn't been in a Sprint Cup race car since the checkered flag at Homestead last November. He had never driven this rules package except for a couple of races last year, so he had to adapt to a few things other drivers have had all year to acclimate themselves to. For one, he had to adapt to the digital dash. Plus, with his back injury, I was pretty impressed with what his team did before Richmond. They put the car on the shaker rig with Tony in the car and learned some things that helped them prepare for Richmond."
–Larry McReynolds