The Beat Report

if you know me, you know that I love all motorsports. Whether I’m watching sprint car slide jobs or the 3 a.m. stint of a sports car endurance race, few things make me happier than watching racing.

This outlet was established to talk about the full racing world. My newsletter shares the news, notes and schedules each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But I haven’t done as much writing about motorsports overall on here.

I’m working on fixing that storytelling-wise, one interview at a time. But I’m also going to engage the full motorsports world with a weekly racing column here called “The Beat Report.”

This week we’ll look at NASCAR’s restart drama from Richmond, ask whether Liberty Media can repeat its Formula 1 success with MotoGP, see what we can learn from women’s college basketball’s current boom period and celebrate BTCC trying something new with races airing on TikTok.

Let’s get into it.

1) Denny’s Early Jump Opens A Can of Worms

Say it with me, everyone:be Denny Hamlin jumped the restart.

I know it. You know it. Hell, NASCAR knows it. 

Per the rulebook, this would seem to make Hamlin’s decision penalizeable. The Cup Rule Book states that the start and all restarts “shall be initiated within the restart zone on the racetrack.” 

It’s not hard to find that restart zone, either. There are literal lines pained on the racing surface to indicate where it starts and ends. The race leader has the freedom to fire off at any point in that zone, or wait until the end when the flagman restarts the race. 

So… Why did Hamlin fire off early? And why wasn’t he penalized for it? 

To get why a driver would push the limits of the restart zone, you have to understand the position they’re in. Hamlin was leading the inside row coming off of Turn 4, with a dominant Martin Truex Jr. to his outside and restart experts Joey Logano and Kyle Larson behind in row two. All three of those drivers are hoping to time their own restart in a way that will give them an advantage on Hamlin going into Turn 1. The field was closing in on Hamlin at the moment he launched. 

Hamlin explained the scenario himself on his podcast, “Actions Detrimental.” 

“If you fire in a zone that they know you’re going to fire in, they can fire before you,” he said. “On TV, it will not look like they did. I concede that on TV it looks worse than what it felt like. The reason for that, when I’m restarting the race, I’m not looking at the flagman, or my dash, all I’m looking at is my mirror and the side peripheral. All I’m doing is trying to time (everyone’s) run.”

“At (the) point I see the restart zone, I’m coming off Turn 4 and all I’m doing is looking – mirror, side, mirror side – and you can go to my in car and see my eyes bouncing between the two,” he later added. “I’m mostly looking to the right and the left front fender on the 19 car. At that point, when I see him creep, I start to take off.

“I don’t see where I’m at in the zone. I concede that it’s definitely few feet early.”

Okay, so Hamlin himself admits that he jumped the start. So why wasn’t the Virginian penalized for the move? 

“It’s a bang-bang call,” Sawyer said of the decision. “It’s at the end of the race. We’re a live sporting event. We don’t have the luxury of a timeout and go to the sideline and review it and make that call.

“If this happens at Lap 10 or 50 or 300 (of the scheduled 400 laps), you know, the call could have been different. If I’m a competitor, I wouldn’t be playing that game every week. Sometimes you get the call that goes in your favor, sometimes you don’t.”

Various drivers came to Hamlin’s defense afterward. Sportsnaut shared quotes from short track graduates Josh Berry and Ryan Preece defending Hamlin’s move and saying the restart games happen often. 

Former Cup driver and current trainer Josh Wise indicated that NASCAR’s been flexible about the restart zone for years. 

Perhaps this has always been an unspoken rule – or lack thereof. But now that it’s exposed, there could be issues. 

This is racing. Drivers and teams are always looking for any possible edge they can gain. Once an option is brought to light, it becomes fair game for all involved. That’s why NASCAR had to quickly ban Ross Chastain’s memorable wall-ride at Martinsville Speedway after it happened, to save others from repeating it whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

Now that Hamlin’s gotten away with his move, it effectively serves as permission for others to do the same down the road. And they’ll likely push the boundaries more, restarting even earlier and daring race control to make a call. 

If that does happen, it’ll eventually force NASCAR’s hand. And if/when it does make a call, there’ll be immediate backlash because Hamlin got away with a similar move. 

“If I get black-flagged for doing that next week, I’m going to be pissed,” second-place finisher Logano said Tueesday. “Because why was it okay last week?” 

I can understand why the sanctioning body might not want the mess of taking a victory from someone because they hit the gas pedal a bit too soon. But much like the yellow line rule at superspeedways and the overtime line of the past (remember the 2017 Brickyard 400?), until NASCAR has a hard-line stance on this issue, it’s going to be at risk of drumming up controversy. 

2) Liberty Media makes a MotoGP bet

Liberty Media has done wonders to improve the reach and value of Formula 1. Now can it do the same for MotoGP?

The F1-owning organization announced Monday that it’s reached an agreement to acquire Dorna Sports, S.L. (Dorna), taking over MotoGP’s commercial rights at an enterprise value of $4.5 billion. 

In doing so, it’s seizing control of the world’s top motorcycle racing series. Liberty Media will hold an 86% ownership stake in the series, with the rest taken up by MotoGP management. MotoGP will be folded into Liberty’s Formula One Group tracking stock, with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta continuing to lead the business from its Madrid headquarters. 

“We are thrilled to expand our portfolio of leading live sports and entertainment assets with the acquisition of MotoGP,” Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said in a statement. “MotoGP is a global league with a loyal, enthusiastic fan base, captivating racing and a highly cash flow generative financial profile.

“Carmelo and his management team have built a great sporting spectacle that we can expand to a wider global audience. The business has significant upside, and we intend to grow the sport for MotoGP fans, teams, commercial partners and our shareholders.”

The move comes with a key risk. There’s a chance that the acquisition won’t even go through. CVC Capital Partners, the group that sold F1 to Liberty Media in 2017, was forced to sell MotoGP off when it acquired the series in 2006. 

Maffei seems to think regulation won’t be as much of an issue this time around. 

Assuming the deal does go through, the question is whether Liberty can repeat its F1 success with a vastly-different tour. 

The company’s effect on F1 can’t be overstated. F1 has truly stepped into the modern era in the past seven years, exploding in popularity with the “F1: Drive to Survive” series on Netflix and garnering a foothold in the United States – something it struggled to do for decades. 

F1 maneuvered its way through the COVID-19 pandemic without major setbacks. Teams have stuck around, are largely profitable and have seen their values swell. Brands have flocked to the series, which recently pulled off a major successful street race in Las Vegas. 

MotoGP is an intriguing series, often with more parity at the front of the grid than typically seen in F1. Motorcycle racing is more niche than car racing to the average viewer, but the wheel-to-wheel battles and general spectacle of MotoGP make it stand out in the racing world. 

The series also has races with good lengths for modern TV audiences. It’s committed fully to sprint races and has shorter main events that typically keep the racing from growing dull and spread out. It has already established a presence on social media and has a diverse set of brave riders with marketable personalities that should expect their PR workload to increase soon. 

MotoGP’s biggest opportunity to grow lies in America. But it already has an established American presence with Trackhouse Racing on the grid and Liberty knows how to make waves in the US market. 

In many ways. MotoGP is well ahead of where F1 was when Liberty first came around. But there will be a few quirks that make this a different challenge than F1. 

The most obvious one is the need for an emphasis on safety. Open wheel racing is dangerous, but few racing disciplines feature the same risk of injury as motorcycle racing. MotoGP isn’t a series that can venture to tight city stret circuits like F1’s done during its boom period. 

Maffei confirmed as much, saying “this cannot happen on street circuits. This will be a different experience.”

There’s also the question of what to do with the other tours. Dorna also promotes the Moto2 and Moto3 feeder series, World Superbike Championship, the all-electric MotoE and, as of this year, the Women’s World Championship. 

There’s a chance at least World Superbike could be sold off for the sake of avoiding monopoly concerns. But it’ll be intriguing to see whether Liberty tries to bolster these smaller tours or sidelines them to emphasize MotoGP. 

All things considered, Liberty’s move to acquire MotoGP is a promising one. Hardcore fans might be concerned about the risk of MotoGP “going mainstream,” but Liberty’s net impact could be an overwhelming positive on the series if it can match the blueprint it laid out with F1. 

3) What can we learn from the women’s basketball boom?

The main story early in the sporting week has nothing to do with NASCAR. It’s not even tied to a professional sport. It instead lies within college basketball. 

Monday night provided a must-see matchup in the women’s NCAA Tournament. A year on from their testy title match, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes again went up against April Reese and Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers. 

The end result? An Iowa win and a smashing ratings success. 

That rating is huge. Unequaled in the women’s game. And it’s driven entirely by personalities. 

The road to this point’s been a long one. Women’s basketball has slowly, steadily risen into the mainstream sports world. Unlike on the men’s side, where the NBA reigns supreme and incentivizes early exits from the game’s top stars, the brand identity of colleges have kept NCAA play more relevant than the WNBA. 

The rise of NIL – allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness – has made staying in college arguably a better value proposition for female stars than heading to the WNBA. So they’ve stayed put, some even for an additional year due to player-friendly eligibility rules around the COVID-19 pandemic. 

At the same time, the quality of play has improved. Stars like Clark, Reese, JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers aren’t just good female players – they’re genuine ballers. Clark can hit a three pointer from anywhere inside of the half-court line. Bueckers is a leader and fierce playmaker. 

It’s been the perfect storm, creating stars with unique personalities. They’ve been consistently showcased and become brand names, giving TV partners something to market and fans lovable leaders to care about and support. 

Clark, Bueckers and the group are set to graduate soon. They’ll likely go to the WNBA and elevate the professional women’s game in America with their skill and built-in rivalries. But they’ve also laid the blueprint for the next crop of young women entering the college level and those around them to create new stars. 

The concepts involved with making them stars have been simple. Talented competitors with engaging personalities have allowed themselves to be showcased and created storylines fans can get invested into. 

Sound familiar? It should. Peak periods for any sport have had similar themes. Take NASCAR as an example. The stars were drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. Each had a unique personality and flair that fans flocked to. Their battles, run-ins and championship fights enthralled onlookers each week. 

Each racing series should look at this year’s NCAA Tournament and ask themselves what they can do to make people care about their stars in the same way. 

4) Hat tip to BTCC for trying something new

The next time you’re scrolling TikTok, you might just come across a live race. 

If you’re an American race fan and not a tech nerd like me, this story probably slipped by you when it came out last week. But in case you missed it – the British Touring Car Championship plans to stream all its 2024 races live and free on TikTok. 

“This is a truly ground-breaking move for the BTCC,” series leader Alan Gow said in a press release. “I’m incredibly proud that we will be the first major motorsport championship in the world to have its entire race season streamed live on TikTok. It’s the real ‘cherry on the top’ of our ongoing and vast UK coverage, which is live and free on ITV4 and ITVX.

“Most importantly, this agreement will introduce the BTCC to a massive new and completely different demographic – a younger and more diverse audience – which is exactly what we, and in fact all of motorsport, are looking to achieve.” 

Upon first glance, choosing to stream on TikTok is a strange choice. I mean YouTube is right there, right? 

But there’s potential to this move, particularly for the BTCC. 

The first benefit is an immediate one – BTCC races will be broadcast worldwide live for the first time in series history. This move should get new eyes on an underrated gem of a series.

Imagine scrolling through TikTok and stumbling across this. 

But in the long term, the biggest benefit of airing races on TikTok could be the ages of those that stumble upon it. TikTok’s user base is young – in the United States around 49% of TikTok’s user base is between the age of 18 and 34. Around 49.2% of TikTok users worldwide are women. If even a fraction of those groups see racing and gain interest in the series, it’ll be worth the endeavor. 

This is a rare case of BTCC innovating in the social media ranks, and I imagine many other tours will be watching to see how it plays out. If the BTCC ’s TikTok play is successful, others could look to mimic it down the road. 

Will it work? Who knows. In America there’s not even complete certainty that we’ll be able to take advantage of this, with TikTok at risk of being banned. 

But it’s just fun to see a series trying something new. 

Notes

  • Richmond Raceway has a certain appeal with its strategy-focused races. But consider me in agreement with The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi that the track shouldn’t have two races on the Cup schedule.
  • Early on in 2024, it’s looking like the Cup Series has a big two – organizations, that it. Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing have combined to win six of the year’s opening seven races, along with the Clash. Only Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez has been able to sneak a win in from another team. Others may catch up as the year goes on, but the early playoff point advantage is going to make JGR and Hendrick difficult to beat for the title. 
  • How fun was it to see Bubba Pollard get his NASCAR shot? The short track ace has been a force in a Super Late Model for years, but he proved his could compete with the best of the Xfinity Series on Saturday. Pollard had a disastrous qualifying run, but rallied to sixth in the race. Hopefully he gets another chance to showcase his abilities down the road. 
  • Joey Gase was fined $5,000 for his brisk walk down the track and bumper toss at Dawson Cram’s car during Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Richmond. Given that it could be the most memorable moment of Gase’s career, the action might be worth the cost. 
  • I want your feedback. This is the first of what I hope will be hundreds of editions of this column. Let me know what you like, dislike and want to see more of.

That’s enough for today. See you next week. 

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(Top photo credit: Nigel Kinrade Photography)

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