I knew the IMSA Weather Tech Schedule, but the Road America date didn’t register with me as falling during the Olympics. Why? because NBC had made a huge point to Indycar and NASCAR that they needed to put all their resources and personnel into the Olympics. Neither series would have a race on the network for three weeks. Yet, on the second week of the international quadrennial sports festival, here we have an IMSA race exclusively on Peacock.

Is IMSA can have a race exclusively on peacock, why couldn’t Indycar of Nascar have put on an event during this time? None of the Indycar or NASCAR talent outside of Leigh Diffey is in Paris. Georgia Henneberry, who usually works the pits for Indycar, was at road America doing her usual excellent job.

Apparently IMSA isn’t worried about ratings as much Indycar or NASCAR is, but the bar of expectations is not high for a peacock only event anyway. So, an Indycar race this weekend was possible.

I was grateful to have a race to watch this weekend, but allowing this race during the Olympics shoots down NBC’s argument that racing was not possible during this time.

As a result, Indycar will cram five races into a four week period, somewhat neutralizing the welcome break from a packed summer schedule. I jus think NBC wasn’t upfront about why the three week break was necessary. It’s obvious from yesterday that the network had the capacity to show races from Indycar and NASCAR.

Another Penske Win

Team Penske is having quite the season across all series. A 1-2 finish yesterday added to its Indianapolis 500 front row lockout and race win, its podium sweep at Road America, pole at Le Mans, and WEC victories.

The race itself was a disjointed affair with a plethora of caution periods interrupting periods of really good racing in the GTP and GT classes.

The pit reporting was outstanding. Georgia Henneberry and Chris Willner had timely interviews with drivers which provided context to the on track action.

I felt commercial breaks were way too frequent and much too long, especially with minimal side by side breaks. There were enough caution periods that all the advertising obligations could have been met before the final segment of the race. The three minute full screen break with 11 minutes to go and the outcome in doubt was a disservice to viewers.