All eyes on KC: NASCAR. Chiefs. Why not both? This driver is pulling the double-dip
Clint Bowyer reached behind his hip and removed a phone from his back pocket, eagerly scrolling through his text messages in search of a prominent sender.
Chiefs general manager Brett Veach.
With a smile across his face, Bowyer, NASCAR driver of the No. 14 car, opened a message he received from Veach, turned it toward a room full of media and boasted. On the screen was a photo of a Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes jersey. It was autographed. “To Clint,” Mahomes had written.
“This is going to be on my back Sunday night,” Bowyer said. “You can bet on that. You don’t give me an invite and me not show up.”
NBC must feel the same. The lenses of its national-TV cameras will be pointed on Kansas City day and night Sunday.
NASCAR.
And then the Chiefs.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 postseason race will start at 1 p.m. Sunday at Kansas Speedway. A little more than six hours later, the Chiefs will kick off against the Cincinnati Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium, a game that was originally scheduled for the afternoon but was “flexed” to primetime. NBC will broadcast both events, and they’ve linked the two in a variety of ways as part of an advertising campaign this week.
Bowyer, an Emporia native, won’t miss either. A competitor by day. A fan by night.
It’s the first time since Kansas Speedway opened in 2001 that the schedule will allow the NASCAR-Chiefs double-dip. Bowyer recognized the opportunity almost immediately. Luckily for him, so did Veach.
Last week, after the NFL announced the Chiefs-Bengals matchup had been moved to primetime, Veach called Bowyer. The two had met earlier this year during the spring race at Kansas Speedway, when Veach and several Chiefs players attended the race. (Remember the Mahomes jorts picture?)
Veach, an apparent NASCAR fan, spent a chunk of that day hanging out in Bowyer’s hauler. So on the other end of the call last week, Veach said he had four tickets to the Chiefs game, just in case Bowyer thought he could swing a trip to the game after his participation in the race.
Bowyer didn’t hesitate.
“My brain was already turning,” said Bowyer, who is 21 points ahead of the cutoff for advancing into the Round of 8 in the NASCAR playoffs. “When Brett called, I was like, ‘Yes, that was the guy I needed to text.’ I met him here at the spring race, and I was blown away that he’s such a big fan. He knew everything about me. He’s a stat guy. That’s what he does for a living, of course, but he was definitely on top of his game as far as what was going on with our sport and me and my career. He came over to the bus and hung out with me for quite a bit.
“I’m damn glad I got his number.”
Bowyer grew up attending games at Arrowhead Stadium, which sat a 100-mile drive from his home in Emporia. He recalls the tailgating atmosphere as prominently as anything else, but he was an invested fan.
And even though he has since moved to North Carolina, he still returns to Kansas City to watch the Chiefs. He tries to attend at least one game every season. He was at the playoff game in January.
But Sunday presents a unique situation. The schedule happens to work just perfectly. Well, hopefully. It will require some swift maneuvering after the race concludes.
“You got a helicopter?” Bowyer quipped. “You got a connection with the weather guy? Maybe he can pick me up. Or if we win, maybe I can afford to get a helicopter ride over there.”
Or perhaps he could catch a ride with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
NBC announced that some of its broadcasters of the two events will cross over to the other sports, separated by 23 miles. The station will have Earnhardt Jr., a NASCAR analyst, drive to Arrowhead Stadium after the race.
“As long as the race goes off without a hitch, we’re hoping that Dale Jr. can drive the car fast enough to get from the racetrack to the football stadium. We’re cautiously optimistic that he knows how to weave his way through traffic and win the race,” joked NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood. “Dale is a Washington fanatic for the football team and definitely plays fantasy and definitely loves football. If we have a Saturday night race, his Sunday is spent consuming football ... so it works out perfectly, because the Sunday night game is always the big game.”
Earnhardt said during the broadcast of NASCAR qualifying on Friday, “I’m ready to rock man,” though he said he certainly would not be wearing a Chiefs shirt. He’s a Washington fan.
NBC ran a national commercial Friday advertising the uniqueness of the situation. “Spend Sunday in K.C.” the tagline reads, combining NASCAR video clips and Mahomes highlights.
NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya will trade Earnhardt spots. She will join driver Jeff Burton for a lap around Kansas Speedway. Burton and fellow NBC announcers Rick Allen and Steve Letarte will accompany Earnhardt to Arrowhead Stadium.
Between the two events in Kansas City, Flood said NBC will utilize 119 cameras, 39 miles of fiber cable and 15 broadcasters.
“I think it’s less about challenges and more about opportunity,” Flood said. “Each unit, the NASCAR group was obviously planning to be in Kansas for a long time because the race has been on the schedule forever, and then the ‘Sunday Night’ guys have been able to adjust and re-adopt the plan to the game here instead of out west in San Francisco.
“Other than rerouting a truck and rerouting some airplanes and some crew schedules, it works out great.”
The Star’s Pete Grathoff contributed to this story.
Sam McDowell
Sam McDowell covers Sporting Kansas City, the Royals, Chiefs and sports enterprise for The Star
