HARRISBURG, N.C. — Twenty years ago, FOX introduced a fresh, new approach to how NASCAR races were presented on television.

“We were in the entertainment business, not necessarily the racing business,” said Mike Joy, who has been FOX’s lead anchor since the network debuted its new formula with coverage of the 2001 Daytona 500. “It was a concept FOX had enjoyed great success with in the NFL with Terry Bradshaw, and that carried through with Darrell Waltrip. They wanted an entertaining, polarizing person to lead the team and they got exactly what they wanted with D.W.

“David Hill, who put FOX Sports together and assembled the NASCAR team for 2001, built that group around Darrell and the telecast would be Darrell’s telecast. Larry (McReyn­olds), myself, Chris Myers as host and the pit reporters, we were the supporting cast,” Joy continued. “That’s how it was for most of the 19 years that D.W. was part of it. He was the straw that stirred the drink. Whatever direction he wanted to go in, we’d go. Occasionally, I’d have to bring it back to the race that we were covering and to how it was developing.

“When we added Jeff (Gordon) to the booth (2016), that definitely changed the dynamic because when we started it was clear there weren’t going to be two drivers in the booth. We didn’t want conflict. We didn’t want difference of opinion,” Joy added. “Then, bringing Jeff in, that changed because Jeff had a fresh approach to the cars and he was close to some of the drivers and knew all of them first-hand from racing against them and being in the garage with them.

“So, when Jeff came in, he became the primary analyst for how the cars were working, what they were doing on the race track. Yet, Darrell still carried the ball with the entertainment factor. It was definitely different. They’d have a difference of opinion, but we never had arguments on the air or anything like that,” Joy acknowledged. “They each saw the race in a different way and we’d sit back and let the viewers decide how they wanted to go along.

“Darrell was more of a storyteller and Jeff was more of an analyst. Jeff wanted you to know the how and why of what was happening, and Darrell wanted you to how much fun it was and get into the personalities involved. That made them a good pairing because they weren’t looking at the same thing and arguing over what they were seeing.”

Waltrip retired from broadcasting in 2019 and the entertainment element of FOX’s NASCAR coverage dipped below expectations a year ago. That will soon change as Clint Bowyer transitions from the race track to the broadcast booth, and Joy’s thoughts on his newest broadcast partner can be found elsewhere in these pages.

– One of dirt-track racing’s grandest traditions — the annual Turkey Night Grand Prix midget event on Thanksgiving — has apparently been thrown to the wind.

According to a schedule update from USAC headquarters, the 80th running of this marque short-track event will take place at California’s Ventura Raceway on Saturday night, Nov. 27 — two days after Thanksgiving.

We certainly hope the new date is accompanied by a new name.

– Repeat after me: track preparation, track preparation, track preparation …

Bristol Motor Speedway and its temporary dirt track will be the center of the racing universe during the months of March and April with modifieds, late models, sprint cars, trucks and NASCAR Cup Series machines among the many divisions scheduled to battle on the clay-covered high banks.

If the dirt surface is installed properly and prepared so it offers great racing, dirt-track racing overall will receive a major boost. However, if the surface comes apart, is littered with holes or produces clouds of dust similar to those spotted during the Last Call at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in November, many will simply write off dirt racing as an experiment gone bad.

There’s a lot riding on how the surface is prepped for these events.