Last weekend, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series made their first-ever visit to the state of Connecticut to race at Lime Rock Park. There was a large crowd on hand to witness the race. Unfortunately, Corey Heim more or less stunk up the show.

FOX Sports didn't send their booth to Lime Rock, which is generally always bad.  I'm not shocked that they did it, though. I've worked in what would have been their booth before. Not a lot of room to function and a somewhat obstructed view because of the flagstand (Note: They've had enough people covering Lime Rock races in the past that they opened the aforementioned booth as a media center annex).

Even though the booth didn't make the trip, Mike Joy did. After qualifying, he voiced a segment from Spectator Hill about the history of Lime Rock.

He was around the facility both days, taking everything in, greeting fans and just being available. I wanted to actually get him for a brief interview to put on our YouTube channel, but I didn't get a chance until a minute or two before opening ceremonies. That wasn't enough time, unfortunately.

I know that a lot of people would have liked Mike Joy to be on play-by-play for the race. I wouldn't have been opposed to that, but I think he enjoyed himself.

Instead, we had Jamie Little with the remote play-by-play. The commentary struck me as somewhat disjointed at the times. I've seen people describe her enthusiasm as a little off at times (meaning that she gets excited at the wrong times and doesn't amp up in the big moments). I guess I saw a little of that Saturday, but not that much.

Once the race got started, Heim ran off and hid from the field. With the overall format of the race with no live stops at stage breaks, he actually only made three passes under green all day en route to his victory.

Early on, there was a decent amount of on-track action for position, but FOX Sports only showed a little of it. Instead, there was a lot of coverage of Heim and other specific drivers.

Spencer Boyd spun out on lap 15 in The Lefthander (turn 3). I'm reasonably confident that Boyd got forced off the track by Layne Riggs since an in-truck view showed Riggs passing Boyd entering that turn, then shortly afterwards, we see Boyd in the grass. Since no replay was shown of the incident, I can't say that for sure.

Prior to the beginning of the final stage, there was a red flag for track cleanup. I was confused about this at the track. The broadcast was just as confusing as it seems they never figured out where the fluid came from.

My personal theory is that it came from Alex Labbe's No. 22. He had spent a bunch of time behind the wall, then briefly got back out there before dropping out with a rear gear issue.  Perhaps some fluid leaked out, he parked the truck before any of FOX Sports' cameras saw anything and NASCAR had to take action.

The coverage of the chaotic final restart left something to be desired. If there were more than five laps to go in the race, I would have been down there with my camera in hand, but it was too close to the finish.

FOX didn't have a camera on the inside of Big Bend, so the only shots they had of the mess was from the outside of the turn. Because of that, you missed things. 

How did Jack Wood spin out? I don't know. How did Josh Bilicki go from 19th to seventh? I know one reason, but FOX never talked about it. Who ran in the back of Jake Garcia and messed up his rear end? Not sure.

It made the final stretch of the race pretty irritating to watch. They need to do better going forward. I know that this was a standalone race, but they don't deserve to get short-shrift, especially when you're on network television.

Also, the reason that FOX never talked about in regards to how Bilicki moved forward? He stopped for tires under the final caution when Matt Mills slid into the barrier. The broadcast had mentioned the drop off as tires wore. I'm surprised that more teams didn't take advantage.

That said, the nasty tire off of Kaden Honeycutt's truck that Todd Bodine showed viewers? I don't think that was all tire wear. If it was, that would have been a serious issue affecting much of the field. We don't have enough evidence to prove that. In reality, I think Honeycutt had a wheel lock up at some point that damaged the tire.

Post-race coverage was fairly brief due to the race running long. They only took the time to interview Heim, show the points and do a little wrap-up analysis before leaving Lime Rock for LIV Golf.

Admittedly, things were tight for everyone. Prior to this brief interview that I did with Ben Rhodes after the race, he admitted that he had a 6 p.m. ET flight that he had to catch at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn. Seeing as it was already 3:30 p.m. ET by the time the race ended, he had a couple of hours to get cleaned up, changed, and make a 90-minute drive to the airport to catch a plane.  A lot of the other drivers were in a similar boat, hence why there wasn't much in the way of post-race coverage.

This was a fairly weird race to watch. There was a certain amount of action out there during the race, but FOX didn't do all that great of a job of showing that. As a result, it made the race look more boring than it was. Granted, at the front, Heim really did stink up the show.

There was significant time spent on stuff that had nothing to do with the race, like the time Jordan Taylor assumed his "Rodney Sandstorm" alter ego and crashed a NASCAR RaceDay segment at Talladega in 2018. I get it, Taylor was in the race, but that was unnecessary.

A standalone race for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series should be treated as a showcase for the series. Just putting it on FOX and having Mike Joy there (I wouldn't be shocked if he would have come on his own dime anyway) isn't really enough.

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.