Saturday night brought the Xfinity Series out for 300 miles of action at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  Here, it was clear early in the going just who the most dominant driver was.  

As I noted in Couch Potato Tuesday at Frontstretch earlier this week, the news of Michael Jordan entering NASCAR in 2021 was big news in Las Vegas.  Is this truly historic for Jordan to get involved?  I don't know.  He's not the first legendary sports figure to signal interest in the sport.  Randy Moss co-owned a Truck team.  Other notable stars considered getting involved.  Years ago, there was a rumor on Jayski that Hank Aaron was going to team up with then-Roush Racing on the No. 16.  That never happened.

The Jordan brand has substantial name recognition worldwide.  Jordan himself getting involved in the sport could mean that the brand could use their influence to expand both Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin's reach (remember, Hamlin has been a Jordan brand ambassador for years).  We'll have to see what happens.

During the race, there were a few things that stood out.  The first of those was the rather unusual wreck that took Kyle Weatherman out of the race early on.  The replays didn't catch the beginning of it, but Weatherman apparently smacked the wall exiting the tri-oval, then spun to the inside of the track in such a fashion that it actually blocked the pace car in it's chute.  Admittedly, that's a new one.  Apparently, one of the maintenance trucks had to pace the field, although a shot of that didn't make the broadcast.

Did viewers ever get a true idea of what happened?  No.  This is another one of those situations where I have to find out from Twitter.  In this case, the steering came apart.  Not good.

Jesse Iwuji was back in the pits Saturday, having just compete the previous night in the World of Westgate 200  Here, Iwuji continues his progression knowledge-wise in the art of pit reporting. However, there was a hiccup Saturday.  He had one of those non-contact thermometers to measure the track temperature.  I did that once myself in Daytona using a thermometer I borrowed from a friend that runs a T-shirt print shop.  However, Iwuji was using it on the concrete in a pit stall when the racing surface is asphalt.  As a result, viewers didn't get a true read on track temperature.  If you're going to do that, I recommend finding a non-shady asphalt spot behind the pit wall.  That's way easier than normal right now since no one other than the crews, officials, pit reporters and their support staff can even get in there right now.

Since Saturday was the first race of the Xfinity Series playoffs, you saw a number of recorded interviews with the playoff contenders run during the race.  I found the most notable one to be the one that aired early (prior to the Weatherman crash) with Brandon Brown.  He talked about wanting his team to be the best family organization in the Xfinity Series.  Ryan Sieg obviously wants that as well, while Martins Motorsports is trying to build the No. 44 team up to that point.  In Sieg's case, the team went out and acquired a chassis from Richard Childress Racing (the one Myatt Snider finished third at Pocono with earlier this year).

Noah Gragson's interview was really off-putting.  Here, he talked about recent depression after not running well.  I've seen this out of Gragson before.  Last year, during an availability session at Watkins Glen, he had a completely defeatist attitude in regards to racing against the "Big Three" at the time (Christopher Bell, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick).  However, it's what wasn't said (or possibly cut out) that's probably really on his mind.  As many of you are likely aware, Gragson's father Scott was involved in a fatal crash last year that killed a mother of three last year.  Four weeks ago, Scott was sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison for driving drunk and crashing into another car, killing the aforementioned woman in his car and injuring three other people.  I don't particularly care how you feel about Noah Gragson as a person, but know that he's going through some serious private turmoil at the moment.

Calling of these races remotely is still hurting NBCSN's broadcasts.  The commentators cannot make things on their screens (which are smaller than the screen I critique on these days) and have to make a bunch of guesses.  I just hope that they can get back to the track sometime soon.  I fear it might be Road America next year before that can happen.

Post-race coverage was decent.  Viewers got six post-race interviews, a check of the points and some analysis.  Maybe a little more than I expected, honestly.

Overall, this was an interesting race.  Chase Briscoe was just that much better than everyone else.  That said, there was some decent racing to be had out there.  In Michael Annett, you nearly had a similar scenario to what you had with Kurt Busch Sunday.  He was running 15th all night before a late caution put him in the conversation.

Of course, running 15th in the Xfinity Series is quite a bit different than running 15th in Cup.  Given the current strength of field in the Xfinity Series, that's like the difference between the lead and 25th or so in Cup.  It was a really bad night for Annett and he truly got bailed out by the tire caution.

In regards to that caution, it was surprising to everyone that NASCAR called that yellow.  No one ran out to get it like that time at Atlanta with the JTG-Daugherty Racing crewmember.  That was a forced situation.  NASCAR's general opinion here is that they don't want to advantage or disadvantage anyone, yet they chose to do so here.  That was a headscratcher for everyone, including the booth.  It didn't change who won the race, but it did change how the race finished.

I found that the race was very much centered upon the playoff contenders.  If you weren't in that group, you didn't get much airtime.  You had to break out, like Anthony Alfredo did at times.  Otherwise, you just weren't noticed.  Especially these days, that's just not good for the health of the sport.