NASCAR Full Speed tells a story the audience doesn’t get to see with the second season of Netflix’s series NASCAR Full Speed released on May 7.
The struggle of filming during a ten-week elimination-style championship is shown in full during season two.
By mixing the unpredictability of competition and the off-track lives of drivers, storylines that are built for multiple episodes end up scrapped due to the elimination of a driver.
Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe are both featured prominently in the first three episodes only abruptly to disappear from the final two episodes because they were eliminated from the playoffs.
No episode highlights such faults as the penultimate.
The drama of the 2024 Xfinity 500 which included race manipulation, wall riding, and five drivers competing for two transfer spots was cut down to 8 minutes.
While Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson provided little to no new footage for the series, excluding their storylines from the episode takes Ryan Blaney’s performance during the final run of the race from awe-inspiring to bland.
In turn, it makes Kyle Larson’s elimination from the playoffs seem minor, despite it being a major and controversial storyline.
Larson wasn’t the only one with no major coverage, Martin Truex Jr. who made the playoffs in his swansong season only had one line the entire season.
This speaks to the larger issue of the series, its structure.
Episode one is dedicated to the week before the first race of the playoffs, Atlanta, with no time dedicated to the regular season.
Of the 42-minute runtime of the episode only eight are dedicated to the race itself, building hype for an event the audience barely gets to see.
This issue continues as episodes two, three and four cover multiple races each.
The first four episodes cover nine weeks and have a total runtime of 191 minutes, only 57 of those minutes are dedicated to racing.
Each episode builds on the driver’s personalities, how they hone their skills and their desire to win the championship only to never how any of that ends up correlating to their seasons.
Despite its shortcomings, Full Speed flashed moments of brilliance throughout the season.
Episode three sees Steve Letarte describe the Charlotte Roval, one of the most versatile tracks on the circuit in such a simple yet detailed way it builds anxiety and anticipation for the race.
Suarez, Briscoe and Harrison Burton getting their fair share of coverage is a move in the right direction of branching out of the core group of drivers in the spotlight.
Across the season several moments gave viewers glimpses into how much preparation a team puts into a race weekend.
The season finale dedicates significantly more time to the racing and recaptures the intensity of the closing laps of the 2024 Season Finale 500.
While Full Speed may turn established fans of NASCAR away with its take on the 2024 playoffs, new and casual fans alike may find it refreshing.
There is nowhere else to get a look this deep into the life of a NASCAR driver.
