Arguably NASCAR’s best-known voice, Dale Earnhardt Jr, is both an executive producer and jumps into the Will Buxton role of narrator. Pleasingly, his explanations for what’s going on are less basic than DtS but also more plausible – as well as giving the impression of having genuine insider knowledge.

However more explanation is needed at the start, where a barrage of specialist language which comes in quickly might be a bit much for some. What is the Cup series? What are late models? Or sprint cars? The viewer is largely none the wiser.

There are amusing moments – title hopeful Denny Hamlin’s mum starts digging into the ‘data’ shown via TV graphics after a slow qualifying lap, claiming he’s only at half-throttle through one of the fastest corners. Hamlin has to point out to his mum that it also shows him in first gear.

Basketball legend – and now 23XI team co-owner – Michael Jordan also makes a special bet with Hamlin’s father should one of NASCAR’s most ‘winningest’ (sorry) drivers finally take the Cup title, but these kind of moments are a bit few and far between. Just a lot of talk about wanting to win and loving cars – not particularly insightful.

For any medium-sized petrol head, the cinematic shots of forty snarling stockcar beasts roaring by – or crashing – will never not be satisfying, and behind-the-scenes shots of factory work on the stock cars back at the ‘shop’ are interesting too.

However, what is a brilliant racing championship, with so much to get your teeth into, is hoisted by its own petard due to only focusing on the Playoffs and a select number of drivers involved in it.

DtS has shown with episodes focused around the travails of Haas boss Guenther Steiner, Daniel Ricciardo agonising over changing teams or Ferrari’s general implosion, that very often it’s not winning that makes a great story. But Full Speed totally ignores this learning.

There were a whole host of great NASCAR 2023 story lines – good, bad and Superspeedway-style ugly – in the top tier stock car championship in 2023 and this Netflix series mentions… none of them.

Chase Elliott, the driver who has repeatedly been voted the fans’ favourite, broke his hand during last season, came back, then was promptly banned for viciously taking out Denny Hamlin out at 200mph in a retaliatory move at the Charlotte oval race.

Bubba Wallace did the same to Kyle Larson in 2022 and was also banned. His redemption story is wrapped up in being the first black driver to win a top tier NASCAR race in 60 years (in 2021), in a sport historically riven with racism. Is that mentioned? Nope!

On that subject, the championships’ thrill-a-minute throwback badboy Noah Gragson – who grabbed Ross Chastain in the pitlane after the Kansas ’23 only to find himself to be punched in the face, much to NASCAR’s delight (NEW VIDEO – EXTRA FIGHT ANGLES!!!) – was also banned for liking a racist social media post. Not mentioned. You might be noticing a bit of a pattern here.

Furthering the theme of NASCAR drivers getting a little bit racist, Kyle Larson was not only suspended but fired by Ganassi in 2020 for using a racial slur during a live stream.

He then came back with the Hendrick team in 2021, absolutely spanked the field to take that year’s title, and did so while acing the formidable sprint car discipline in his spare time too. In 2023, he began testing a McLaren IndyCar in preparation for an Indy 500 / Coca-Cola 600 assault – ‘The Double’ – this year. There’s not a whisper of any of these Mario Andretti-like cross-discipline heroics.

It’s repeatedly proffered in Full Speed that Larson is “maybe the most talented racing driver on earth.” But you’re left inwardly screaming ‘Why?! Tell us why he’s better than Sébastien Loeb or Lewis Hamilton, Johann Kristofferson (look him up) or Scott Dixon.’ Not much evidence aside from Larson’s NASCAR title is proffered.

The championship’s best 2023 moment also passes without mention. Its first ever street race was held at Chicago, with Australian V8 supercar legend Shane van Gisbergen rocking up and winning a NASCAR race on his first attempt in one of racing’s greatest ever debuts. Oh, and did we mention 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button was also in that race? Because Full Speed doesn’t!

It goes on: series legend Jimmie Johnson made his comeback after a slightly rubbish stint in IndyCar. And the safety of the new generation NASCAR car has seriously been called into question, particularly by Hamlin. No mentions. It’s all a bit bland.

 

NASCAR: Full Speed vs Formula 1: Drive to Survive

Added to this is the problem is a lot of the building blocks that make something like DtS appealing are lacking in NASCAR.

Firstly, at the risk of sounding unbearably F1 centric, the characters. Lewis Hamilton is a global icon who transcends not only his own discipline but sport in general, while Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen have been around long that they were still reasonably well known.

NASCAR’s names aren’t as well known – so the aim should be to introduce them, then make them jump out of the screen at you. This might have been possible if the series still overtly projected its moonshine-saturated spirit through the 700bhp monsters of the early 2000s which Dale Earnhardt, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch were racing.

But it doesn’t. Kurt’s brother Kyle Busch aside, and perhaps also Bubba Wallace, most involved in 2023 are not particularly compelling. It’s around 40, largely similar, not very interesting, American blokes going round in circles.

Which is another element slightly lost – F1 plays on a different-shaped football field every weekend. The only non-oval road circuit given any serious airtime is the, err, Charlotte Roval.

The Roval is one of the few races shown where any narrative plays out on track, slightly giving away the fact that although NASCAR can be an exciting watch, a lot of the races are largely globular in nature, broken up by ‘Stages’ where points are doled out before a safety car restart gets things going again.

In DtS the teams also leap out at you: Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, with bulldog bosses to match. Joe Gibbs Racing, RFK, Hendrick don’t quite have the same ring. The series should be therefore shouting about their individual personalities. And, quite literally in the words of the Netflix series, all the cars are “exactly the same”. Exciting, then.

NASCAR, when firing on all cylinders, is an incredible spectacle both on and off track. In Full Speed, its driver pep talks are largely the same. Cue Southern drawl: ‘You only get one shot – this is your shot – time to take our shot’ etc, etc, yawn, yawn. This series very much missed its shot.

As mentioned above, NASCAR does actually have a great Netflix show already – one which can transcend the diehards and pull in the floating voters. This isn’t it.