LEBANON, TENNESSEE - JUNE 01: A detail view of the NASCAR on Prime Video broadcast set after the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 01, 2025 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)

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The NASCAR fandom isn’t exactly known as an agreeable bunch. You won’t find them holding hands and singing about wanting to buy the world a Coke. NASCAR fans are passionate about the sport, and it seems that no matter what happens on the track, there are always factions ready to argue with each other and square off against NASCAR executives over why nothing in the sport is ever quite good enough.

And yet, there was something that managed to bring much of the fan base together last season. Which was surprising, considering the uproar when it was first announced that NASCAR races would stream in their entirety not on a cable box, but on the internet.

Amazon Prime had a tall order. Not only would it stream races entirely online, but it would do so under the very discerning eyes of a NASCAR Nation that often seems to love to hate. Everything needed to go perfectly: no glitches, no gremlins, no buffering wheel of doom appearing at the worst possible moment. It had to be a polished production capable of appeasing even the most pessimistic fans.

Spoiler alert: NASCAR on Prime was nothing short of brilliant. The sport took a running leap off the high dive into the deep end of streaming and somehow stuck the landing.

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Now they’re back. Prime Video begins its second season of NASCAR coverage this Sunday with the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Once again there will be five consecutive races, culminating at San Diego’s Naval Base Coronado for NASCAR’s first-ever race on an active military base.

Several popular features will return, including perhaps the most talked-about addition from last season, the Burn Bar, which analyzes thousands of performance data points to illustrate things such as fuel consumption and efficiency throughout the race. Prime Video will also once again use its double-box commercial format, meaning uninterrupted live coverage of green-flag racing. Fans will also have on-demand access to features such as Key Moments and Rapid Recaps, condensed highlight packages of the race’s biggest moments.

And then there is the sheer scale of the production itself. More than 70 cameras will be deployed at each race, including in-car and POV cameras equipped with microphones, all connected by miles of fiber optic cable. Every race will again be produced in 1080p native High Dynamic Range (HDR) with surround sound and what Prime describes as “a proprietary, end-to-end livestreaming solution that delivers ultra-low latency and eliminates drift with delivery speeds that match and often surpass what fans receive from traditional cable and broadcast networks.”

Translated into plain English: the racing won’t just be seen, it will be heard and felt, especially if your living room audio setup rattles the windows like a small earthquake.

But the racing itself wasn’t the only thing Prime Video got right last season. The company also set a new standard for pre- and post-race coverage, leaving some traditional broadcast partners looking as though they had spent years bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. The coverage had emotion, analysis, storytelling and, perhaps most importantly, enough airtime to let moments breathe naturally.

This season Prime Video appears intent on raising that bar even higher. The primary race broadcast team remains intact, with Adam Alexander returning as play-by-play announcer alongside Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Steve Letarte. On pit road, Trevor Bayne joins reporters Kim Coon and Marty Snider in providing real-time updates throughout the race weekend.

NASCAR Hall of Famer Carl Edwards will return to the desk for pre- and post-race coverage of the Coca-Cola 600. After Charlotte, however, things get even more interesting. Edwards will transition into feature and remote contributions over the remaining four races while a rotating cast of NASCAR legends and current stars joins host Danielle Trotta and analyst Corey LaJoie each week.

At Nashville, it will be Mark Martin. In Michigan, 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. takes a turn. Pocono will feature 2012 Cup Series champion and current RFK Racing driver Brad Keselowski, while four-time Cup Series champion and longtime NASCAR executive Jeff Gordon joins coverage for the San Diego finale.

And that may ultimately be the biggest story heading into Prime Video’s second NASCAR season. Last year proved streaming races could work. This year feels like Prime is trying to prove NASCAR coverage can become an event.

With Mark Martin, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Jeff Gordon rotating through coverage alongside a returning broadcast team that already exceeded expectations, Prime Video isn’t simply showing races anymore. It is building something that feels closer to a weekly gathering of the sport’s old souls and current stars.

No, NASCAR fans still won’t be standing together singing about wanting to buy the world a Coke. Somebody will complain about commercials, somebody will hate a restart rule, and somebody on social media will insist racing died sometime around 1998. That’s tradition.

But if Prime Video’s first season was any indication, for five weekends this summer NASCAR fans may once again find themselves doing something unusual: agreeing on something.