There’s no better time than Prime time.
The Coca-Cola 600 at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway marks the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race broadcast on Prime Video, welcoming a new era to the sport as the broadcast partner launches stock-car racing into the world of streaming.
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There will be plenty of new touches that come with Prime Video’s introduction, as anticipated with any broadcast partner making its first foray into a sport. There will be, however, a considerable amount of familiarity for longtime NASCAR fans, most notably the voices they will hear.
Play-by-play announcer Adam Alexander leads the booth alongside NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Steve Letarte, both of whom previously called races together for NBC Sports. Leading pre- and post-race coverage will be another familiar face in Danielle Trotta alongside Hall of Famer Carl Edwards and Corey LaJoie, Cup Series driver and host of the “Stacking Pennies” podcast.
Additionally, 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne will join TV veterans Kim Coon and Marty Snider as pit road reporters.
So while Prime intends to leave its own imprint on the NASCAR broadcasting space, the basics are what it intends to nail out of the gate.
“The first impression that was made to me by everyone with NASCAR on Prime and Prime Sports in general,” Alexander said in a Monday teleconference, “is just to come in and respect the foundation that’s been laid in the sport of NASCAR. And I think it would be easy for someone, when you look at new partners coming into the sport, that everything is going to be changed. And it jumped off the board to me right away, the balance of new but also the respect to traditions that we’re used to in the TV world and how that matches up with NASCAR. That was something that was very attractive to me as we started having conversations about putting this deal together.
“So there’s been tremendous dialogue about ideas. But the one thing that I would say is there’s a high level of respect of the history of NASCAR and the way this sport is presented. And while there are tremendous new ideas that will come in through technology — and those are things that you will see unfold this weekend — I would say that we’re not going to get too far away from the foundation of what makes a NASCAR broadcast what it is.”
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That is an intentional direction throughout the Prime Video team. Senior Coordinating Producer Alex Strand has been associated with bringing the National Football League and Premier League soccer to Prime Video, and similar care with those sports became lessons learned as Prime prepped for NASCAR. Add in a crown-jewel event like the Coca-Cola 600 to debut its coverage, and the stage is set for an immediate splash.
“We can’t be more excited to be starting with a crown jewel,” Strand said. “I think that’s my big sort of headliner. We think it’s a huge responsibility. We really take it seriously, and we’re really excited to bring that to fans. What we’ve seen when we’ve brought Thursday Night Football NFL into Prime, we saw it when we brought the English Premier League to customers throughout the UK. We spent a lot of time making sure that we’re delivering on sort of a core expectation. You know, there’s trust that viewers are putting in you to bring them the sport that they love. We take that very seriously.
“That doesn’t change if we’re starting with a crown jewel or we’re starting with a non-points race. We care about bringing the product to fans in a quality way and entertaining them. We’re fans first, and we care just as much about the experiences as fans do at home.”
While Sunday will mark Prime’s debut, it will also mark an inauguration for Edwards and LaJoie in their respective roles. For much of the last decade, Edwards had been away from the sport, unsure it would welcome him back so heartily after he essentially cut ties following his January 2017 retirement. It very much has, however — with honors such as Hall-of-Fame enshrinement and acknowledgment as one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers. Now comes the emotions of picking up the microphone to broadcast the sport after “falling in love with racing again.”
“Man, I’m excited,” Edwards said. “I think I should be really nervous, but I don’t know if I am yet. For me, it’s a lot like going to my first Cup race. It’s like, man, I really don’t know what to expect. I feel like I’m kind of prepared, but I’m just so grateful for this team, to be with Steve and Dale and Corey and Danielle and Alex, everybody — all these people now. It’s wild how much talent is here and represented by this Prime broadcast. And that part really makes me feel comfortable. So I’m just ready to go have some fun. I think this is really going to be cool.”
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And while streaming platforms are still fairly new to some, Edwards is confident NASCAR fans will quickly make their way to the platform.
“I was on the phone with a farmer that owns some neighboring property to ours, and we’re talking about other things,” Edwards said. “And he said, ‘Hey, you’re doing some sort of TV thing!’ And I was thinking, you know, this guy’s 85 years old, and I’m gonna have to explain this to him. And I started, and he’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I got Prime! I’ll be watching.’ I was like, ‘Oh, OK! … I really think that they’ve [Prime Video] paved the way with the other sports that they’ve been a part of, and I think that’s going to transition well here to NASCAR.”
As Letarte said Monday, the key to nailing the broadcast out of the gates is simply “don’t reinvent it.” That mindset permeates the booth.
“Fundamentals win in everything, right?” Alexander echoed. “If you’ve got a good fundamental base, then you’ve got a real opportunity to be successful. And I think Steve touched on something, and it’s a philosophy that I’ve always carried anywhere I’ve been, regardless of sport, regardless of network, and that is, people tune in to see the competition.
“And that’s not to say that we don’t want to have fun or we don’t want to be entertaining. We do, absolutely. But you can’t get caught up in that and put yourself in front of why people tuned in. And on Sunday evening, people are going to watch NASCAR on Prime because they want to see who wins the Coke 600. And while we’ll go through the process of presenting that, I think, fundamentally, the approach needs to be selling the product that’s on the track and presenting that in a way that people at home will understand.”
Coverage of the 2025 Coca-Cola 600 kicks off at 6 p.m. ET Sunday on Prime Video, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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