NASCAR’s rip-roaring reality show will play to a full house in Iowa Sunday night

NEWTON — I’d rather watch HBO’s “Hard Knocks” about an NFL team’s training camp than an actual NFL preseason game, would always favor viewing Netflix’s “Tour de France: Unchained” then sitting through hours of the bicycle marathon on TV.

Give me the behind-the-scenes stuff, the human stories of the athletes and coaches and their families even if it’s all edited tightly and packaged slickly. Show me what’s going on with competitors when things aren’t going so well, what they don’t care to share in formal interview sessions.

Plus, you’re never in a driver’s house during the week, never in a race team’s meeting, never head from antsy crew chiefs who answer to antsy car owners who answer to antsy sponsors.

Formula 1, an international afterthought to most U.S. sports fans, now has a far-bigger fan base here after six seasons of “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” The show features much more struggling than celebrating. I lap it up with a spoon every year.

NASCAR finally got on board. In January it dropped a five-episode Netflix Series called “NASCAR: Full Speed.” It was all about last year’s Cup Series playoffs and the drivers who chased the championship.

The series didn’t reinvent the sports reality show wheel, but did show us what those guys in the logo-covered stock cars are like. Like Ryan Blaney, who won the Cup Series championship last year and thus was one of the stars of the show.

Many viewers didn’t know Ryan Blaney from Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds or Ryan Seacrest. But he is one of three dozen drivers in Sunday’s inaugural Iowa Corn 350, a few months after becoming a streaming-service star.

“I thought it was great,” Blaney said Saturday at Iowa Speedway before qualifying for the front row of Sunday night’s race. “I hope it comes back again. I've met people, other athletes, who through the winter said ‘Hey, I watched that Netflix show. I loved it. And now I’m hooked.’

“I met a lot of fans at the Clash, the first race of the year, who said ‘Hey, it’s our first race, we watched the Netflix show and we liked it. We figured we’d come check it out.’”

The Cup Series drivers are a collection of men who, unlike in football or basketball, are unimposing physically. Blaney is 5-foot-7, 165 pounds. He seems to live on a drama-free diet until it’s race day.

Then, he’s part of what seems like absolute madness. He makes hundreds of instant decisions in heavy traffic at absurd speeds for three hours while in constant radio communication with his crew chief and spotter.

Stress pours through the TV screen. You find yourself rooting for every driver that is the series’ focal point of the moment.

Of course, a huge percentage of the 50,000-plus here for Sunday night’s race were NASCAR fans before Netflix was hatched. Many waited a long time to see the Cup Series come here. Many surely watched the NASCAR show to get into places they can’t from the Iowa grandstand.

“Just giving them insight,” said Blaney. “I give props to NASCAR and Netflix for wanting to do it because as an entertaining sport, nowadays you always have to give more to the consumer.

“How do you feed them more information about your sport? How do you draw them in more? It's getting harder and harder to do that. And I think that thing definitely gave a good inside look of what all goes on not only from a driver's perspective, but as a team perspective, how large the actual scale is.”

Formula 1 added Las Vegas last year. NASCAR added Iowa this year. As you may know, the two places aren’t the same.

But the “actual scale” Blaney spoke of is plenty big here. Cup Series races once were automatic sellouts at most tracks. No more. So Iowa, with sellouts not only for Sunday’s race, but also Saturday’s Xfinity Series event won by 20-year-old Sam Mayer, is a big deal.

Sunday evening’s race will be tucked away on USA Network, but it could be wild. A short track, the drivers’ inexperience with the repaved turns here, and tire issues similar to what plagued the Xfinity race may make for quirky racing Sunday night.

Three guarantees: The winner will be euphoric and do a smokey burnout on the front straightaway after the race. Several other drivers will be in foul moods after the race, and a few will say unkind things about others.

And, the telecast will have a cornucopia of corn references.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com