NASCAR’s regular season kicks off this weekend from the World Center of Racing culminating with the sport’s most prestigious and important race – the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 16. It will also mark the 55th season of NASCAR broadcasting on Motor Racing Network (MRN).
This year, however, will be a little different in the MRN booth as veteran announcer Jeff Striegle retired at the end of last season. Striegle’s departure created an opportunity for longtime MRN announcer Mike Bagley to get tapped on the shoulder to join Alex Hayden in the broadcast booth. Bagley, who also hosts The Morning Drive on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and as well as MRN’s NASCAR Live, had been serving as a turn announcer for the network’s NASCAR coverage.
Joining Hayden and Bagley in the booth in Daytona will be NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace. Tim Catalfamo, Dave Moody and Kyle Rickey round out the turn coverage while MRN lead pit reporter Steve Post, Chris Willner and Alan Cavanna bring the action on pit road.
MRN will have complete coverage throughout the week starting on Monday and ending on Sunday as NASCAR Live Raceday will serve as the prologue to ‘The Great American Race’, at 1:30 PM ET.
I caught up with Bagley before he headed to out to start his 33rd year or racing coverage.
Dave Greene: After all these years, do you still get butterflies in your stomach in anticipation of the start of the season?
Mike Bagley: Oh, absolutely. I love this time of year. We have come out of a long off season. We’ve come out of the grips of winter. And to me, going to Daytona is that first dip into spring. Racing is back. NASCAR is back. Everything is shiny. Everything is new. And let’s be honest, it’s the Daytona 500. It’s the biggest race that we do. And there is nervous anticipation, not necessarily from doing the job, but the anticipation of what awaits us when we get back to the racetrack.
DG: You say off season, but NASCAR never really turns off for you, does it?
MB: No, it doesn’t. I host The Morning Drive on Sirius XM NASCAR radio channel 90 with Pete Pistone. And when we throw the checkered flag on a season at Phoenix or wherever that season finale may be, outside of taking a couple of weeks off for Christmas and the New Year, we’re on the air. So, we keep our finger on the pulse. We check in with everybody. Obviously, the competitors scatter and they enjoy their downtime. But we cover the sport, even in the months of November, December and January.
So, when we hit the air for the races again, we’ve already been in it. We don’t really take a step away. We’re there every step of the way with the fans.
DG: When you have something like the Daytona 500 at the beginning of the season, how do you prepare and not over-prepare with all the time that you have between the last race of last season and the first one of this year?
MB: Well, you kind of get an idea about what’s going to be a conversation piece, right? Obviously, drivers going to new race teams. You’ve got crew chiefs going to new teams. You got new driver-crew chief pairings. Plus, as we get towards the end of the off season, the sanctioning body releases updates to policies and procedures, so we have that when we hit the air for the first time at Daytona. There’s a lot of folks that have checked out. They’ve not been with us, right? Daytona is their cue to jump back in the mix.
So, we do what we normally do and describe the action on the racetrack. But we also take the time to bring the listener that may have stepped aside for a month or two and bring them up to speed and give them a primer about what they can expect over the course of the racing season. I always over-prepare because you never know what you’re going to need and it’s at our fingertips if we need it.
DG: Few have experienced races and broadcasting races the way you have in terms of having been in the booth and on the turns. Tell me the difference from your vantage point on those two.
MB: When I’ve been in the turns, I’m responsible for what’s happening in front of me, and we have other announcers that take care of their respective portions of the racetrack. When you’re in the booth, you are there to help guide the ship. You know, I’m working with Alex Hayden. Alex and I guide the ship along and we allow the turns to describe the action. We allow the pits to update us what’s going on with the cars and what’s going on with the crew chief and the pit crews and all that and we kind of sew it all together.
The cool thing about Motor Racing Network is we’ve got a group of seasoned announcers that have been working together for so long. We know each other’s style. We know that everyone is prepared, and those individuals are allowed to contribute to really present a package to the race fan that keeps them informed. It keeps them updated and keeps them energized about what we’re doing on that specific day, and obviously what we do all season long.
It’s pretty fun and it’s different all the same time going from one portion of the racetrack to then bringing everything in that encompasses the event.
DG: You mentioned this a moment ago, but the camaraderie with your team. A lot of the people you work with have been with MRN for a long time, so that says you all enjoy working with each other and you enjoy working with the company.
MB: 100 percent. Obviously, we enjoy the sport. We enjoy what we do, but when those microphones go off there’s a level of camaraderie and brotherhood that continues behind the scenes. We’ll go to dinner together. We’ll go to baseball games together. We’ll visit each other’s homes and spend time with each other around the racetrack, so we have that camaraderie and that chemistry off the mic, and I think because of that, that makes what we do on the mic even more special because we have those relationships with each other. Literally, it is a band of brothers and sisters that travel together throughout the entire 38 race slate. Week in, week out, track to track, state to state.
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