Former NASCAR pit reporter John Kernan ruthlessly slammed the current state of the Cup Series and Leigh Diffey\u2019s commentary in a social media post he admitted himself was “xenophobic”.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Diffey \u2014 who recently gave Carson Hocevar a new nickname<\/a> \u2014 has risen through the ranks over the last decade en route to becoming NBC Sports\u2019 lead play-by-play announcer for motorsports<\/a>. Last August, the Australian-American pundit was tasked with calling the NASCAR playoffs<\/a> following a successful stint at the Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not everyone enjoys hearing Diffey on the airwaves, however. On Monday, Kernan voiced his disapproval of the 54-year-old simply because of his accent and unique sound. \u201cI think I\u2019m done with NASCAR,\u201d the longtime ESPN host wrote. \u201cAfter further review stage racing SUCKS! And I\u2019m sure Leigh Diffey is a great guy but, if I want to hear that accent, I\u2019ll watch Formula 1. Sorry, guess I\u2019m xenophobic.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking to the comment section, droves of NASCAR fans swiftly rushed to the defense of Diffey while blasting Kernan for his offensive remarks. \u201cI hope this post was somehow influenced by alcohol or some other mind altering substance because if this is really how you feel with a clear mind, you need to work on yourself,\u201d one X user wrote. \u201c@leighdiffey clearly loves his job and brings it hard every race. More than I can say for others.\u201d<\/p>\n Another added, \u201cYikes, I thought Diffey was great. Called the racing on the track and built excitement. Not liking someone over their accent is about as shallow as it gets. Don’t dive into your own pool John, it’s an inch deep,\u201d while a third chimed in: \u201cDamn, what a pathetic viewpoint here. I do agree about stages though, really wish they didn’t throw cautions for them. I’m fine with points being awarded though. But to s— on Leigh, man, what a bad take.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to the fierce wave of backlash his post received, Kernan doubled down on his opinion. \u201cTo my ear Leigh\u2019s accent doesn\u2019t go well with NASCAR. No I\u2019m not giving up because of him. I hate what they\u2019ve done to the sport with stage racing,\u201d he said. \u201cI just don\u2019t think his accent goes with NASCAR. Just my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n It appears as though Kernan isn\u2019t the only person who\u2019s unfortunately taken issue with Diffey\u2019s accent. While making an appearance on the \u2018Off Track with Hinch and Rossi\u2019 podcast, he revealed that his cadence was the reason why TNT opted not to bring him on as a play-by-play commentator back in 2010.<\/p>\n DON’T MISS:<\/p>\n \u201cI had a chance to audition for a NASCAR play-by-play job on Turner,\u201d Diffey recalled. \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m just going to come in do like five minutes of commentary. They had their full production team there. \u2026 They made me call about 150 laps.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, it went really, really well. I learned many years later, that um \u2026 how do I say this politely? I think that I did get the job, but ultimately I didn\u2019t get the job, because the big, big boss at Turner didn\u2019t prefer to have an accent calling the Cup races.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NASCAR pit reporter John Kernan ruthlessly slammed the current state of the Cup Series and Leigh Diffey\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[74422,74421,4423,1406,62,67,132,68,55183],"class_list":{"0":"post-119318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-john-kernan","9":"tag-leigh-diffey","10":"tag-motorsport-section","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-xenophobia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114972945656671197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}