{"id":46553,"date":"2025-08-05T07:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T07:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/46553\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T07:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T07:40:08","slug":"former-espn-nascar-host-and-pit-reporter-rips-leigh-diffey-guess-im-xenophobic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/46553\/","title":{"rendered":"Former ESPN NASCAR host and pit reporter rips Leigh Diffey: ‘Guess I’m xenophobic’"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Kernan, former ESPN NASCAR<\/a> host and pit reporter, is done with the stock car racing series. While watching Sunday\u2019s Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway, Kernan assailed against stage racing before calling out NBC announcer Leigh Diffey. <\/p>\n

Specifically, Kernan took issue with Diffey\u2019s accent. \u201cSorry, guess I\u2019m xenophobic,\u201d Kernan wrote on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019m done with NASCAR,\u201d Kernan tweeted<\/a>. \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

Diffey, 54, is a native of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. While he has extensive experience in American motorsports, serving as\u00a0NBC\u2018s lead commentator for the IndyCar Series for more than a decade, this is just his second full-time season on the call for Cup races. He previously filled in for Rick Allen for a pair of races in 2017 before replacing Allen last season. Diffey is enthusiastic in the booth, which has endeared him to NASCAR fans watching from home. <\/p>\n

Leigh Diffey reveals why he didn\u2019t land TNT announcing gig 15 years ago<\/p>\n

During an appearance on the\u00a0\u201cOff Track with Hinch and Rossi<\/a>\u201d\u00a0podcast last year, Diffey revealed that he auditioned to be the lead play-by-play man for TNT in 2010. Diffey didn\u2019t get the job. He said that he learned years later that the \u201cbig boss at Turner didn\u2019t prefer to have an accent calling the Cup races.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a chance to audition for a NASCAR play-by-play job on Turner,\u201d Diffey said, via Awful Announcing<\/a>. \u201cSo, I went and did that audition. \u2026 It was myself, Adam Alexander and Rick Allen. Wally Dallenbach was there, Kyle Petty was there, Larry McReynolds was there \u2014 it was a full-on audition. We had to call the Homestead championship finale from the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 It was way more than I had ever imagined or given it credit for. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m just going to come in do like five minutes of commentary. They had their full production team there. \u2026They made me call about 150 laps. \u2026 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

Many within the NASCAR community have come to the defense of Diffey in response to Kernan\u2019s comments. Jeff Gluck of The Athletic<\/a> wrote the following on X:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege to have someone as incredible at their job as Leigh Diffey, a world-class sports announcer, calling NASCAR races. Extremely disappointing to see comments like this about his accent,\u201d Gluck tweeted. \u201cHe is one of the greats and makes the races better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Kernan, former ESPN NASCAR host and pit reporter, is done with the stock car racing series. While…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-46553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}