At Charlotte, FOX Sports brought in Eric Brennan for the 2026 North Carolina Education Lottery 200 race, replacing Jamie Little as the latter had Indy 500 duties that weekend. While FOX Sports needed an experienced person for the job, it was Mike Joy who put forward Brennan's name, leading to a successful return.

"Mike Joy reached out to Rich and said, 'Hey, if Eric wants, I'd love to talk to him,'" Brennan recently revealed in the Door Bumper Clear podcast.

"And I thought about reaching out to Mike, but I was trying to be respectful to what he may be feeling because everyone feels a sense of loss. Even I didn't know Kyle personally, and I felt the sense of loss."

Mike Joy, who worked in NASCAR for over five decades, is the voice of NASCAR. He covers the Cup Series with Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer. And on Friday, he put forward Brennan's name, who has prior experience of working with FloRacing in the Sprint car racing.

"He gave me a lot of insight as to what they did at Rockingham in '01. And it was like he turned a pressure release valve off on me. And I just felt so much more relaxed and kind of composed."

Joy also advised Brennan on how to tackle a situation so somber in NASCAR right now with Busch's passing.

"The best advice was just be human. If you show an organic emotion and a human emotion in this moment, people will realize it's authentic and you're hurting just like they are. That advice was really what I needed," Brennan further added.

Besides FloRacing, Brennan comes with a pool of experience from his CARS Tour and ARCA days. Regarded as a top-tier Motorsports broadcaster.

FOX Sports assigned him the Truck Series duties earlier this year, when they put him alongside Little, and Amanda Busick from the pit road, and Eric Brennan and Brent Stover for play-by-play duties.

However, FOX then shifted her to the Truck Series booth, replacing Brennan, and also assigned her the post-race interview duties in the Cup Series.

Her interviews with Michael Jordan after Tyler Reddick's back-to-back wins this season grabbed the most attention.

When Jamie Little spoke about her NASCAR connection with Michael Jordan

Coming into the 2026 season, Jamie Little had nearly had a dozen interviews with Michael Jordan. Most of them came after his driver from 23XI Racing, Reddick, won three back-to-back races at Daytona, Atlanta and COTA.

"It’s funny," Little told Front Office Sports in March, about her connection to Jordan. "I don’t know that about him. Since these last few weeks have been happening, and I interview him all the time, multiple people have come up to me and said he was very tough during his playing days.

"He takes a reporter, he trusts them, that’s who he gives information to, that’s who he gives access to. I’m very humbled and honored I’ve become that person."

With that said, pit road chatters also say that Jordan, who was a tough man to deal with during his racing days, asked FOX to put Little on duty and take his interview whenever applicable.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason