...This is a difficult issue for networks, because racing does not have natural breaks as baseball (breaks between innings), basketball (timeouts) and football (quarters and changes-of-possession). Even during cautions, there's time reviewing the caution and pit road action to cover.

TNT tried an experimental format that allowed viewers to see all but three laps of green-flag racing last week.

The trade-off was that national commercials aired on-screen with the race.

This concept is similar to what ESPN does on its broadcast of IRL events. ESPN puts the race and commercials side-by-side with the commercial the screen's dominant image. TNT's version had the race as the dominant image even when the commercial aired.

TNT's broadcast of today's USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway returns to the standard format where the network will break from the race for all commercials.

Whether last week's unique broadcast is how fans view future NASCAR races will depend on advertiser research.

Did fewer people flip channels when the commercial aired with the race also on the screen? Did most people ignore the commercial for the race action? Did advertisers earn value for their investment?

"I would bet you this is going to be one of the most intensely researched situations in terms of what consumers think," said Bill Wynne, Ford Racing's North American Motorsports marketing manager.

Wynne said that focus groups will provide key information for advertisers. People will be shown the broadcast and tested on their reactions and recollections of the ads. He hopes to have answers within a month.

David Levy, president of Turner Sports, said the network likes the fan reaction it received for the broadcast but will study the issue before deciding if it will use this format in any of its six Cup broadcasts in 2008. TNT touted the Daytona race as ranking second on the network last week in viewers (6.1 million) and households (4.2 million).

Only TNT's original show "The Closer" topped the race in both categories.

Diane Knapik, who lives in South Mills, N.C., and works in Virginia Beach, watched last weekend's race and admits she didn't channel surf as much as she does during a race with more commercial breaks.

That's important to advertisers. Wynne wants to know if showing the commercial with the race draws a larger viewing audience than if Ford had the full screen for a commercial break, knowing many people channel surf or move away from the TV. Or is Ford getting a smaller audience because people remained focused on the race as the ad played?

Advertisers tried to gain viewer attention with the commercials -- or sponsor-branded vignettes that were created specifically for the broadcast -- that featured drivers and TNT personalities and lasted as long as 2 minutes.

"The objective here is to make the viewer pay attention and now they've got a little bit of competition going on that screen because they do have the race in the background," said Eric Wright, vice president of research and development for Joyce Julius, which measures a sponsors impact in many forms of media, including TV.

"I thought [the vignette] was actually a great way to draw a little bit of attention back, to try to get that focus back on that vignette was to have it fresh and new and something they hadn't seen before instead of throwing up a commercial that viewers had probably already seen a dozen times before that. Now, effectiveness on that? The jury is out on that."

Just as it is on this concept. If not this, networks likely will try something else...