Clint Bowyer knew friend Blake Shelton would be relentless as soon as Bowyer read the script.

“He makes fun of me terribly bad over air guitar,” the Sprint Cup driver told USA TODAY Sports. “We were sitting in the bus looking at the schedule and it was written in the schedule that I had to do an air guitar, so we had a lot fun with that. That’s about all I can pull off.”

It all worked out well though, as Bowyer and several fellow drivers played along and showed off a little during a concert-style video shoot in April at Texas Motor Speedway for the revised open to NBC Sports’ NASCAR broadcast. The network takes over the remaining 20 Cup events of the NASCAR schedule, including the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, beginning this weekend with the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

In the open, provided first exclusively to USA TODAY Sports before its national release later Monday, Bowyer and his counterparts cavort with Shelton on stage, by the barbecue and in the tour bus for laughs amid inter-spliced race action, as a slightly tweaked version of the country music star’s Bringing Back the Sunshine booms as a score.

Whereas last season’s open – marking NBC’s return as a broadcast partner for the first time since 2006 – featured Shelton venturing into the drivers’ realm (in the garage area, along pit road), they enter his domain this time around. They are crossing a concert stage in a six-string driver introduction of sorts, with Shelton and band in full concert mode before more than a thousand fans. Aric Almirola tries a bro hug, A.J. Allmendinger tosses T-shirts. Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. strum some air.  

“I think there was a natural evolution there,” NBC Sports Group VP and Creative Director Tripp Dixon told USA TODAY Sports of the direction of the project. “I think last year (Shelton) was coming to the drivers in the garage and kind of walking around and it was smaller and it was more intimate and less about the big party and the big show, ‘Let’s do something real.’

“I think it’s something we were really proud of, to walk that line. But I think going in to season two, it became just a natural part of the evolution, ‘Hey, what do we want to do to invite more people to the party?’ ”

Dixon said NBC attempts to differentiate its musical open from others such as ESPN’s Monday Night Football and College GameDay by focusing attention on the individual participants.

“I think as part of our brand ethos is kind of making big events feel bigger but also kind of shining a light on the stars of the sport,” he said. “Blake becomes a great vehicle for that. By having that party, NASCAR actually feels bigger, but he also does a great job at pointing toward the drivers and letting them share the spotlight. And I think that also we kind of put it through our own brand filter in terms of, is it authentic, who (do) we want to be when we want to broadcast NASCAR?”

The shoot, coinciding with the spring Sprint Cup/Xfinity series weekend, provided Shelton, who has multiple gold records and a ubiquitous role as a judge on NBC’s The Voice talent show, the opportunity to indulge his NASCAR fandom around takes. Two weeks before Tony Stewart would make his comeback from a broken back suffered during an offseason sand dunes accident, Shelton quizzed the three-time champion between interviews about how he had recently lost weight. In return, the retiring Stewart prodded Shelton to help keep Bowyer’s morale high during a difficult start to the season. Bowyer is scheduled to replace him at Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017. Shelton was reveling in it.

“Not that it has much to do with NASCAR, but I’ve got two Nissan trucks, which I like a lot. One is like my hunting truck and one is like a diesel,” Shelton told USA TODAY Sports. “I’d say this. These NASCAR guys are damn lucky that I don’t enter my Nissan in these races. It’s fast. Oh yeah.”

Shelton’s genuine interest in the sport added an ease to the proceedings at Texas and a genuine feel to the finished product.

“Blake doesn’t do cue cards. That’s just the thing about him. He’s funny. He speaks well. And he knows the sport,” Bowyer said. “You don’t have to pay an actor to come in and sell something they don’t know and read cue cards. He understands it. He follows it, he knows it and he represents it, so that’s cool.”

Bowyer hasn’t seen his virtual performance with Shelton, but is anticipating the chance to do so as much as the mid-season broadcast switchover, when his on-stage performance with Shelton will help welcome the network back.

“I’m excited about it,” Bowyer said. “It’s a big deal. NBC coming on to our sport, taking over the second half of the year is certainly something we all look forward to. Fox does a great job, but it’s always fun to welcome in another broadcasting partner and let them go. I think this shoot with Blake just shows a lot about their commitment to our sport, and its full speed ahead for us.”

Follow James on Twitter @brantjames