A SPEED Channel spokesperson has confirmed to The Daly Planet that veteran SPEED personality and current pit reporter for the Craftsman Truck Series Ray Dunlap has been suspended from his network duties.
Earlier in his career, Dunlap was suspended for one week and apologized for his remarks during a live SPEED Channel program. This time, Dunlap has been suspended for three races and will not return to the SPEED team until the Truck Series moves to the Texas Motor Speedway on November 2nd. This means he will work the final two Truck Series races of the 2007 season. The last Truck Series race Dunlap worked was in Las Vegas on September 22nd.
SPEED will not comment on the reason for the suspension, and indicated that they do not comment on what is termed "personnel matters." The network has not indicated who will replace Dunlap for those three events on pit road.
UPDATE: Bob Dillner has just been named by SPEED as the pit road and pre-race reporter for the next three Craftsman Truck Series races replacing Dunlap.
26 comments:
sad situation. We may not see Ray next season.
Thanks for the update, John.
I did not see it on the SPEEDTV site...Funny they put the Driver and Crew Chiefs suspensions on the front page though!!!!!
my wife and I will miss ray for the next three races. we hope he gets those personal reasons taken care of and is back (sorry john) for the final three races. ray will miss talladega, martinsville and atlanta. that would leave texas, phoenix and homestead on the schedule. I'm interested to see who replaces ray on pit road saturday. krista voda??? that would be great ... loved her last year on pit road.
Keep diggin', John, and see what you can find out. I like Ray, he seems like a "normal" guy.
This sucks! I want to know what he did! I really enjoy him :(
John, do you have any way to get in contact with Ray directly to get his side of the story?
My wife and I met Ray at the Milwaukee race and he was very friendly. Hope he comes out of this okay. Would like to have seen Krista in the pits also, but Bob D. is a good person too and will do well sitting in for Ray.
Well, this is just beyond insane ...
WHY did it take almost two weeks since the last CTS race to announce his suspension?? What did Ray do or say?? And how is anything that he might've said worse than Hobbs saying it was niced to see darker faces on the podium (of the F1 races) when Lewis Hamilton got his first podium finish??
Why doesn't Speed suspend Drew & Nicole for impersonating people with auto racing knowledge & talent??
I like Ray and what he offers to the broadasts ...
How about SPEED channel firing Chris Long and making us ALL happy?? All of Speed's problems started when that bovine was hired ...
Oh dear, more of the dill pickle.
I believe that Chris Long, once he finished creating havoc, moved on to either Dish Network or Direct TV.
yes, i heard Chris Long has moved on to DIRECT TV after messing up SPEED.&^%$#@!
He ruined INC for many and that NASCAR NATION was a cleavage/lingerie based embarrassment.
and we have barbie and ken on speed report.
jerk.
Jim Utter of the Charlotte Observer has a story and quotes Erik Arneson of Speed saying it was nothing Ray did on air. He also called Mr Dunlap who declined to comment.
Oh no. The last time this happened several of the other on-air folks TRIED to do the Craftsman tool segment and didn't do nearly as good a job. I read on another site that the suspension wasn't related to anything he said on air.
I wish I could say I am a fan of Dilners but alas, I am not.
I wish they could've gotten somebody else like Wendy or something.
In all honesty, whatever he did this time is not as insulting as ABC/ESPN force feeding diversity on us with the hip-hop themes while going to commercial breaks and Daugherty.
Where is the uproar over NASCAR.COM with their weekly 'Where's Juan' article? Anybody else getting weekly coverage? Only minority in the field and he's getting special media attention?
Anonymous 6:05:
I have no idea what this has to do with Dunlap, but ...come on, do your homework. NASCAR.com does weekly features on different drivers every year. Last year it was Vickers, Crocker, Mayfield and CC Bootie Barker. This year it's Sadler and Montoya. Please grow up.
I agree with this last comment. everyone needs to grow up. it said ray's suspension has nothing to do with anything that happened on SPEED Channel. It says he is gone for personal reasons. Let's give ray his space to fix whatever this personal reason is and I respect SPEED Channel for not saying what it is that ray is suspended for.
classy move by SPEED Channel and hopefully ray can fix his personal issues.
if it wasn't an 'on air' incident--as our moms used to say, 'it's none of your beeswax'....there's a reason why HR matters are private.
I will miss Ray and hope whatever it is can be forgiven for next season. Dillner will be fine. As for it not being well publicized--well, a reporter for the 3rd rank series being suspended isn't really big news....we're lucky when the truck series makes the news at all.
Chris Long is at Directv now. He was assigned to SPEED for 2 years and then would be moved to another project by the powers that be at FOX. While people want to critize stuff that did not go so great people should also realize that alot of the NASCAR related content before he came on SPEED was low end stuff. Not much production value. So yes things he did failed but things he did succeeded as well. Let's be fair and give both sides as JD always wants.
As much as I would like to respect everyone's privacy in this matter, I bet that within two weeks the reason for Dunlap's suspension will become known. Either a source will leak something (hopefully not to you) or a police report will emerge explaining what Dunlap may or may not have done.
Whatever the circumstances, I agree with Lisa that Dunlap will not return next year.
Sad.:(
Funny that SPEED wouldn't have publicized it if not for my off the cuff comment in one of your earlier posts that led to your inquiry.
As we all learned from a long string of incidents beginning with the Marv Albert fiasco, talent behavior off-air does matter, and is cared about by the powers that be at the networks.
To the Anonymous who wants to be fair to Chris Long and give both sides and credit...
OK, please start naming Chris Long's successes at Speed.
Other than Pit Bulls, which was so sucessful NASCAR had it canned, I can't think of any.
Does he get credit for Pinks? I can't stand that show, so that's not a success to me, even if the ratings say otherwise.
Can you come up with some more?
Chris is still a disaster in my book - the guy who ruined the shows I liked.
I mentioned the overall production value as a whole. Coming from the network side where they "spend, spend, spend" he brought that to SPEED and it showed with higher end production. Before that I hate to say it but SPEED was bad television.
Sorry, but I did not care for his "higher end production". The fancy graphics like that NASCAR Nation tower left me just as cold as ESPN's draft tracker. Plain and simple sets were fine. It's the people who matter.
I heard he actually said something nice about Robby Gordon and NASCRAP got upset so they suspended him...
Although Ray seems to be a wonderful talent and brings fresh perspective to the truck series, in today's corporate world of all things NASCAR, it doesn't matter. I, for one, hope he resolves whatever issues he may have so that he can continue to brighten up the telecasts he participates in. Just my opinion.
Ray Dunlap was suspended for saying the following:
"I hope when Villeneuve sees the white flag, he doesn't surrender"
Sorry, but I truly think that is funny, and fitting.
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