The two hour live NASCAR RaceDay program comes along from Martinsville, VA at 11:30AM Eastern Time on Sunday morning.
John Roberts is hosting, with Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace alongside. Wallace should be interesting to hear since he will have the inside scoop on Chrissy Wallace's top twenty finish on Saturday in the Craftsman Truck Series.
Hermie Sadler will also be on the show to offer his track information and continue to grow his role as both a commentator and reporter. He certainly will have the latest information on his brother Elliott, who is suffering back pain and may not be able to go the distance on Sunday.
The guests scheduled for the program include Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards and Aric Almirola. Those three drivers should lead the panel into some good question-and-answer sessions. Jeff Burton's recent slam of the Nationwide Series "regulars" is going to be a hot topic when the two series meet again.
Wendy Venturini continues to carve-out a charmed legacy in the sport through her strong work ethic. This Sunday, her Real Deal feature will talk with three personalities at GEM. Ray Evernham, Kenny Francis and Kasey Kahne will all be included in this feature.
One big topic for the panel will be the absence of Kyle Petty from the field, and the continuing saga of the Top 35 rule. Also, this week Jack Roush made some more statements about "Part-Gate" while he was in the Media Center. Roush refuses to back down from his claims, despite Michael Waltrip stepping-up and pleading guilty to the charges. NASCAR continues to call it like the NBA, no harm no foul.
With no ESPN presence on-site except for a NASCAR Now reporter, RaceDay will be the star of Sunday morning. The program leads directly into the NASCAR on Fox coverage at 1:30PM Eastern Time.
ESPN counters with a one hour version of NASCAR Now at 10AM Eastern from the Bristol, CT studios hosted by Ryan Burr. Mike Wallace will be with Burr in the studio, and will also appear on the one hour Monday show with Johnny Benson and Mike Massaro.
The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. Thanks for stopping by and leaving your opinion of the RaceDay program on SPEED.
15 comments:
If anyone is interested in reading more about Rutledge Wood, the Atlanta online newspaper has a story on him today. It's on Jayski's Article page, called "Speed Channel's 'Fun Guy' in Love with Cars."
I had forgotten Hermie would be on the show and could discuss his brother. While the important thing is that Elliott gets better, I am already smelling "whitewash" over how this injury occurred. First mention of it said E injured in conditioning then later hurt it doing something else, which was reported by espn.com to be golf.
From the GEM competition director:
"McArdle said Sadler suffered the injury doing his “routine for the week,” which includes physical therapy and other sporting activities.
“Apparently during the course of that something went slightly wrong and he exacerbated it later that same day with a different sporting injury,” McArdle said. He did not name the specific sport."
But today Elliott said golf had nothing to do with it, he was just standing around with his friends Wednesday and his back started hurting.
Right.
Reminds me of how at first Jimmie Johnson said he simply fell out of a golf cart, then we found out a few days later he'd been "surfing" on top of the cart and fell off and broke his wrist.
Sadler obviously doesn't want his sponsors to think/know he went out and played golf the same day he injured his back. It will be interesting to see if the TV reporters let him get away with that the way the other NASCAR reporters are, apparently everybody has forgotten the GEM director's original statement.
Editing my post above: the GEM quote was in scenedaily.com. ESPN.com and several other papers said later that day that the specific activity that aggravated the injury was golf, but today espn.com says Sadler says it isn't true: he says his golf swing is hard but not that hard.
So yeah I would like Hermie to tell us "The Real Deal." I don't expect him to, but it would be refreshing if he did.
I'm kinda looking forward to what is said about ESad today too (That's what insiders like Hermie are for!). I have a feeling that a PR or business person got in the mix yesteday and wanted the golf thing squashed. Not only does ESad have a whole group of new primary sponsors this year, today is his first race for one of them. They don't want to hear that their guy messed up his back in a recreational game of golf.
But I hope ESad is OK. Chronic back pain afflicts too many people in this world. For an athlete I can't even imagine it.
Kyle Bush is scheduled to on Race Day today. I wonder if they will discuss yesterday's truck race.:)
Has anyone looked at the weather today. It does not look good especially at a track with no lights. This should be interesting Race Day I wonder what will be said about partgate?
The radar shows the shower's moving out. I think they will be all right.
That's just one storm there is an even bigger one on it's way. Hopefully the window is big enough to fit the race in. Hour to hour shows rain thru Tues they need to get this race in today.
When did Wendy's Real Deal start being divided into two parts? I don't like that at all. We tuned in to watch Kasey and were watching live the whole show live. But if the splitting into two parts was to make us stick around it didn't work as we switched to motocross on CBS and turned on the recorder. Once it hits noon other sports come on, so RaceDay should realize we have something else to flip to.
Also would like to know why no one ever interviews the majority owner of GEM - Gillett? I think he owns 80 percent. I've seen photos of him at races this season laughing with Kasey and Elliott, so I know he's been to some races if not every one.
I think the media is being lazy -they're used to Ray so they go ask Ray for everything (like Wendy is today) instead of the new owner or his son Alex who runs things when his dad is not there. I think the son works at GEM headquarters where this interview took place.
Maybe Gillett is coming up in the second part of Real Deal, but we'll have to watch that after the race since they split it. Please don't do that again, SPEED.
Way to go Jimmy, lets get to heart of the matter and bring up the truck race with Kyle right out of the box
You know, It's good to watch a show where it appears the driver's actually like the people they are talking to. ESPN should take a page from Race Day's book.
Newracefan,
Yup, the question needed to be asked and he didn't waste anytime doing it.
They ignored how Elliott hurt his back. Shouldn't surprise me, but I'm surprised they ignored it on NASCAR Now too, since that is a newsier show.
I don't know, it seems like certain drivers get a PR pass on these shows and others don't. Like if Stewart or Busch had hurt their back doing something off track, people would be talking about it more (Tony hurt something at a sprint car race a couple years back and everyone - including the RaceDay guys - was asking " he makes millions of dollars from Home Depot should he be racing these cars on his off weekends?") So you'd think they look more into if Elliott was golfing.
Plus Kasey Kahne still has a misdemeanor criminal battery charge against him in Florida from Homestead for supposedly pushing that guard. Hasn't been mentioned since last season, but is still pending (hasn't been dropped or dismissed) in the FL court system. Also has a lawsuit pending. Again, he's one of the favorites so nobody on TV messes with him.
NASCAR media is very different from regular sports media in how certain drivers get treated with kid gloves. I don't know if that's a good thing.
Maybe Gillett is coming up in the second part of Real Deal, but we'll have to watch that after the race since they split it. Please don't do that again, SPEED.
March 30, 2008 12:23 PM
You'll probabaly still watch it but they didn't interview any of the Gillettes. It was Evernham in both parts. Wendy said something about GEM was restructured so Evernham didn't deal with sponsorships but he was crew chiefing or putting the crew chief hat on again, which is contrary to everything I've read about Evernham's role now, from Evernham himself. His new role is why he's on ESPN.
Not one of Wendy's better reports IMO.
When did Wendy's Real Deal start being divided into two parts? I don't like that at all.
I DVRed this and I agree. The first part was about 40 minutes in, and the second part was about 90 minutes in. To me it ruins the whole flow of the story she's telling, but I still think Wendy's reporting from the garage is great.
The two part The Real Deal just shows the show is too long and they're trying to keep the viewer watching with little tricks. RaceDay should be an hour (my choice) or 90 minutes at the most.
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