Part of the change in ESPN's commitment to the sport this season is the continuation of the one hour NASCAR Now show on Mondays. Even when there is no Sprint Cup race, Allen Bestwick still brings together a panel for the weekly "roundtable." This has been a great investment.
While This Week In NASCAR will take Monday off over on SPEED, Bestwick and company will once again talk racing for the full hour. Taking advantage of the off-week, ESPN2 has put together a panel of three reporters to talk about a wide variety of news-related topics involving NASCAR this season.
Joining the show will be Angelique Chengelis. A regular reporter on NASCAR Now since its inception, Chengelis is a veteran of the Detroit News Sports Department with a long history of writing about racing. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati and currently contributes NASCAR-related coverage to the many media elements of ESPN.
Also on the program will be Tim Cowlishaw. A graduate of UT in Austin, Cowlishaw is perhaps best known to ESPN viewers from his regular appearances on Around The Horn. He joined the Dallas Morning News back in 1984 and has covered a wide variety of college and professional sports since that time.
The first year of NASCAR Now was not kind to Cowlishaw, who often saw himself put in the position of being forced to create hype or controversy in the sport where there was none. Drivers and team owners did not respond positively to his Around The Horn-style comments about the sport and the personalities involved in it. An "Insider," he was clearly not.
This season, Cowlishaw has been used sparingly on this TV series and when he appears things are very different. Much like Brad Daugherty, Cowlishaw is there to simply offer his opinion on various NASCAR topics and that role suits him quite well. It should be interesting to see him interact with Allen Bestwick in conversations about the sport.
Finally, NASCAR Now has opened the doors once again to new things and asked the one-and-only Mr. David Poole to appear on the Monday program. Poole is featured above (center) receiving the Russ Catlin Journalism award back in 2007. Bringing in a writer who is not associated with ESPN for this show is a great idea.
Poole and Bestwick go way back, and those two should have some fun with the myriad of topics on the table from drug testing to the Top 35 Rule. Poole is very creative on his Sirius radio show, his Internet blog and his regular news articles for the Charlotte Observer.
Once again, NASCAR Now has taken a good step forward in turning what had been a boring news day into what could be a TV program talked about for some time. Making sure that the DVR or the VCR has ESPN2 on Monday at 5:30PM Eastern Time programmed on the record schedule would be a good investment.
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26 comments:
Looking forward to recording the program. JD, I can not believe the changes ESPN has made this season for the better.
Lou
Kingston,NY
JD- Good panel, except for Cowlishaw. I would have preferred having Rusty, in particular, or Marty S. (if available), or Andy Petree, or DJ in place of Cowlishaw. Big improvement over having Blount or Newton on panel. Newton was on PRN's Pit Reporter show Wednesday and had to be corected a couple of times by Phil Parsons.
I'm glad ESPN realizes what an abundance of NASCAR knowledge will come from David Poole being on NASCAR Now. I enjoy reading his blog and listening to him on the Morning Drive on Sirius.
And I agree with Richard about Cowlishaw. I could care less about anything he has to say.
Why in the world are they going to ruin the show with Cowlishaw? I probably won't watch.
Oh dear, if NASCAR Now is willing inflict Tim Cowlishaw upon us again, can Erik Kuselius and Doug Banks be far behind? ESPN made many positive changes this year but resurrecting Cowlishaw is a big step backwards.
Bringing in a writer who is not associated with ESPN for this show is a great idea.
And bringing in a writer independent of the NASCAR hierarchy instead of being a shill for the France family would be an even better idea.
I remember first watching David Poole on the old Speed program - Pit Reporters - He was not afraid to state his opinions - Of course the program only lasted one season as Speed/Fox are so tied to Nascar that this program was (in Nascars eyes) a negative and you know every announcer on Fox and Speed dare not to say anything against Nascar - Good for you ESPN - looking forward to it!
David is an excellent addition to any Nascar program. Always enjoy listening to his common sense analyse
I don't always agree with what David Poole says but it should be an interesting show
david poole is a lone soldier of reality in the world of nascar.
he stands by the fact that the fan vote for the all-star race is a 'pity-pass.' when all the world was glib over the robby gordon appeal, he set us straight by congratulating robby for being the biggest cheater in the history of nascar. i could go on but i digress.
Angelique is answering questions in a chat on ESPN.com. at 1:30 EST/12:30 CST.
FYI, whoever JD mentions as a guest on NASCAR Now Mondays does a chat on the website on the Monday afternoon they're on the show. Examples: Randy Lajoie, Mike Wallace, Terry Labonte.
I'll give the entire show an "A". :)
A very, very enjoyable hour!
Good show. I enjoyed it. I also liked AB stating that he debated with himself about bringing up Danica on a NASCAR show. :)
I finally got my Google sign-on. I don't want "oh so clever" anons to use my ID like they do Strick. So, if the ID isn't blue, it isn't me. :)
And to stay on topic, I will repeat that I really enjoyed the show this evening. :)
I did enjoy the show but I thought the topics with the panelists was a little strange. I would expect that some of those issues they spoke about to be something better suited to later in the season and not just a few races in. To grade teams on their success, it's just far too early to give grades for such things. I was OK with the biggest story and non story so far this season, but I think the other things they discusses/graded was just too early in the season to do such things.
As for the comments on David's weight, that's totally rude and should not be part of the equation. His credibility in this sport, which is high, should be the only consideration, and not his appearance. If one were to follow your logic, then no one who's not thin, handsome or beautiful belongs on television, and that's just not fair.
Just for the record the identity thief at 6:38 is not the real stricklinfan82... the real one (me) does actually have a Blogger account and isn't afraid to put a name beside his opinions and be held accountable for this thoughts.
So in the future if 'stricklinfan82' is in plain black text rest assured that it's not me, LOL.
I guess imitation is the highest form of flattery... or something like that.
I'm no different than anyone here. I have opinions and share them. If you disagree with one of my opinions or feel I make an inaccurate statement of fact, I welcome any debate and encourage you to correct me if I give incorrect facts. That's why this blog is so great. Many people with many different opinions that aren't afraid to debate topics or correct one another when they give factually inaccurate statements.
It's just a shame we still get so many people here that gain infinite courage through the anonymous tag and use it to post nothing but hateful remarks and cheap shots about JD, the TV personalities, or other posters that aren't afraid to attach an identity to their thoughts and be held accountable for them.
I'm no saint and in moments of anger I've called out certain TV people and used insulting remarks that I later regretted. But at least I was man enough to attach a name to them, and believe me I have been held accountable for some of those questionable comments behind closed doors as result.
But like you always say JD it takes all kinds to make this world, so I'm glad you do as best you can to remove those types of hateful posts.
JD, I don't suppose you'd reconsider the idea of a message board / forum that would require signing in would you? It's going to get pretty confusing around here if we start having 20 different stricklinfan82's, 20 different Sophia's, and 20 different Newracefan's posting at the same time, LOL.
I have not had a chance to view the program yet. I found it curious that, as far as I have found so far, neither David nor any other representative of the Charlotte paper attended the race in Mexico - especially since David was to be on NASCAR Now. My guess is this is a cost-cutting move in light of decreased circulation, but it still seems curious under the circumstances, and continues the shift in importance from newspapers to TV, cable, and the internet as a source of daily racing news.
I really enjoyed this hour and it went fast for me.
I do wish he would lose weight for his health but I thought David was adorable and is appealing to listen to as I have just heard him in bits in pieces.
St. Stricklanfan, LOL, there was somebody imitating you??
You mentioned my name, has somebody used my name? Oh my!! Sometimes the old ME computer in this house gives me heck with my google account and I use anon here SOMETIMES but always put 'Sophia said' but I know anybody can do that.
I am sorry to see that's a problem here and JD busy with deletions. I also want to know what happened with the message board situation. Plenty of good FREE ONES out there and you can put up forum rules and disclaimers for rude posters and slanderous posts before mods can delete them.
Anyway, I totally enjoyed tonight's show and was glad to see AB work Danica into the show.
:)
seems to me Groucho had a saying about "imitation' but I can't remember it now.
Soph,
Yeah the post at 6:38 PM today that JD deleted was posted under an 'anon name' stricklinfan82 and that person was not me. It might have actually fooled some people too if it hadn't been a post that did nothing but insult me, LOL.
I've got thick skin though, and you probably know what they say about sticks and stones.
I haven't seen anyone post falsely under your name yet but I'm sure it won't be far off since we're aleady starting to get stricklinfan82 imitators.
That's why I suggested to JD that it might be a good idea to make everyone to sign in to post. That way there won't be multiple people posting under the same name, pretending to be someone else.
Don't worry Soph you're not missing much if all the deleted posts are anything like the one I happened to see ... that is if that's really you Soph and not another imposter :)
I think since your name has a link attached to it I can safely assume it's really you.
There is a new post up about this program. Just refresh your browser.
JD
David Poole is a sloth and gross to look at.
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