After all the buzz going-on this week surrounding NASCAR Now on ESPN2, SPEED returns to the TV spotlight with a full day of Talladega action.
Friday kicks-off with Steve Byrnes hosting a thirty minute edition of NASCAR Live at 2PM Eastern Time. Bob Dillner and John Roberts will be reporting from the garage area for this show. This program will set-up the day on SPEED, and catch viewers up-to-date on the latest NASCAR news.
The "big boys" then take center stage as Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip host live Sprint Cup practice at 2:30PM. This trio will be joined by Dick Berggren, Matt Yocum and Krista Voda on the infield beat. For those fans asking, Voda will not be hosting The Set-Up show at the Truck race on Saturday. Rick Allen will be filling-in.
There will be another edition of NASCAR Live at 3:30PM between Cup practice sessions. This time, it will be John Roberts hosting and assisting him from the garage area will be Bob Dillner and Rutledge Wood. This should be another interesting experience for Wood, who has very different roles on various SPEED programs.
Sprint Cup practice coverage resumes at 4PM with the same NASCAR on Fox crew. This is the final practice, and it should be very interesting to see where the focus of the TV broadcast goes. It may well be the on-track activity with the COT, or it may continue to be the on-going Tony Stewart media frenzy.
Next up is Nationwide Series qualifying at 5PM, which allows the TV gang to mix things up a bit in terms of broadcast teams. This time it will be Mike Joy hosting, but he will be joined by Jeff Hammond and Hermie Sadler. Down on pit road will be Krista Voda and Dick Berggren.
During this time, ESPN2 will be offering a thirty minute version of NASCAR Now at 6PM. It seems somewhat ironic that this show will be airing during SPEED's live qualifying coverage that will be setting the field for ESPN's own Nationwide Series race.
SPEED wraps-up the day with Trackside at 7:30PM. Steve Byrnes is the host and Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds make up the panel. On this one hour show, they will welcome Ryan Newman and Brian Vickers as guests.
This page will serve to host your comments about the on and off-track TV programs on Friday from Talladega. Please keep your comments related to the TV coverage, and read the rules for posting on the right side of the main page. Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by The Daly Planet and leave your opinion.
19 comments:
THANKS!! I thought I read here earlier no coverage from SPEED on Friday and my digital guide said otherwise (for Nation series) and glad to see you confirm it here, JD.
Merci Beaucoup!!
I'm sort of surprised Speed decided to go with Nationwide qualifying on Friday at 5p.m. instead of the ARCA race from Kansas. Even more surprised to see that race won't air until Saturday evening. Looks like nothing from Kansas will be televised until Saturday's Truck race.
Anon 12:44AM,
The NASCAR TV contract was done well in advance. You are correct in saying the only Kansas action will be on Saturday.
JD
While part of me is really excited about all of the coverage that will be on SPEED today, the other part of me is dreading the coverage. I can only help but wonder how many laps will I be forced to endure watching the Golden Boys while the commentators go on and on and on about how wonderful said Golden Boy is. (yawn) As if the 18, 99, 24, 48 and 20 cars don't get enough coverage already.
Jimmie Johnson and Juan Pablo Montoya will be on the QVC shopping channel network from 8-10 EST. This appearance is obviously to sell merchandise, but these "For Race Fans Only" shows can be seen as interesting interviews in themselves because of the host's questions (which he asks the drivers as they sell).
The drivers are usually on for an hour, no commercials. And sometimes there's an audience who also get to ask questions - plus the callers on the phone who are buying usually ask questions. And it's live (this week from Talledega), and some drivers are more interesting on live TV than others. I'd think Montoya would be pretty good.
I don't recall seeing either of these drivers on there within the past couple of years, but maybe I just missed it. It's usually Earnhardt Jr or Gordon (and sometimes Stewart or Kahne) because they sell a lot of merchandise. I've never seen a show with two drivers, so I don't know if Johnson and Montoya will appear together or separately. Usually with a two hour show, the driver appears in the second hour, but maybe one will be on from 8-9 and the other from 9-10 this time.
anon 9:49 -- and i will give qvc this much: the host of "for race fans" only is a true race fan and his questions reflect a knowledge of the sport and its history. as you note, these driver appearances do more than just hawk the merchandise and i usually watch, even if my driver isn't on. dan always gets one great tidbit from the driver and live from talledega should be interesting.
Thanks for the tidbit about QVC. I always forget to watch that station unless a driver is on 'LIVE' but I have seen a couple good interviews some time back...Jr comes to mind and Jeff Gordon. JPM should be fun...wonder if he will say "Hell no" if asked a certain question. :-)
The one question in my mind I would like answered is this:
Will I see the entire last lap of the race on Sunday?. That is, without driving to Talledega, buying a ticket and scaling the grandstands.
Would anyone at FOX like to tackle this one?
After watching the Edwards Claritin ad, I was wondering if he is really allowed to take it before getting on the track.
Playingtime
Talladega is one of my FAVORITE tracks to see on TV because it looks so good on tv (not a fan of the big ones but just like this track and Daytona)
I can tell you right now the arrogant WWE mentality producer at Fox cares not ONE WHIT about you and I and the others seeing the last lap ON TV!!
I strongly advise those with radios or other media, to have the radio on at the end of the race so we can at least 'hear' the end as opposed to being screwed out of 4 hours of our time.
Sad to say but it's QUITE CLEAR that FOX HAS NO INTEREST IN GIVING US GOOD TV coverage.
And if you cheat us out of the last lap, it makes the total broadcast a grade F in my book. Last week ESPN was disappointing at Mexico but I guess that can happen with a road race.
I do expect a better finish for the NATIONWIDE on Saturday, and a better race than the COT car. Hopefully ESPN will keep up with their improvements and show us a dynamic finish ON OUR TV SCREEN at the finish line.
:-)
I just watched 'Happy Hour'. Did they even show a car on the track? I could not care less about how DW and Hammond did it back in the day. When there are cars on the track show them!! That drives me insane!! Fox/Speed's practice coverage is horrible.
JD asked in a column the other day if the networks were going to talk about diversity this weekend because of Danica. I don't know if they will, I just got home to watch the coverage. But I see espn.com talked to Erin Crocker.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/columns/story?columnist=newton_david&id=3366431
After reading her comments, I hope the networks won't interview her at all and focus on other women instead if they discuss diversity this weekend. She's blaming NASCAR for not helping her enough. The kicker is she tried to join NASCAR's diversity program last year after she lost her ride with Evernham.
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Crocker tried to join NASCAR's diversity program last year, but said she "had trouble getting a return phone call from them."
"I've never gotten much help from NASCAR other than a few appearances I've done for them," she said. "It's kind of a shame.
I know the IRL has done a lot to help Danica and Sarah Fisher. They help promote their drivers. NASCAR needs to work on their diversity program."
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The arrogance of this woman is amazing. NASCAR put her in one of their commercials AND a Truck Series commercial back when she had done nothing on track yet except be a woman. After being on a major team with a major sponsor and messing it up on her own by having an affair with her car owner, she tries to join the NASCAR diversity program which is aimed at young drivers who don't have opportunities or funding. What a joke. I can't believe Evernham let her try to join the diversity program. Good for NASCAR for not calling her back.
I'm glad the article quotes Lyn St. James as saying Erin hurt her own career AND other women's careers, too. But Lyn thinks Erin should get another chance; I don't. Again, I would like to see diversity discussed on TV this weekend but not with Erin's involvement.
What happened to the Nationwide practices yesterday? This is another example of SPEED not caring about race fans.
Definitely nice to see the TV cameras return to the track after taking the day off yesterday.
Enjoyable practice broadcasts as always. I still don't like the cut-away-car segments that take the focus away from the race track for long stretches of time, but other than that they were good as always. I think Mike Joy, Larry Mac, DW, and the on-air gang could cover a paint-drying competition and still make it entertaining television.
Tomorrow will be a big day for the production truck. Based on last year's impound qualifying sessions at Daytona and Talladega and today's comments by Larry Mac it certainly reasons that the go-or-go-homers should fill up the entire top of the qualifying sheet. With all of them qualifying in one group at the end of the session it will certainly be VERY interesting to see if we will see all of them qualify in their entirety.
In normal weekends one could certainly argue that the race for the pole is more important than the go-or-go-home battle and argue against my desire to see Speed front-load the commercials. On a restrictor plate impound weekend like this though it is absolutely more imperative than ever to not skip any go-or-go-homers because they will not only be a story for the go-or-go-home drama, they will also be the cars that end up qualifying in the first several rows. The pole-sitter will almost certainly be either Nemechek, Allmendinger, Yeley, Petty, Andretti, Marlin, Carpentier, Wood, Blaney, Schrader, or Franchitti, so I hope the production truck plans accordingly.
"During this time, ESPN2 will be offering a thirty minute version of NASCAR Now at 6PM. "
JD its 6:00. WHERE IS NASCAR now?
I thought it would be on right now! do you know anything about this?
Anon 6:05,
At the conclusion of yesterday's show, Nicole said NASCAR Now would return on Sunday and DJ and Andy Petree would be in the studio.
Anon at 6:10 PM,
So did JD lie to us? His post clearly says:
"During this time, ESPN2 will be offering a thirty minute version of NASCAR Now at 6PM. It seems somewhat ironic that this show will be airing during SPEED's live qualifying coverage that will be setting the field for ESPN's own Nationwide Series race."
That implies there was a NASCAR Now tonight.
JD whats going on?
Well,
While the program schedules still reflect a 6PM NASCAR Now show today, the ESPN program line-up has the program cancelled.
Perhaps, it made more sense not to run a NASCAR program while NASCAR action was live on-the-air. Especially, since it was qualifying for the ESPN N'wide race.
Don't get me started on Jim Rome!
JD
"After reading her comments, I hope the networks won't interview her at all and focus on other women instead if they discuss diversity this weekend."
Gabi Dicarlo - who I think is pretty young, maybe Chrissy Wallace's age - got a top 10 in the ARCA race today. She ran the full season last year, and appears to have built quite a little fan base with her "ARCA Nation" page (like a MySpace/Infield Parking page) on the ARCA site. Someone like that would be good for TV to talk to. Unfortunately SPEED didn't show the ARCA race live today and won't until tomorrow. (They had a First time winner with a familiar name in the ARCA race though I won't spoil it. SPEED, what were you thinking with not showing it live?)
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