Friday, May 16, 2008

In-Progress In Charlotte: Craftsman Trucks On SPEED


The featured event of Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway will be the Craftsman Truck Series race.

Krista Voda returns to the Truck Series when she hosts The Set-Up at 7:30PM. This thirty minute show features Voda and the two series pit reporters, Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander. Voda presents a pre-race show that is almost the exact opposite of The Hollywood Hotel.

She talks with the team members, owners and drivers in this series as though they are friends or even family members. The tone she single-handedly set for this show has made the Truck Series one of the most TV viewer-friendly in NASCAR.

At 8PM, she hands-off to Rick Allen who will call the action in the race. Allen will be joined by veteran Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip in the booth. Dunlap and Alexander will continue their pit road reporting duties.

The Truck Series on SPEED is presented in a very simple style. The production team concentrates on the racing, and allows the stories to play-out naturally in the event. The graphic package looks very familiar, but everything else about this telecast is produced by SPEED.

The Trucks should put on a good show, with the battle between the Cup Series regulars who are entered in this race raging with full-time Truck Series competitors like Ron Hornaday and Jack Sprague.

This post will serve to host your comments about The Set-Up and Craftsman Truck Series race on SPEED. To add your opinion, just click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are on the right side of the main page. Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

43 comments:

Daly Planet Editor said...

Nice to see Krista and the gang back.

Anonymous said...

Wher is the crowd?!

Daly Planet Editor said...

good question

Anonymous said...

There is a Tim McGraw concert at Verizon Wireless which is 2 miles south of the track so maybe people are caught in traffic.

Karen said...

Ths screen freezing is extremely annoying.

Newracefan said...

Nice to see all the families of the drivers tonight

Anonymous said...

I think it's affecting more than Speed. I'm flipping through the channels and a channel like MSNBC is stuttering (freezing).

Newracefan said...

No problems here in PA

Anonymous said...

My picture has been twitching since cup qualifying....even through the commercials. The problem comes and goes.
I wonder if is a Dish network thing although I don't notice it on other channels

Anonymous said...

Karen,

are you on Dish Network? That's what I'm on. Wonder if they're (Dish) isn't having problems at their uplink center.

Anonymous said...

don't the trucks look amazing under the lights tonight? i'm beginning to think ALL races should be run at night!

Anonymous said...

agree with newracefan: no problems outside philly tonight with the picture. maybe a call to Dish Network is in order?

PammH said...

ummm..just checked USA, ESPN Classic & TBS-NO jitters on Dish. It's a Speed problem...imo

Anonymous said...

Another Dish Network costumer here with the twitching/jumping. Very annoying. It has been going on since qualifying and like the previous poster said does it during commercials also. I'm in MI.

Karen said...

Mike said...

Karen,

are you on Dish Network? That's what I'm on. Wonder if they're (Dish) isn't having problems at their uplink center.


No Dish Network. Brighthouse Cable in Orlando f/k/a Time Warner.

Anonymous said...

looks like they found the one shot of the grandstands that makes it look as if there are actually people AT the race. i'll be interested to see if the crowd picks up at all -- once they past concert traffic (thanks, anon 8:15!)

Anonymous said...

apropos of nothing: amazing shot of the moon just then!

Sophia said...

I turned on the race a little before 9pm and they were only on lap 13.

anybody know WHY there was a delay...i thought the race started at 8pm?

Daly Planet Editor said...

Just checked with SPEED. No tech problems from the track. It is worth a call to your cable or dish provider.

JD

Anonymous said...

I am on COX. I have not had a problem the whole race.

Newracefan said...

Sophia rain this morning, crashes in qualifying, everything got behind

Anonymous said...

you know what i like about watching this race -- aside from the actual racing? clean presentation, not a ton of technical toys being trotted out ad nauseum, good shots of actual racing going on. it can't be easy to cover other stories when the leader is running away with the race with 60 to go but speed has done a great job telling the rest of the story. thanks to tonight's team so far.

Daly Planet Editor said...

They sure are shooting this race tight to avoid the stands.

Anonymous said...

whoa, wait a minute! why is the #83 cup pit crew handling the #51 truck tonight? i'm confused. is it common practice for a cup pit crew to handle a truck? and from a different owner? can someone explain?

Daly Planet Editor said...

Like that triple split. They do it opposite of ESPN. How interesting.

Anonymous said...

and how come we don't get a pit stop clock for the trucks tonight? maybe i'm just paying more attention tonight than usual . . .?

Newracefan said...

I like Speeds triple pits the best the arrangement just works for me and then there is the quad pit from Fox :(

Newracefan said...

Red they may be the Pit Crew winners but they had had problems with at least 2 stops. I think it's a Toyota thing

Anonymous said...

well, this will be an interesting post-race interview with busch, doncha think? sure looked like one of "them racin' deals" to me.
and jd, i agree about the tight shots being used to avoid showing the "crowd." that last high overhead shot was breathtaking in showing just how empty the place is tonight. sad.
and, before i forget, i thought reut did a fine job in the booth.

Anonymous said...

newracefan: agree in re: the red bull team having a tough night with the truck pit stops. but is it "common practice" to have cup teams do pit crew work for trucks? that seems . . .counter-intuitive to me. at best. i mean, pitting a truck just HAS to be different than pitting a cup car. i can see cup and n'wide but cup and truck? just another thing that makes me go "hmmmmm."

Anonymous said...

Makes me wonder what the crowd will be like Saturday night. It's too bad these Friday night Truck races can't get better crowds. In my opinion the Trucks on Friday night definitely makes for good television.

Anonymous said...

mike said...
Makes me wonder what the crowd will be like Saturday night. It's too bad these Friday night Truck races can't get better crowds. In my opinion the Trucks on Friday night definitely makes for good television.

well, i'm a believer! we've made plans today to go to dover for the n'wide qualifying, cup practice and truck race on friday and -- heresy of heresies! -- skip the cup race! after tonight's race, i'm really looking forward to it! (of course, i'll make up for it by going to the fall dover cup race!)

Kyle said...

Did they turn this track into a 1/2 mile dirt track without telling anyone?

Shame about the low turnout especially for a "home" race.

Anonymous said...

great finish shot, speed! thanks.

Daly Planet Editor said...

I really missed a graphic as the trucks crossed the line to tell us who was who.

kang said...

Fox must have sent their old time interval system to Speed.Early in the race the system wouldn't update.The second half it was many laps behind the action.All in all, a production that needs improvement.

Newracefan said...

Agree about the graphic JD but I'll take that camera angle over others we have seen graphic or no graphic. Man I don't think I've ever seen Todd Bodine look so unhappy I might actually believe he didn't mean to wreck Ron.

Glenn said...

Good no frils broadcast! To bad big money brings to much "show" to the Cup broadcasts. Truck races are the best, to bad I can't say the same about Cup. But Cup does bring in the big bucks. Seems backward.

Anonymous said...

@red--I love the night races too!

That's a shame about the crowd, or lack there of.

Anonymous said...

I've got Comcast out of Everett, WA and have had the signal issues off & on for a couple of weeks on quite a few channels ...

Is there a list somewhere that shows which networks share the same satellites ??

Anonymous said...

Truckseries.com claims there were 40,000 there for the race ... But, I am NOT buying that ...


Who let Samuel have his concert the same weekend as the All-Star race?? I thought Humpy had eminent domain control over the whole greater Charlotte area ... LOL ;-)

Anonymous said...

My main complaint about the race coverage is Mikey ...

His whole "Toyota can do no wrong - Everybody else is to blame" bias has got to go ...

The racing incidents with Busch / Hornaday / Bodine were proof positive of Mikey's bias ... And it seemed like at the end, Phil Parsons was joining in with Mikey on blaming Hornaday for the wreck with Bodine (even though the in-car camera's audio clearly proved that Bodine never lifted off the gas & actually was accelerating at the time) ...


Rick & Phil need to grab control of the reins when Mikey starts to go off on his pro-Toyota diatribe ...

Where was the post-race interview with Kyle Busch??


At least one time during the race, the ticker showed 38 drivers had started the race ... Guess it got confused with the ticker from qualifying ...

Daly Planet Editor said...

Anon 1:49AM,

Try Googling "sun spots TV" and that will point you toward the info you are looking for.

JD