Saturday, September 6, 2008

Saturday on SPEED: Trucks and Shows


This should be a fun day to watch SPEED with the diverse NASCAR programming and the unusual circumstances taking place in Richmond.

The Craftsman Truck Series crew is in Gateway and will originate three programs on Saturday. Rick Allen will host qualifying at 11AM live with Phil Parsons and Doug Richert alongside this weekend. Krista Voda will be back with The Set-Up at 2PM. Coverage of the race itself will start at 2:30PM. Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander will round-put the TV crew as pit reporters.

Over in soggy Richmond, SPEED will bring Tradin' Paint with John Roberts and Kyle Petty along at 12:30PM. This week the media guest will be Jenna Fryer, who is one of the most popular guests. This AP reporter always had some interesting opinions.

NASCAR Performance is next at 1PM. Hosted by Larry McReynolds along with Chad Knaus and Bootie Barker, the show offers a discussion of NASCAR topics from a crew chief perspective.

Next up is NASCAR in a Hurry at 1:30PM hosted by Randy Pemberton. The show catches viewers up-to-date on the events at the track since the Cup Series arrived.

This post will host your comments about the Saturday line-up on SPEED. To add your TV-related comment, just click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by, the full weekend NASCAR TV schedule is listed on the main page.

27 comments:

  1. Nothing against anyone else but I think the best coverage is when it's just Rick and Phil in the booth. A third person really isn't needed.

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  2. At least its nice to see some action on the track.

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  3. I like Doug Richert. He was good when he sat in on NASCAR Performance.

    He's calm, doesn't yell all the time and say Toyota in every sentence.:-)

    Seriously, he seems to fit in fine. Only talks when he has something to say.

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  4. Once again we get a qualifying show with mph running under the crawl.Why? The folks in the tv booth talk in terms of lap time.The drivers talk in terms of lap time.Now I understand that lap speed and lap time are two different ways of expressing the same thing.However lap time is far easier to compare. Perhaps that is why the tv booth and drivers use that format.

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  6. In my opinion the best Tradin' Paint shows are the ones with Jenna Fryer on them. Very enjoyable show.

    Looking forward to the Truck broadcast today. I'm rooting for the Speed Truck crew to put on another clinic of the right way to cover a NASCAR race. Hopefully the "other" production truck enjoying their unplanned day off in Richmond is watching a TV somewhere and taking notes.

    I just wish Speed would adjust their schedule and fill in the two-hour void NASCAR Raceday left with the ARCA race from Chicagoland instead of having it compete with the Cup race and the NFL on Sunday.

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  7. What a nice day in St. Louis. I am actually able to watch TV and not have to multi task on the computer to enjoy the race, and get the entire scope of what is happening.

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  8. Welcome to team orders, ala F-1. Telling Sprague that teammate Hornaday needs to lead 81 laps and to lay back until he does so he gets the 5 bonus points.
    Not a fan of this, and hate to see it come to the trucks.

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  9. Very different feel to a race with Allen and Parsons.

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  10. It's nice to hear enthusiasm instead of hype.

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  11. Interesting the truck race does a through the field and they start with position 11.

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  12. That's because unlike some networks they talk about the movement in the top ten almost the whole time, and also drop back in the pack.
    It's more interesting when there are more than 12 in a race.

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  13. Even though they only started 34, it feels like a full field when you watch the coverage.

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  14. Enjoying the truck race. Take note ESPN truck guy.

    JD, Maybe you addressed this already, but I have a question. While looking at ESPN shows for tomorrow, why is there a 2 hour football countdown show before the race? Thanks.

    Good one, Boyd.

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  15. dot,

    That is ESPN's weekly NFL show that has been on the network for years. It started as a one hour called NFL Countdown and has expanded to a two hour monster.

    ESPN's two options to show a one hour NASCAR Countdown show were to go to ESPN2 or ESPNEWS.

    ESPN2 has a live Indy Lights race scheduled at 12:30PM that cannot me moved (probably by contract).

    ESPNEWS is going to be heavily involved in college football reviews and NFL previews.

    The solution was to move RaceDay on SPEED up against the start of the Cup race and let it become the only pre-race show for NASCAR.

    There will be a Countdown at 6:30PM for the Nationwide race and a one hour NASCAR Now wrap-up show after the race is over.

    JD

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  16. Enjoying the coverage today. Speed is doing a great job as usual. TP was fun, I loke having Jenna on the show. NP this is one of the best shows of race weekend, I always learn something and have fun doning it. Krista, she really needs to be in the Hollywood Hotel with Hammond. Trucks- look it's racing and we hear about everyone not just JB and Hornaday with the occasional splash of Chrissy ot Marc Davis. Even better when we hear about someone we may get some new information but we always get the who what where when and how of their racing for the day.

    As far as prerace goes for tomorrow as much as I enjoy AB I'd rather have Wendy on the grid, hopefully since AB won't be contributing much before the race he'll talk more during the race. I'm not exactly looking forward to 2 races basically back to back being called by JP.

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  17. Sure was nice letting the top 20 come across the line like that.

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  18. Great coverage. I like getting to see the battles when one driver is way out front.
    I don't need to see him that much, I remember what his car (truck) looks like.
    Also great coverage of the trucks crossing the line. Thanks to the coverage we pretty much knew where everyone was, but nice to see them all cross the line.

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  19. Another great job by the Speed production truck. No gimmicks, no "script", no pre-taped garbage filling up the screen. Just the best on-track racing available on our TV screens.... exactly what the doctor ordered for this race fan after the garbage ESPN force-fed last week and on Friday before the rain.

    As usual great job by Rick, Phil, and the rest of the gang. Yes there were issues like not seeing the 9's crash or knowing what happened to the 15, but to me that's just a product of the lower budget production (fewer cameras, only two pit reporters) and not an indictment of the people working within those constraints. Given the budget and resources of a Cup production truck this team would really put their competitors to shame..... even more than they do already that is.

    Give me this Speed Truck Series on-air and behind-the-scenes team of people any day of the week and (especially this week) TWICE ON SUNDAY!

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  20. Thanks JD for the answer.

    Funny they show NFL crap when there is no game following. But no two hour Race Countdown when there's a race. Speaks volumes to the NASCAR nation doesn't it?

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  21. Anyone in Richmond have a weather update? It looks partly sunny right now on the web cams throughout the city...I understand Nascars decision to postpone today's activities, but its too bad that they had to make the decision more than 24 hours before the green flag was to drop.

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  22. haus20--
    I have family who live in FL where they have to go over a bridge to get out--it's kind of a catch-22--you have to give people enough time to start their plans, but yet you won't know for sure about the weather till closer to the time, so several times they had to evacuate for nothing serious. But if you get complacent, then when the big one comes...well, we know what can happen.

    Also, the police spend all day getting people in and out of the track and surrounding areas (RIR is in a fairly populated area), not to mention their presence in the arena. According to the Richmond Times-Dispath, there are still a number of people without power, which also means there may be traffic lights out, car accidents, etc. In general, I think they had better things to do today than worry about a race, even if the weather has cleared. Some things are just more important than racing. I'm glad things turned out well for the people in town, but there was no guarantee that was going to happen.

    I really enjoyed the truck race, as usual. I thought Doug was good and his comments productive...if only we could have him instead of...others...

    I also liked Jenna on TP with Kyle. And I also liked NASCAR Performance, as usual. The 'contrast' Bootie pointed out was funny.

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  23. I love Speed! I just finished watching the days worth of programming. I just simply watched the truck race, no radio, no net, not tracking on websites. I just watched a race, and saw the entire field cross the finish line. WOW what a concept. I watched the race and didn't need drafting explained or techno junk, not 1 dang sports minute or 4 , I watched a race. It even had a post race show. I'm in love with Speed.

    Before the race I watched the love fest known as"Tradin' Paint".
    I liked Jenna better when she and Kyle didn't have exactly matching opinions on dang near everything.
    The show should be called "Matching Paint" now.

    Did I mention I really watched a race - awesome!

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  24. As always I enjoyed watching the truck race on Speed. It was even better with Doug Richard there instead of Mikey. I guess I am just not a Mikey fan and I think that he thinks that he knows more than he does, but other than that, as usual, the way that the race was called was always good because they highlight the racing from front to back and it is really obvious that they seem to be watching the track more than their monitors. Jerry Punch and the entire ESPN crew could take many lessons from the Speed crew's at large.

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  25. I would not mind seeing the Cup series adopt the tapered spacer because from what I have seen, it has provided better racing for the most part int he other series that run it and why have the chase, instead, let's have a schedule like the truck series runs. Sure, we would not have as many races throughout the year, but I would bet we would see much better racing from it. I just hate the COT and wish that NASCAR would let the crew chiefs do more with it.

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  26. haus 20 - the sun came out at 4 and it turned lovely. I'm really bummed about the races being both run tomorrow. Gave away my NW tickets, will have to leave the cup race early to get on the road and drive half the night. Majorly unhappy in Richmond.

    We froze our fannies off in Martinsville in the spring, steady rain and miserable conditions. But they didn't postpone the race - and we sat through it.

    Watched the truck races, which was about the only bright side of this weekend.

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