The recipe for interesting discussion is set for Saturday afternoon at 2PM Eastern Time on SPEED. While John Roberts will host Tradin' Paint, it will be Kyle Petty and Randy Pemberton who will be meeting-up again at a very tough time in the sport.
Pemberton is not one to mince words. This TV veteran has worked hard to get himself back into SPEED's NASCAR line-up and also emerge as a viable play-by-play announcer on DirecTV's Hot Pass.
Petty is a mess these days. On one side his charitable efforts and family life have never been more successful. On the other side, the new administration at Petty Enterprises has made it very clear they have little use for a 48 year old guy from Randleman, NC.
Petty is out of a ride, out of his grandfather's company and has no clear-cut plans for the remainder of this season or 2009. His saving grace is the fact he had a fantastic summer as the Lead Analyst on the TNT broadcasts and has been a consistently well-spoken panelist on Tradin' Paint.
On this Saturday, the non-superteams in the Sprint Cup Series are running for their very lives. The sponsorship dollars are tight and the American car manufacturers are basically running on empty. What NASCAR will put on the track in 2009 for the top-rated series should be an interesting topic.
As discussed on TDP in earlier posts, Craftsman Truck Series veteran Johnny Benson has just lost his primary sponsorship in the heart of the season. Bill and Gail Davis are now privately funding Benson's racing. How long that can last will certainly be a topic to be discussed even as it was avoided by SPEED on their NCTS coverage.
This post will serve to host your comments before, during and after the program. Sometimes, this series steps-up and delivers on its potential and sometimes Roberts turns it into a love-fest.
To add your comments, 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, this should be a fun show to watch.
13 comments:
As discussed on TDP in earlier posts, Craftsman Truck Series veteran Johnny Benson has just lost his primary sponsorship in the heart of the season. Bill and Gail Davis are now privately funding Benson's racing. How long that can last will certainly be a topic to be discussed even as it was avoided by SPEED on their NCTS coverage.
Is this true or just not one of the races Exide or Toyota agreed to sponsor this season!
Enjoyable Cup practice coverage on Speed. It's just a terrible shame that we can't keep our TV's on Speed Channel and see live coverage of Cup Happy Hour as an immediate lead-in to NASCAR Performance, Tradin' Paint, and the Truck race. Instead thanks to ESPN we get an hour of dead-air time on Speed (NASCAR-wise) and have to wait until 7PM at the earliest for tape-delayed "coverage" of the session.
The Speed cameras stayed on the track the entire time. The Speed production truck did not find the need to cover up practice with full-screen videos of Jeff Burton's Charlotte win, Jeff Burton's 1997 Martinsville Cup win or 1990 Martinsville Busch win, Jimmie Johnson's 2007 Martinsville sweep, or videos documenting each driver's favorite Saturday morning cartoons to watch as child. No videos of Kim Burton's reaction at the finish of last week's race and no need to borrow ESPN's taped piece about Jeff & Kim Burton's relationship that aired at the banquet last year.
The coverage was also very well-balanced and covered more than just the 12 Chasers. The Scott Speed, Mike Bliss, and A.J. Allmendinger stories were well documented and pit reporters in the garage actually found non-Chasers to file reports about. A non-Chaser crashed in practice and he was immediately interviewed.
Speed Channel bought the rights to cover Cup practice from Martinsville. Announcers, pit reporters, and production truck members were paid to come to the track today and cover that Cup practice from Martinsville. And in an incredible development, those people actually earned their paychecks and justified their network's spending on those TV rights fees by spending that hour doing nothing but covering that Cup practice session from Martinsville. What an amazingly innovative approach this network used! Buy rights to an event, send a bunch of people on your payroll to cover that event, and actually end up covering that event... amazing!
Will we see the same focused, well-balanced coverage when ESPN eventually "blesses us" with tape-delayed coverage of Happy Hour sometime tonight, or will the "ignore the track" garbage continue?
That is exactly what we are working on as you read this.
Got tons of email telling me this was a sponsor issue, not a BDR issue.
Can hardly wait to get to the bottom of it!
Daly Planet Editor said...
That is exactly what we are working on as you read this.
Got tons of email telling me this was a sponsor issue, not a BDR issue.
Can hardly wait to get to the bottom of it!
October 18, 2008 1:28 PM
Might want to do some research before writing a story....did you just see a blank truck and write your story?
Anon,
Its a column. Email and Internet stories all documented only a handful of NCTS races to go and an unsponsored truck of one the potential series champ?
Don't fall for the PR spin from the anons. That is why SPEED fell on its face today by not asking JB one single thing about this issue even as he qualified with a non-sponsored truck.
I'll hopefully get the official scoop and will have a quote. Needless to say, everyone is laying quite low on this topic.
Mike Mulhern and Jenna Fryer both have stories out about the economic issues. You can Google both to read.
JD
Interesting opinion from Pemberton about using the draw to place cars on the grid instead of points.
JD
Not liking Randy's idea for grid position but then I'm a 48 fan who has no luck and if I was pulling he'd start 43rd every week. Did he say what they would do with the cars outside the top 35 when there are more than 43 cars wanting to race?
nrf,
I guess those rules would remain the same. He was basically trying to figure out a way to mix-up the starting grid when the rain comes.
JD
The idea brought up of using a random draw to determine the lineup in the event of a rainout was indeed interesting, though I personally prefer using the point standings. I don't like the idea of Jimmie Johnson starting 43rd at Sonoma, for example, because of a draw or him having to share a pit at Dover because of a draw. If you "earn" last position then I say that's the way it goes. For a points leader to get put in a gigantic hole like that because of a random draw would be completely unfair, in my opinion. When qualifying is cancelled I'm personally okay with rewarding the top teams.
Newracefan, to further your question, in 2000 NASCAR created quite an uproar in the garage area when they used a random draw to send teams home. Cup qualifying was rained out at Watkins Glen and they set the lineup by top 35 in points, past champions, then the random qualifying order draw to determine the starting lineup. When several full-time teams got sent home by the draw and some one-time "ringer" teams got to race, NASCAR immediately created the modern-day rainout format to protect the full-time teams, which in my opinion is the way it should be. I don't think NASCAR ever needs to go down the "randomly send teams home" road again like they did on that day.
Randy's idea about using the random draw to determine the starting lineup every week (even when qualfying is held) and using time trials as nothing but a points awarding session was nothing short of extremely strange and completely off-the-wall, in my opinion.
I'm surprised no one on the show brought up what I perceive to be the most obvious solution to the rainout problem - when qualifying is rained out on Friday, re-schedule it to Saturday. How many times have both Friday and Saturday been a wash this year? Any?
Think the best way to mix up the field if there is a rain out is to take the top 35 in points, in vert them and let the 35th points position be on the pole. Give them a chance to get a few points and make the guys up in the top work for their finish instead of giving it to them.
Bill H
"Benson went low in Turn 3 and put his unsponsored Bill Davis Racing Toyota under Hornaday and into the lead on Lap 155." (truckseries.com)
"Sponsor Needed… The weekend’s 200-lap event will be the first time this season the No. 23 Toyota Tundra team will not have corporate sponsorship. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship-contending team will bring a blank red-and-black Toyota Tundra to the Virginia short track." (BillDavisRacing.com)
"Can you believe that the #2 guy in the Craftsman Truck Series, Johnny Benson (only 39 behind Ron Hornaday) will be driving an UNSPONSORED truck at Martinsville? Amazing." (Stock Car Gazzette)
That help to answer the question?
I almost posted something similar to what Randy mentioned. It would be interesting to "mix it up" when there's a rain delay.
bill h. has the right idea. Invert the field. They do it at our local 1/2 mile dirt track and it makes for some very interesting racing. The best cars still wind but they have to work for it.
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