After almost nine months of chasing NASCAR around the TV dial, this weekend fans will truly enter the NASCAR Twilight Zone.
Coverage of all three NASCAR series will skip across four TV networks and include a live race simulcast. There will be well over 30 hours of NASCAR programming from Friday to Sunday.
This one is going to take a little advance planning. There are DVR's and TiVo's to coordinate, viewing schedules to adjust and TV networks to even find on the dial. We are here to help.
On the right side of The Daly Planet main page is the complete layout of the Friday through Sunday NASCAR TV schedule. The networks to know are ESPN2, SPEED, ESPN Classic and ABC.
All three of NASCAR's national touring series are in action. The Craftsman Trucks will be in Atlanta sharing the track with the Sprint Cup Series. Meanwhile, the Nationwide Series travels to Memphis Motorsports Park for a big Saturday afternoon race.
Friday is the first day of on-track activity and SPEED starts the day with long block of coverage from Atlanta. The Craftsman Trucks practice at 11:30AM and 1:30PM with John Roberts and NASCAR Live covering the lunch break at 1:00PM. Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip will be handling the Truck action.
At 3PM, stick with SPEED as that network switches gears and covers the Sprint Cup Series practice session. Steve Byrnes, Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds will be along as the action will be fast and wild on this high-speed track with a whole lot on the line.
Marty Reid and his Memphis Nationwide Series crew will be next at 4:30PM. Fans have to spin the dial to ESPN Classic for this coverage. ESPN is just flat out of channel space and this is the unofficial NASCAR overflow network. That does not help fans who do not have it on the cable dial.
Back to SPEED at 6PM for Trackside. Thankfully, this program has stepped-up and invited Truck Series driver Johnny Benson on as a guest. Carl Edwards will also be on the program. Byrnes, Hammond and McReynolds are joined by Elliott Sadler as the panelists on this show.
The feature event of the evening will be live Sprint Cup Series qualifying on ESPN2 at 7PM Eastern Time. This will be the first time that the ESPN crew of Dr. Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree will be on-the-air. Jamie Little and Dave Burns will be handling the interviews.
Over the following two days, there will be more than 20 hours of NASCAR coverage on the four TV networks mentioned above. We will preview the coverage completely the day prior, so that fans can sort through this mess of a weekend on the cable TV dial.
The weather forecast for Atlanta on Friday calls for a high of 55 degrees with rain and thunderstorms. The chance of precipitation is listed as 80% by The Weather Channel. Over in Memphis, Friday looks much better with only a 20% chance of rain and a high near 70.
Stay with us over the weekend and we will walk you through the TV maze day-by-day. We welcome your comments on these topics. To add your opinion, 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. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.