Friday, September 18, 2009

Mods And Trucks Rock SPEED On Saturday


The Whelen Modifieds were a big hit earlier this season when Mike Joy and Dick Berggren called the inaugural race from Bristol, TN. Well, this time the nerf bar clanging will be done at New Hampshire Motor Speedway .

Joy and Berggren return at 1PM ET with coverage of the Mods on SPEED. This race may be the best of the weekend as this series is designed for the flat tracks with the big tires and low-slung chassis.

There are forty cars ready to go with familiar names like Donny Lia and Mike Stefanik. On the pole, however, is an 18 year old college freshman named Ryan Preece from one of my favorite towns, Berlin, CT. Click here for that story from Shawn Courchesne's great auto racing blog in the Hartford Courant.

Once the Mods are done, Krista Voda will be up at 2:30PM with The Setup. There are some hot tempers and hard feelings in the Camping World Truck Series these days. Several controversial moves from last week resulted in penalties and several wrecked trucks. Click here for an update on that topic.

Instead of Johnny Benson, Michael Waltrip will be teaming with Rick Allen and Phil Parsons to call the action at 3PM. The transition from Benson to Waltrip should be rather dramatic, especially with all the intensity of last week possibly coming to life once again in this event.

There are 36 trucks entered for the race, including some familiar faces. While the truck series regulars from last week's drama are back, this race will also feature Kevin Harvick, Max Papis and flat track ace Dennis Setzer. There will be some start-and-park trucks, but the names in the field should make for a solid event.

SPEED will start the day with CWTS qualifying at 10AM. The same broadcast team will be present, including the only two-reporter combination to work an entire pit road. That would be the versatile Adam Alexander and the always colorful Ray Dunlap. These two just flow through the sport with the same grace of Voda in the pre-race.

For those of you in search of a nightcap, ESPN2 will try to squeeze in a same day delay broadcast of Sprint Cup Series Happy Hour at 6:45PM between college football games. That would be Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the booth. Best of luck with this effort and yes, we will be watching.

TDP will live blog the Mod and CWTS race on Saturday, but in the meantime please feel free to leave us your TV-related opinion on these topics. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does NASCAR.com NOT have any kind of live leaderboard for the Truck series?? Why does it take forever & a day for them to post things like practice speeds / qualifying results / etc ?? Aren't they supposed to be the "official" website for NASCAR itself??

Daly Planet Editor said...

It's always been horrible and is even worse since the Turner guys changed it to the new look.

The trucks get the short end of the stick where NASCAR.com is concerned.

Anonymous said...

Early in the season, Nascar.com had live leaderboards for the Trucks ... Including a live leaderboard during qualifying ... But, I think those were the companion races ... Now it can take one or more hours for any results to be posted ...

Why isn't NASCAR demanding that they post the info faster?? Sometimes, even Jayski is slow to post the stuff ...

Today, RacingOne has a somewhat delayed live leaderboard for qualifying ...


Can Turner get an even closer close-up pic of Jimmie for the front page?? I can see his pores ... LOL ;-)

boyd said...

Michael Waltrip was non stop during the truck quals. He made me so tired that I may have to go back to bed and rest before the race.

Vicky D said...

Good qualifying broadcast for the trucks but like 6 said nascar.com takes forever and a day to post anything if it pertains to the series. On the truckseries website they used to show us live times qualifying but it's not been on lately.

Martin Vincent said...

@Vicky (and others) - Whenever Truck qualifying is televised, click on my name and bookmark it for a lineup that's posted minutes after the last truck crosses the finish line.

When it's not televised, I'm at the mercy of NASCAR.com just like every other website.

Truck Series website looks to have lost all sponsorship support and is just reporting the data when it's available to everybody else. No more live qualifying and no more photos from the track.

Vicky D said...

Thanks for the info, Martin I'll do that next race.

sbaker17 said...

I always look forward to the Modifieds from NH. This race has always been one of the most exciting races run every year, in any form of motorsports. The enthusiasm by the announcers (Joy and Berggren) comes thru because they both love this type of racing. Thank goodness there is no one on the telecast with a last name that begins with Wal.....

Daly Planet Editor said...

There is a new post up for the live blog of the Mods and trucks from New Hampshire.

Just head back to the main page by clicking the title at the top of the page.

Thanks!

JD

Anonymous said...

The mod race was really good and I enjoyed it.Makes watching racing fun again. Excellent team in the booth.Truck race I don't know, seriously Michael Waltrip drove me away. boyd, I agree with you about dopey Mikey, but don't bother mentioning that on this site.This site is a pro SPEED/ FOX site just as FOX news is a pro republican venue so any criticism is either ignored or deleted. Just enjoyed Cup practice on ESPN an the professionalism was great. I sit back and enjoy that type of coverage, Mikey's type, no way.

Daly Planet Editor said...

Anon 8:04PM,

Where are you from...Mars? I have spent the last three years being accused of hating MW's guts! Don't take that away from me!

Just so you know, I also hate PINKS, the tow truck show, Pass Time, and most of the other programming on that TV network.

ESPN has an outstanding studio show, some interesting Nationwide coverage and many talented individuals.

Unfortunately, when things are not going well the network is afraid to make a change at the top. That includes producers, directors and announcers.

Please take a moment to look through our archives on these topics or even to drop me an email. We love to talk NASCAR TV!

JD