NASCAR has two tracks working this weekend and they both have feature races on Saturday. ESPN is at Memphis Motorsports Park for the Nationwide Series stand-alone event. SPEED is in Martinsville, VA for a Camping World Truck Series event running with a Cup date.
Normally, one of the Saturday races would be run at night but this time daylight is the only thing illuminating these tracks. The Trucks are facing a rainy forecast in Virginia. Krista Voda will be on the air rain or shine at 12:30PM ET with The Setup pre-race show. Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander are the pit reporters.
SPEED does not have any live events on Saturday after the scheduled end of the CWTS race at 3:30PM. Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip can sit and wait for the track to dry until the sun goes down.
Meanwhile, the wonderful charity-themed race from Memphis is scheduled to begin at 3:30PM after a thirty minute pre-race show that will probably be hosted by Mike Massaro from pit road. This is a split TV crew for ESPN, so Massaro will be joined by veterans Jack Arute and Rick DeBruhl on pit road. Both TDP favorites.
Memphis also features a reunion of "the fun bunch." The quirky trio of Marty Reid, Randy LaJoie and Rusty Wallace seemed to click and have fun this summer as they did several Nationwide Series races together. LaJoie is a great balance for Wallace and Reid enjoys poking fun at both of them.
The Saturday TV officially kicks-off with 45 minutes of Sprint Cup practice coverage on ESPN2 at 10AM ET before Jerry Punch and company yield to Reid and the Memphis TV team for Nationwide Series qualifying.
Veteran fans know that there is always a noon football game this time of the year and this week it is Illinois vs. Purdue. That leaves a very slim chance that the NASCAR Countdown show will start on ESPN2 at 3PM. Make sure you know where ESPN Classic is on your dial if you still have that rapidly shrinking TV network. In the past, it was only a good open field tackle that ended the game and let the race begin. The 3:30PM transition should be interesting to watch.
At the end of the day, ESPN2 has Sprint Cup Happy Hour scheduled at 6:30PM. Should the Memphis race be delayed by weather as well, there is a live college football game that is going to begin on ESPN2 at 7:30PM. Did we mention this could be a fun day?
NASCAR tries to avoid at all costs having two races running at the same time, but Saturday may just find the sport in that position. Fans may want to practice their picture-in-picture skills before the need actually arises.
TDP will live blog both races with the CWTS post going up at noon ET. Please join us for the races but in the meantime feel free to leave us your opinion on the topics discussed above. Just click on the comments button below to add your post.
This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks again for taking the time to stop by, hope to see you Saturday afternoon.
Memphis has lights, and from what Kenny Wallace was saying on SIRIUS today, weather looks good for tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteMartinsville will be the tricky one.
Hoping we have no delays, should be interesting though if we do.
I didn't remember any lights in Memphis, so went on Google Earth and zoomed in... no lights on the 3/4 mile oval... the drag strip & 1/4 mile dirt track have lights, but none on the 3/4...
ReplyDeletebut Martinsville will be the problem.. looks like if they INSIST on running at this lousy "parking lot" of a race track, NASCAR would at least make them put up lights... bet there's zoning issues with running at night there though... that sorry excuse for a race track is in pretty much a residential district... and I don't like the hot dogs either...
CC
We'll I won't be home for a little while so have the DVR running who know's what I'll actually get. It will be a surprise
ReplyDeleteCount_Culo: I learned this year that Memphis rents the lights. The truck race was run in the afternoon this year because it was too expensive to rent lights for such a small race and crowd. However, I don't think weather is an issue for Memphis.
ReplyDeleteI hope it doesn't rain for the Truck race or Nationwide race. I have been looking foward to the Speed crew and the ESPN 'B' team. I refuse to torture myself and watch ESPN garbage on Sunday. I will go out with my family instead.
I think it was several years ago that the Memphis race was rained out and they ran it on the Sunday while the Martinsville cup race was delayed a day on Monday. And none other than Randy won that race there that Sunday afternoon. The broadcast had a great viewer numbers that day. They'll probably show Randy crossing the finish line today at the beginning of the telecast Marty seems to always manage to get that in. We lost our Classic channel to a bicycle channel on DirectTV so might miss the pre-race.
ReplyDeleteVery Early S&P predictions:
ReplyDeleteSprint Cup: 5-7 cars
Nationwide: At least 12, depends on qualifying. 50 cars are entered
Trucks: 2-4 trucks
David,
ReplyDeleteDo you think I just make this up as I go along? Bet no one is more surprised that they have lights than the MMP management.
There will be a new post up at noon for the rainy truck series race.
JD
JD - Comcast Seattle/Everett has "issues" with SPEED channel ...
ReplyDeleteAs in ... It's NOT getting the signal, so it's NOT on the air ...
There's ETA for when it'll be fixed ...
JD, remember the Truck race Brandon Whitt won and Brad Keslowski got his big break in?
ReplyDeleteMemphis, it was a night race.
If they removed their lights its news to me. They did have lights in the past. At least from what I remember.
Buschseries, thanks. Just re-read your post now, that answers the question.
ReplyDeleteI knew I'd seen night races there in the past.
Conditions look good for the NW race though.
Didn't sound good for CWTS. Monday race anyone?
David - I don't remember that race being a night race ...
ReplyDeleteI DO remember Jeff Hammond's boy (Whitt) dumping Hornaday to get the win ... cause Spencer spun out & caused a big smoke cloud & Grampa slowed, but Whitt didn't ...
SPEED's back on the air in Seattle / Everett
ReplyDeleteDangnabbit ... I was gonna watch the Rostelecom Cup from Moscow on UniSports ...
MRN and track saying they will get truck series race in today.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote, we may have a truck and N'wide race running at the same time on two different NASCAR TV networks.
The new post is now up for the 12:30PM truck race. We will close these comments shortly.
Thanks,
JD
Do you know if the Nationwide race will air on the ESPN360.com regardless of when it actually takes place. As someone who no longer has Classic at my disposal (replaced with ESPN Deportes I think), that would be my only plan "B"
ReplyDeleteTia, that was most certainly a night race Whitt won. Never understood why DeLoach and company got rid of him...
ReplyDeleteLike Busch said, had been night race, now a day race since they don't want to pony up for the rent-a-lights.
Two races at the same time on the same network will be interesting. Will have to flip flop alot.
Remember the days when the Busch Series and Cup series ran road courses on the same day at different tracks, different times, on opposite ends of the country? that was fun!