Allen Bestwick will host the pre-race show for the ESPN2 presentation of the Nationwide Series race from Las Vegas. He will be joined by Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty.
This week, Dale Jarrett is at home due to a family illness. So, Wallace will move up to the broadcast booth and call the race as well. Marty Reid will handle the play-by-play and Andy Petree will round out the team.
ESPN has the Danica elephant in the room to deal with today. This is her final race before leaving to the IRL tour for several months. Her qualifying effort was safe and conservative. So far, we have not seen the fire from Danica on the NASCAR side that we saw in her original ARCA race in Daytona.
There is also weather in the area. Rain would delay the race, but if it never gets underway a Monday event would be in order. Bestwick is the best on TV at a rain delay, so ESPN is in good hands.
ESPN continues to develop a new style now that Marty Reid is firmly in control when the racing is underway. Reid calls out the start and parks, tells it like it is and pushes the analysts for opinions. That is exactly what the network needed.
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256 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 256 of 256I noticed Classic had boxing reruns scheduled...no problem to move it there (although if it was the roles were reversed, I'm sure racing fans would grumble...)
OK just caught up on my Tivo and back in real-time. Excellent job by the whole ESPN crew. Marty is fantastic.
Its tough when what you want to watch gets bumped and Classic is a channel that not all cable providers have as part of their regular package. I know I had to change from comcast to fios to get it.
but I am glad they aren't moving the race off since it's at an interesting point. good racing going on.
The race coverage has improved considerably since the #7 departed the track.
Bayne! No fear!
Good racing! And they are actually showing it to us and telling us about it!
Watch it, Ken. The DP PR dept will come after you.
Gina DirectTV took off Classic however we have Comcast and DirecTV to see which is better. I know what I like but hubby is still on the fence.
@Gina - I hear you on Comcast. I only get Classic because I got the Sports Package.
hey i know this isnt nationwide related but does anyone know what the final rating for last Sunday Cali race was? All i can find is the overnight rating and how it was down but what about the final rating that usualy comes out around thursday or friday?
This may be the production truck's best race since ORP last year. They havent been A+, but they have certainly been an A- to a solid A today!
man Steven racing hard! Take it easy there :)
Punch in the pits great again.
McDowell stepped up and took responsibility. Seems he always steps up.
Camera work has been pretty good so far. Why don't they do cup like this? But just as I typed that took them forever to get on the one as they were calling it in the booth.
I have a question for all you intelligent Planeteers. Why is it that Go Daddy can get away with the commercial with the retired football player, who's obviously portrayed as gay, but Nestle's was castigated for their candy bar commercial with the two guys who kissed over the candy bar? Why is Danica's commercial any more appropriate? Why isn't the gay and lesbian league protesting this distasteful commercial.
Oh, and a news flash. The bobsled designed and built by former Daytona 500 champ, Geoff Bodine, won a gold medal in the four man bobsled in Vancouver. Nice !!!
Someone was napping in the truck there, need to bear down and keep up with the booth guys.
Nice tribute to "Suitcase" Jake
Yeah, the booth was worrying about Steven getting frustrated too.
Andrew, Comcast in my area just wouldn't offer it as part of any package and there was no competition other than satellite tv until fios came in.
Nice little tribute to Jake Elder.
They may manage to get the entire race in, how cool would that be.
5.0 overnight, haven't seen a final, Jonathan
Jebacca,
Because he (McDowell) always screws up
Jonathan, haven't heard the "final" ratings anywhere, like you, just the overnights.
Darcie - thanks for the Olympic update - it's great to hear about another US gold medal.
I'm hoping the US men's hockey team can pull it off when they play in the finals.
Race isn't over yet, but solid coverage by ESPN today.
Could it be that ESPN is stepping up its game while FOX is starting to flounder a little bit?
Colin was doing so great too =(
Guess I'll have to start paying attention to the commercials. If they showed any with the content you asked about...for whatever company, I didn't notice. Guess that's an indication of how much I watch the ads.
Darcie - no idea on the commercials and who censors what.
Silence in the booth from Rusty when his son runs into another car from behind -- conflict of interest.
Have to laugh at the rest of the booth just continuing on, calling the race. Good for them, but it must be awkward with daddy in the booth.
Oh, look, Steven Wallace wrecked somebody. That really sucks for Colin Braun; he was having a great run!
Rusty finally found some words -- of course, they were an excuse!
I didn't hear final ratings either. I just assumed they must have been down, or at best even with last year. If they had been up at all you know Nascar whould have been beating on their chests.
Wallace family is leaving their mark on this race aren't they?
Anon, ESPN has been much better with their coverage this year. IMO Fox needs to quit fooling around, being so NASCAR-PC and get back to the basics that make race fans pay attention - like good camera work, directing and professional broadcasting in the booth.
Marty Reid is doing a great job and Andy P works well with him.
Sally, you are SO right!
Cool deal to see that Johnny Davis team doing well! working their butts off on that new car too
I think Rusty has done very well today. He has not been over the top as usual.
He has kept his mouth shut when he should regarding his cars, and I think just gave an honest opinion about Steven being to aggressive.
Overall the booth has done a wonderful job today.
If we could see this much racing on Sunday's I know I would make a better effort to watch.
Good racing today and (boy this hurts to say) ESPN has shown just about all of it.
I'm really impressed.
Nice racing! OK, I'm gonna pull for the kid!
Oh, Marty, that is SO lame! Snake eyes.
Glen, I definitely agree with you about being able to see this kind of racing on Sunday's. It's become really difficult to watch Cup racing and enjoy it.
Think Marty had been working on that one for a while!
I don't think the camera work is that good today. To many one or two car shots.
Charlie, there's still room for improvement, but I'll bet it's better than what we'll see tomorrow on Fox.
But not as many in car shots that Fox loves to use. Also, the booth is good without being intrusive or over the top. Excitement when warranted, not at full volume all the time.
I think Glenn is right, Rusty was trying to do the right thing by keeping quiet. Overall he's been less annoying than usual today.
Fantastic race and good TV. Even showed the finish line. Nice job!!
Still gotta get rid of flying heads
Top 5 all cup drivers. Trevor was 6th, not too bad to come in right behind all those guys
I think it was the best coverage of a race this year.
See all you lovely people tomorrow. Hope that the Fox guys were watching - they could take lessons from ESPN's booth at this point.
Good job showing cars crossing the finish line. I will give BK a pass since this is his first full year in cup. Great finish by Bayne too!
Other than a couple of slow cuts and the flying heads a great job by ESPN. Marty about to overtake Mike Joy for best pxp in NASCAR.
I have to give ESPN credit. They certainly seem to have listened to the complaints many fans had of their coverage from last year and fixed most of them.
Watching Kyle leave, I don't want to hear anyone complain about Danica not giving interviews.
Just awesome coverage. Still had their moments but it really looks like ESPN took this offseason seriously and is making strides to improve. Very satisfied with the coverage and great balance of commercials to racing at the end. Take note FOX.
Mike Wallace, AWESOME finish!
Usually don't interview the 16th place driver so I fail to see why it's a big deal that Kyle is walking off.
Again, kudos to ESPN for listening to all the criticisms (sp?) and improving their coverage.
FOX better be paying attention.
Thanks everyone for stopping by! What a good TV broadcast after all the weather hassles.
Live blogging the Cup race tomorrow, should be just as interesting!
Have a great night.
JD
Wow, this has been some fabulous coverage the last three races. Hope it keeps up over the year (and especially once they get the Cup races).
bevo-totaly agree w/you. Don't even know why they followed Vile. No point..
I realize I'm way late for the party but I just read Jeff Gluck's column about JWT's (aka Chicken Man)citation for underage possession for alcohol on Thursday in LV. RCR said they're handling the matter internally. Wonder how far RC is willing to stake his reputation for the sake of sponsor $$$.
TNT was a debacle in 2007. They listened to the fans and fixed their problems.
ESPN was a disaster for years. They finally listened and fixed their problems.
It's time for Fox and Speed to follow suit and stop this downward spiral their currently stuck in. No more cartoons, no more shtick, no more clowning around and NO MORE EGO. It's time to grow up and provide good race coverage Mr. Hill & Friends.
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