What a wonderful weekend of NASCAR TV. Two familiar faces in new places should make it even more interesting.
ESPN is giving Vince Welch an opportunity to step-up and call the Nationwide Series race from Nashville, TN on Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile, TNT is giving Adam Alexander the career opportunity of a lifetime. He will call the six Sprint Cup Series races for that network this summer.
Before the green flag, both men will get tune-ups as they step-in to host practice and qualifying sessions. Alexander will call the Saturday morning Sprint Cup Series practice on SPEED, while Welch will work Nationwide Series practice Friday night and qualifying late Saturday afternoon for ESPN2.
Welch is a native of Indianapolis and is known to many motorsports fans for his IndyCar TV experience. Welch has actually been working with ESPN and ABC since 1999. While in Nashville, Welch will be joined by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the booth.
You may remember Welch working for ESPN as a college football sideline reporter. On a regional level, he has called many college events for TV and even worked in local TV in the Midwest. He has an Emmy on the shelf for his sports reporting.
Alexander has made himself a household name because of his hard work for SPEED. Hustling as a pit reporter on the Camping World Truck Series, Alexander found his hard work paying off as SPEED began to revamp its motorsports line-up.
There is no better motorsports TV program currently on the air than The Speed Report. Alexander is a frequent co-host and he took immediately to the program with his straightforward approach when dispensing information. It just clicked. Shows like NASCAR in a Hurry and Race Hub also began to use Alexander in the host role.
Now, he and Welch need to change gears and appear on the national TV stage in roles that are new. For ESPN, Sunday is a chance to audition a back-up play-by-play guy for Marty Reid. The network likes Allen Bestwick in his current infield role. ESPN's Dave Burns will also get an opportunity to call a Nationwide race this season. Welch is currently scheduled to handle the play-by-play on four races in 2010.
Alexander's baptism by fire comes this week and runs for the next six Sprint Cup Series races, including the big Daytona event where TNT offers "wide open" coverage. Dealing with the strange twists and turns of that assignment may prove the most challenging for him this summer.
Perhaps you could give us your opinion of these selections before the races this weekend. We can then revisit this topic next week. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. We will live blog the CWTS race on a new post Friday night.
Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
I hope this means Marty Reid is not a 100% lock to be the voice of Cup indefinitely. He's better than Punch, but that's like saying drinking salt water is better than drinking gasoline.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge Vince Welch fan, but something about his voice and delivery makes me think he could be a really great play-by-play guy.
The best thing that could happen would be for one of these to call the race and hit it out of the park. The worst thing that could happen would be for them to go in and do just carbon copy of what every other non-Mike Joy does.
Best of luck to Adam, but then again I don't think he will need it.
ReplyDeleteVince Welch may find himself broadcasting one of his son races before too long. His 16 year-old son has been tearing up the USAC ranks recently.
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:18PM,
ReplyDeleteESPN has tapped Reid for the Cup races and this season will be the indicator of whether or not he will be their guy in the long run.
JD
i agree completely with anonymous number 1
ReplyDeleteim not a fan of marty reid at all and really do not think he is as big of an improvement over dr. jerry punch as some say
this could mean that welch could do the nationwide races when reid does cup?
I like that they are both getting an opportunity to step up and wish them both the best.
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed Marty Reid in the booth for the Nationwide series and I hope that he does as well in the Cup broadcasts.
I am looking forward to seeing these changes. I'll miss MR doing the NW race in Nashville though guess he'll be calling the Indy race. We're off in a little bit to TMS so be looking for us in the stands tonight! HA HA I'll be watching for MR & Bevo too. I hope our fav, David Starr wins!
ReplyDeleteDave Burns is going to call a race? The same Dave Burns who asks the drivers if the kettle is black every week?
ReplyDeleteRemember at the "old" ESPN, there was a time when Dr. Punch was the play-by-play announcer for the Busch Grand National Series while Bob Jenkins had the job for Cup, even at the same track. I seem to remember Kyle Petty making appearances in the booth with Jerry and in a pit road firesuit.
ReplyDeleteSo there's no reason Burns or Welch couldn't "win" the Nationwide job, maybe joined by Craven or Lajoie eventually?
This is going to be as I call it 'the big experiment'. We don't know how this lineup will work, but I'm hoping it works well for both networks.
ReplyDeleteI'm even going to take a watch and listen to see if I can put up with TNT especially. Hopefully it'll be good, after FOX I can only look for a upward turn.
Vince Welch and Adam Alexander will both do well. Especially when comparing them to what we have had to listen to recently. I'd be happy with just about anybody as long as there are no Waltrips or Wallaces anywhere near a microphone
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether there is a connection with how they are viewed today or whether just coincidence, but when they were racing DW and Rusty were among the most popular and most unpopular drivers. I do know that when Jaws was winning races I almost had to borrow 4-letter words to express how I felt about him.
ReplyDeleteI think that Good Old Mother Nature will strike again. This time, the Pocono 500 will be rescheduled for Tuesday perhaps as the forecast for both Sunday and Monday call for thunderstorms.
ReplyDeleteWatching the practice session, have not heard a real conversation about bias-ply tires in quite a few years. Used to be a huge problem at New Hampshire when they used to run a rather strange Busch/Busch North integrated race. Busch North drivers could never get their cars setup right on the radial tires.
ReplyDeleteVince sounding pretty good so far in Nationwide Pratice! He hes on point sorta reminds me or Marty a lil bit! I wasnt sure if I was going to like Vince cause to me hes not a great pit reporter but wow so far so good! I know its only pratice but wow he sure sounds like he belongs and great clicks prefect with DJ! Nice to see ESPN throwing some new names in the broadcast booth its a breth of fresh air
ReplyDeleteWill someone PLEASE tell Vince that Ickler's 15th place finish at CMS was NOT a "good run" ... as the idiot put another car into the wall ... and got damage to his own car ????
ReplyDeleteOne MUST look at the whole picture and not just the "final results" page to see how well someone did ...
Kenseth also had problems in the # 16 car ... I think the # 6 and 16 are jinxed ...
Speed TV still not taking calls
ReplyDeletefrom anyone out of the loop.The
800 number doesnt work. The regular
number is dis connected and so on..
Gee I wonder what they DONT WANT TO HEAR. There is a real e mail
address...but do you think they will answer. ?
Mikey attention please go back to
ReplyDeleteAarons .. do some commercials and
work on your cars.
Oh I see you just want to be an
announcer - talk too loud and too
much?
Cograts you are doing exactly what you want to do. And of course
it sooo annoying so hideous so horrid .. perfect aint it.
good nite