The ESPN team is back and the Nationwide Series racing on the road course at Watkins Glen is waiting.
Allen Bestwick hosts Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty in the Infield Pit Studio to start the coverage at 1:30PM. These three have already been on the air with both Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series practice Saturday morning. They should be well informed on the stories of the day.
Marty Reid is calling the race with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree alongside. Reid has an apology to make from last week's coverage, let's hope that happens. Jarrett and Petree handled the Nationwide Series qualifying Saturday morning, so they know the starting grid and track conditions.
ESPN decided not to take a different team of announcers to the Glen for this NNS race, despite the strong efforts recently of Ricky Craven and Ray Evernham in the booth. This put the entire NASCAR on ESPN team on the air continuously since 9AM ET.
By the time the NNS race starts shortly after 2PM, the announcers will have been on the air for five hours. Anyway you cut it, ESPN should have learned from the last several seasons at the Glen and brought along a second set of booth announcers.
The Glen has changed several corners on the course with improved runoff areas and added SAFER barriers. While the racing on the track might not change, we should be able to avoid the extended caution period while cars were pulled out of the gravel traps.
Cutting a road course is relatively simple until the field gets strung-out and the director has to "back cut" in order to follow a second battle on the track. Unlike ovals, where one camera can follow a car all the way around, road courses have cameras assigned to each turn or straight.
The weather is good, the pictures are super and as usual there are lots of conflicting agendas in the Nationwide Series race in terms of drivers and cars.
This post will serve to host your comments as ESPN covers the Nationwide Series race from Watkins Glen. To add your TV-related comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
93 comments:
Hi all, looks like a nice day for some racing.
Oh good grief, I'm beginning to HATE BSPN's pre-race. Rusty & Brad are just AWFUL!
They have been talking since 9AM!
Welcome back Vince Welch!
Hey Anon, you can take the day off. Comments are being moderated on this blog permanently.
Tell your mom I said hi!
Vince looks pretty good for playing with broken ribs.
Looks like several new camera angles.
I wonder if the new paved runoffs will keep the number of caution laps down today.
I like the changes! Hope it pays off with more green flag racing.
Well, if there's any place to have a car accident, its Indiana. Have access to Methodist Hospital if you need it.
Excellent anthem!!
Well thank you for the great blog. Guess I will not be reading or participating any more. Bloggers can remain anonymous - that is part of the system.
It seems that you too are choosing the route that NASCAR has gone down and moderating / censoring even responsible anonymous bloggers.
Happy Busy Busy Busy Race Day Saturday Planeteers <3
Hearing Gluck was tagged to be a spotter for Boris today. Will be a fun blog to read :). I 'member when MartDawg got to be a Gas Catch Man for Happy's Pick 'em Up team a few years ago. That was a fun read!
Looking forward to turning left AND right today! Glad to see Vince back! As they say "you can't keep a good man down".
Hope the changes help with less cautions, too.
WOW, that is the highest key I've ever heard the anthem sung. She did a fair job if you like that high a soprano voice! :)
Great weather. DVRing the race. Not sure how long I'll watch live. Tough to show road courses on tv for any motorsports.
LOOKS GORGEOUS from above.
A nice voice for the Anthem.
Is it just me or does there seem to be a lack of enthusiasm in the booth? They seem very unmotivated.
Going to moderate today due to the continuing presence of our trolls.
Always interesting on the Internet!
We also chat at twitter.com/thedalyplanet and on Facebook. Just search The Daly Planet for our fan page.
No, I did NOT like that anthem!! Made my ears hurt!!!
I hope Mike Massaro got a big raise this season. He is working like a dog!
I also think it's his birthday!
Ann, I thought the anthem's key was too high and it hurt my ears too. Ok, let's see how these guys in the both do. I hope the safety changes on the track help.
JD...thanks for keeping the trolls away. Makes for a much nicer day!
Looks like a good crowd there!
Man, in-car cams on a road course? Come on man!
These guys got all strung out pretty quick.
Oops, looks like it was a local break. No bringing that back.
Bad start to this broadcast.
well they tried to stay with that :(
Enjoyed the NW qualifying this morning. Had to multi-task around the house and only got to watch parts of the Cup qualifying and pre-race.
Hoping to see a good race today.
Enjoy, everyone!
On the pre-race it was mentioned that Denny Hamlin's pit crew will be pitting Brendan Gaughan to get more practice pitting a car on a road course. Let's see how they do.
Where's Dr. Punch? Scheduled off-week?
What did everyone think of the new qualifying this AM? Like it better than 1 car at a time?
Jerry is off this week, scheduled.
We should probably cut broadcasters some slack since they're on hyper-overtime today. But not ESPN for putting them in that position!!
Sally, I much preferred NW qualifying that the slow and boring cup qualifying today.
Cup qualifying could have been OK if they hadn't completely obscured the actual RACECARS with stats and old wreck footage they've shown forty zillion times already this week!
I thought it was grat, too! Liked the way they qualified the trucks at Pocono, too. Think they should do something like that at the big tracks.
Do the 7 cars that were picked for in-car cameras get extra pay for that?
AW. Carl is having trouble. I wonder how big Kez's smile is right now?
Sponsors, NASCAR and the in-car camera company BSI make the arrangements for the cams.
Thanks for the info JD.
Seems Steve Wallace is always picked for in-car.
Yow! They have had some awful crashes at the road courses this year!
Wow. Road Block.
Nice overhead shots of the crash scene.
What a hot mess that wreck was :( Hate it for Mr. Alligator :(
See, an aerial view is better then a bumper cam. Take note Espn.
In car is good AFTER the wrecks, imo. They used them well this time.
Jack's going to have a relapse after watching this race today!
Very similar to the Hornish/Gordon/Burton wreck last year. Leffler got bounced right into the racing line.
Thank God for replays!
So much for cutting down on cautions...tho a red flag is different.
Leffler is not the most popular guy in the NNS garage. Just sayin...
I love it when people say "I'll take the blame for that..." and then go on to blame everyone else.
Leffler takes his usual low-road.
It's never his fault.
I tired of watching pit road. I
would like to see the racing. What
is the director's fixation with
lug nuts and impact wrenches?
Nice to see Dale Jarrett not having any of what Leffler was trying to say.
Love to see DJ become a strong force in the TV booth instead of Mr. Polite all the time.
His dad knew how to do it!
Glad all the drivers are o.k.
Hate to see a wreck like that.
ESPN did a good job with the replays.
Leffler is a terrible racer in general & really not good at rd racing. He never takes the blame either.
Some drivers just won't admit it when they mess up... Bobby Hamilton Jr. was the same way.
Did you see that Fruit of the Loom boy band ad? Creeped me out!
Steve, Leffler's personality was great for midget and sprint car racing, but he never "got it" when he came to NASCAR.
JD, I hate that Fruit of the Loom commercial, plus the one for Quiznos and those cats - they are both so irritating!
Quizno's has had some creepy commercials! Makes me neveer want to eat there...have no idea what they might put between the bread!
No love lost between Ambrose and good old Kyle. This is going to get interesting. I hope ESPN sticks with it.
Some good racing going on that we are seeing.
Wow!!!! Great having the overhead shot...really showed the action!
And Sally there's probably some good racing we aren't seeing either!
JD - What did you mean in the intro. column when you wrote that Reid needs to apologize for last week? Were you referring to the Sadler wreck failure, the debris caution failure, or something else?
That was an great sequence of racing between KyBu & Marcos.
Sounds like RW is winding down too besides the race like he's saying.
Steve, I was talking about Marty's comment to the in-race crew member.
They should probably just cover themselves by apologizing for the entire broadcast - lots of stuff went wrong :)
I don't understand the obsession with pit road.
You know it's good TV when we are not complaining!
DJ called out that Menard and Newman were side-by-side, and the director dumped the in-car cam for a shot of the battle - I like it.
I like that they seem willing to find the closest racing on track instead of just showing the leader out front running my himself. So far, so good.
Now, that's what I call a debris caution!
Now that's debris.
WOW! They showed the debris as it happened! Great move. AND...showing what happened to Kyle. And we can hear him whining.
Hear that sarcastic tone that DJ directed towards Kyle Busch? I'm liking his attitude today!!!
Great camera work picking up that weight coming out.
I've been enjoying the telecast.
If this is a preview of tomorrow, it's a good sign.
Yes, JD. Good racing and good coverage so far.
Great broadcast. I hope they close it out with a shot of everyone finishing.
GREAT shots of the finish. TEXTBOOK-WORTHY!!
With 3 laps to go a bad rain storm comes over us and we lose the satellite! Dang.
Freakin' EXCELLENT coverage of the finish!
Thank you, ESPN for letting us watch the battles to the finish line.
Take note for tomorrow, A team.
We will be back to live blog the trucks tonight at 8:30PM.
Thanks for sticking with us today.
I'll give this to Brad...when Marcos wins, he is very professional with his comments (not a cheerleader).
Hey!! they showed us all (or at least most) of the lead lap cars finishing!!!
Although road courses are not my favorite tracks, I think that ESPN did a good job today.
Have high hopes for tomorrow!
A enjoyable race to watch, even though I still want to either turn Rusty's mike down or off, preferably off and I too was impressed with the professionality of Brad after Marcos won, not a cheerleader, just good and solid. Looking forward to the broadcast tomorrow and hopefully it will be as solid as today
I'm thrilled for Ambrose. But I am also thrilled for the viewers because Nascar let the race play out. On road courses you don't need full course yellows every time someone sneezes.
Any chance they will let the Cup race run this way too?
I honest thought that this might just be the best coverage that ESPN has done since coming back to Nascar. They did a great job. I was totally amazed they showed the 01 and 15 (I think) battle to the checkered flag for like 18th. That's all you can ask for as a racing fan. Just simply show us the racing. Somebody, somewhere cares about what those cars are doing.
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