Once again this week, the normal college football scenario is in place. Once the noon ET game is over, NASCAR will start on ESPN2 from Dover.
Nicole Briscoe will have Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty in the Infield Pit Studio for the pre-race show. Daugherty has reduced himself to a cheerleader this season while Rusty continues to be conflicted between his own personal feelings on topics within the sport and his desire to function as a TV analyst.
It's Marty Reid with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the TV booth to call the race at 3:30PM ET. Reid is not having a very good time since being removed from the Sprint Cup Series package in favor of Allen Bestwick. NASCAR is not his sport and it's very clear ESPN made the right move.
Nationwide Series qualifying was carried on SPEED earlier in the day and SPEED analyst Elliott Sadler is on the pole. The field is diverse and this might be the best race of the weekend. Lots of different agendas at work on the track.
Dr. Jerry Punch, Jamie Little, Vince Welch and Dave Burns are on pit road. This group might be busy as Dover has a nasty reputation of big wrecks in the Nationwide Series races. There is no room to spin into the infield and no mercy on the highbanks.
ESPN continues to offer what they designed several years ago and that is "hyper-tight" coverage. Accidents and passing on this track happen so quickly TV networks traditionally kept the camera angles wide and simply worked to cut the cameras ahead of the pack. It should be interesting to see if ESPN uses the coverage today as a test for Sunday's Cup production.
This race is available to Time Warner, Bright House and Verizon FiOs users through the Watch ESPN app and there are free team scanners for fans at the NASCAR.com website.
This post will serve to host your comments on the NASCAR on ESPN coverage of the Nationwide Series from Dover. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.
119 comments:
Here we go folks. Track is fast at Dover and the field is full of some interesting types.
Just waiting on football...
Hiding from The Monster in the garage:
#04 Kelly Bires
#41 Johnny Chapman
#42 Tim Andrews
#44 Jeff Green
#46 Chase Miller
#47 Charles Lewandoski
#49 Mark Green
#50 TJ Bell
#71 Matt Carter
#75 Carl Long
#82 Scott Wimmer
Wow! 11?
Good grief...FOOTBALL !!
Steve....fifth straight year of putting the NNS pre-race show in a timeslot that does not exist.
I dont mind missing half the pre race because of football. Less Rusty and Brad is a good thing. Plus I love college football and this is fun watching close game.
15 min delay for pre-race show.
JD, don't we at least deserve a creative troll?
Nice Anthem!
Hi Planeteerz!
OK, here we go, this is going to be intense from the start. Hope ESPN is ready for the action.
This is the new Bristol!
Wow. mostly 'regulars' for in car cameras today. Hmmm.
Let's see how quickly the start and park guys flee to the garage.
Also, how quickly the leaders catch the tail of the field.
In car cam lap 2.
Tight two car shots lap 3.
Caution for debris and they actually showed it!!
Looks like it took about 6 laps for the S&P crowd to abandon the race, JD.
Nice broadcast so far. We saw some nice racing behind the leaders, we saw the debris, Marty updated the fleet of parks (10 in 6 laps, but some will come back out to leap-frog the others for points).
Yea, eleven cars. Man, that just gets my attention.
caution is out for the first time today - well considering they are only at lap 7, that's probably a GOOD thing.
Marty is so Captain Obvious! Don't know how much of this I'll watch - depends on how quickly the Cup drivers take over the event.
Hrm, impressed so far on Marty's performance, pardoning the command gaffe earlier. No screaming, able to conversate well with Dale and Andy (showed some of his IMS knowledge earlier.)
Marty has been around a long time. Just got thrown into a team already in trouble. He is also a very nice guy in person. Loves off-road and drag racing.
Yeah JD, 11 cars is rough.
well folks, I'm going to go back to doing housework, no need to watch the entire race - too many cup drivers.
Too bad Nascar doesn't encourage some of their 'officdial sponsors' to put their names on cars instead of the Nascar brand.
I guess our poor troll can't even find anyone who wants to go to a movied with him on a Saturday afternoon. Poor kiddie!
Man, I got socks older than his lines.
I did think this one would be a lot more intense.
Maybe after the next round of stops when the guys make changes it will get better.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
As I've said before, JD. we just keep digging throught that pile of manure, looking for the pony we think MUST be there!
Josh Wise pulled off the track lap 22. Park #12.
Joe Nemechek now pulling off...30 cars still running.
another caution for debris? SHow me.
Yep, wonder if they will tweak the rules again for this series next year?
I would watch the non-fulltime Cup guys race, but this is like two races in one.
Nemechek is not a park, his right rear rotor was on fire. The bearings are burnt.
Got to be frustrating for some of those guys who would race if they could afford it. Just how many of them are like that is the myster.
i'm going for farthest away on the blog...watching in switzerland using slingbox, have to love technology
y........
It's cross-promotion time.
That would win. No Makiki from Hawaii today.
I keep thinking about the 'good old days' when the Busch series had their own stars, guys who were happy to just run the series, not worried about Cup. Those were the days! Lots of short tracks...
I hear ya Sally. I remember Randy LaJoy and Buckshot Jones going after each other here at Dover, maybe 10 yrs ago? That was a hoot!
JD
Makiki from Hawaii is here.....just don't have any comments, yet.
I hate this S&P thing going on. It's too bad and happening more and more in CUP also. Soon, it will be a 10-15 car race in all three series.
It all comes down to tire costs. They're out of control. Fuel not an issue.
Now we have another unnecessary voice from the pit studio.
If the #15 & #41 had funding, they would race and the #71 & #75 would not exist
If the #40 & #46 had funding, they would race and the #42 & #47 would not exist
Tri-Star has the #44 park while the #19 races unsponsored, all 3 would race with funding.
The #04 and #82 are backups and would not show up if the fields were stronger
The #50 raced in the Truck series until moving up to Nationwide this year and running out of funds.
Since the pre-race started late do the commercials they would have ran in the pre-race get moved into the race itself.
This series is dying a slow death with no signs of getting better. NASCAR took the small tracks like South Boston, Nashville Speedway, etc. out of the series and put the cup tracks on the schedule. The Cup drivers are also dominating now rather than cup drivers driving in the series on a sporadic basis.
NASCAR needs to make this series what it truly was meant to be.
OK, it's time Nationwide sprang for a new commercial to run during the races. Much as I like JR, I'm sick of seeing this same ad 49 times during one race.
The trouble with that is BZF has no clue what the series used to be, or was intended to bo.
Why do an interview during a green flag race
Okay, so lets focus on everything but the race. Soooooooo tired of ESPN.
Hey Makiki! Not much to say about this one. I thought this one would be intense from the start, but it's two totally different groups of cars.
The haves and the have nots...
Maybe to keep us from noticing that, with 73 laps run, only 23 cars left on the lead lap?
'nother caution for debris. Show me, please?
With Travis Pastrana coming back, and NASCAR's desire that he will draw in more viewers, do you think NASCAR will put a jump on the track for Nationwide races? Or maybe a flaming loop-the-loop?
Can't wait to see the Crew Chiefs adjust for that!
Do they think we dont want to see the garbage debris? We just want to verify its not a bogus caution.
I'm feeling a nap attack coming on.
Bill,
Think about this one. Danica and Travis on the track with Carl Edwards in either the infield or the TV booth.
lol Bill, it would make the races a little more entertaining!
For the first time the scanner is right with what is on Tv or it is a bit ahead.
Working good for me too, Charlie.
Of all the sports Espn does the Nascar races are the only ones that have 3 to 4 bars running continually across the screen during a broadcast.
JD-
Carl in the booth? Hey man, I'm tryin' to eat here! Sheesh!
I like the way DJ doesn't pretend he's still driving. He says things like "the drivers tell me..." Very different from the other ex-driver commentators.
Seems that TV is 30 sec behind scanner by my guess with restarts and pit count downs.
could be worse
Carl is just running hard enough to maintain his lead. He's able to speed up whenever he needs to.
Why do they have to go to the infield for chat during a green flag? Not sure what purpose it serves.
Rusty says Brian Scott is "looking really well." He must have been sick. :)
Rusty.. Perhaps you didn't hear. The throttle is not sticking. It's not going down all the way. There's a difference. Please listen before commenting.
Too much commentary from the pit studio. This race isn't that long. I don't want to watch half of it with chatter from the Crusty and Crew.
Sometimes Rusty just amazes me.
All of the networks insist on cramming the pit studios down our throats. Then, since they're paying all those guys a bunch of money, they have to let them talk a certain amount of time.
Just told TV crew is making rain changes and getting equipment covered in Dover.
Commercial then go to the infield for a chat, commercial then go to up to speed, then I bet a commercial.
Not much talk from the 3 in the booth and this is a short race.
JD, now the poor troll is talking to himself online! He really is a sad case.
They need to ditch the pit studio for the NNS races.. How many times to we have to tell them that less is more. Use it for prerace or a rain delay.. Other than that, leave it alone. You don't need it. Really, it's not adding anything to the telecast.
Perhaps ESPN is mis-using their talent. Poor Brewer, who has more NASCAR knowledge in one toe than Big Brad has in his entire body, and far less annoying than Raving Rusty, is stuck giving us scripted responses from the Tech Garage.
Put Brewer in the Studio with Nicole, reassign Brad to be ESPN's version of Rutledge Wood, and put Rusty in something like the "Craftsman Driver's Dashboard" where he gives explanations of stuck throttles, and the favorite flavors in driver's water bottles.
I agree RWar24. For years we had just the booth guys at the top. Then they add an infield studio with the TV "Stars"(?) and pretend they're more important than the drivers? Gimme a break! NOT NEEDED! Does not add anything worth while.
Nicole is doing what she is told, but trying to insert Rusty and Brad into green flag racing is a disaster.
Remember, Rusty was removed from the booth after two seasons.
If you subtract the infield chat and the Up to speed stuff as a viewer we haven't seen much of this race.
I seem to remember wrecks at Dover. Hence the "self cleaning track" cliche. What happened? If this goes to yet another fuel duel, Im gunna quit.
Caution out, somebody hit a sand barrel
I guess Brian Scott is looking well anymore. What a dumb move.
Ooops! Isn't looking well.
Kudos for the Kenseth flashback.
Clean up....aisle 1.
Right. Jarrett replaced Rusty in the booth, and Rusty goes to the studio. Then he signs a contract extension with ESPN?
At least Rusty will have the cash flow needed to repair Steven's cars!
So they can sweep up the sand, but do they have to replace the barrel?
Think I've seen the Kenseth water barrel crash 3 times today alone.
Why are the crews out there sweeping up the sand? I thought Dover was a "Self Cleaning" racetrack?
From Kenseth on Twitter:
Hey, I thought there was water in those things!!! I guess they will never stop showing that clip...
Poor Matt. That's what happens when you have a spectacular crash...and his definitely was!
Bummer for Mike!
If something is going to happen, now is the time.
NASCAR will not like being called out like that!!!
I'm not holding my breath. Yawning a lot, but not holding my breath.
following Chad? REALLY?
Harvick Tweet:
KevinHarvick Kevin Harvick
Pretty amazing NASCAR can't police their own rules....guy pits while pits are closed and no penalty???#smdh
15 Laps to go.
Nope. At least we have not heard the fuel mileage words...yet.
32 car...couple of guys said same thing.
That shot of Chad was so awkward lol.
So, scoop is 32 ran out of gas...had to pit when pits were closed...but NASCAR apparently forgot to move him to the tail of the longest line.
DOH!
Busch....that really shows once again that the whole focus of this team is the Cup races.
If ESPN handed the NNS off to SPEED once they started covering Cup we would have the best of both worlds.
These guys need to have some fun with this.
The booth sure isn't calling much of the race. Lot of chit chat filler talk.
Yeah, Kchad is saying "Darn it! I can't sneak around anymore without those TV cameras following me around!"
The laps just keep clicking off... thanks for the insight, MArty
I agree JD, I'm just amazed the way they handled that. It was a tabloid style report. The cameraguy had to run faster than Chad to see his face, only for Chad to feel awkward and look everywhere but the cameraguy stalking him. Do they have to cover NASCAR like that?
Don't forget trucks tonight from Kentucky on SPEED at 7:30PM. They are sharing a race weekend with Danica...and the other IndyCar guys.
I gotta takea break. Maybe a nap.
Boy, I am sooo over Carl. What is this whole go in the stands thing about?
Wonder how many start and parks had their cars in the wind tunnel like carl edwards did.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well if that Edwards guy keeps dominating the Nationwide somebody will give him a chance in cup.
Im so glad I napped through that thing
JD, its like PR. He has to keep up the perception of the humble racer. This way when he pulls another stunt on the track people will forgive him bc he is a 'good guy'.
Well, have a good dinner break folks and we will see you tonight for the Camping World Trucks.
Pre-race 7:30PM, 8PM race coverage.
Every winner seems to need a signature gimmick. Carl in the stands,Brad driving around with the American flag. They're all gimmicks
Maybe it's me but Dadler always seems to find a way to lose....
The Suits at Fox prove once again .. they don't know what they
are doing.
Example telling us that mikey is
just great .. and giving us more of
him along the way.
What we need is LESS OF MIKEY !
I read their press release. Do not
EAT before you read it.
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