The situation could not be worse for ESPN in Phoenix. Sunshine today has made the newly-paved single groove Phoenix International Raceway into an ice rink.
The start of the race and double-file restarts are going to be almost impossible. No drivers were able to run two-wide in any of the practice sessions. Despite being on the track alone, Nationwide qualifying was determined by who stayed on the rubber in the groove and who went high.
Nicole Briscoe opens things up at 3PM with NASCAR Countdown. Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty are alongside Briscoe in the Infield Pit Studio. The track is the big issue but other stories include the championship, Danica Patrick racing today and no Kyle Busch in the field.
Marty Reid is limping his way though this season of disappointment. He was removed from the Sprint Cup Series telecasts and replace by the infield host just days before the ESPN coverage began. He has two Nationwide Series telecasts remaining and his assignment for next season has not yet been revealed. He should have his hands full today.
Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree are the color commentators. They are focused on the Sprint Cup Series, but ESPN refuses to bring in two other announcers for these final races. Petree continues his solid performance, while Jarrett waffles between outspoken and politically correct. It's been an interesting season for these two.
Jamie Little, Dr. Jerry Punch, Vince Welch and Dave Burns are on pit road. Tim Brewer is in the Tech Garage. Expect Brewer to be on the spot for the track conditions and tire issues. The pit reporters may be very busy if this race becomes a crash-fest.
ESPN is going to have a tough time staying "hyper-tight" with the track problems. Anytime two cars are double-wide the cameras need to move in that direction. There is simply no way they will make it through the corner. In qualifying, we saw that sometimes one car could not navigate the turns at speed.
PIR is one of the tracks where a red flag is thrown quickly. The track has speed, but there are many locations were a two or three car incident will immediately block the track. NASCAR race control's radio will be live on NASCAR.com today. Look for the Nationwide Series scanner link. You have to sign-in, but it's totally free.
This post will host your comments on the ESPN2 coverage of the Nationwide Series telecast from PIR today. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by.
214 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 214 of 214Half the equipment, half the manpower, half the on-air talent.
Better production, more information and better pictures.
Go figure.
Sam Hornish wins his first Nascar race and ESPN couldn't wait for the viewers to hear & see an interview. Pretty bad if you ask me! We don't have ESPN360 so we missed it!
It was awful, Vicky.
I can't believe how young some of these drivers are and how quick their reflexes are.
Nice camera work. The whole Speed team cares about racing, you can tell.
15 Laps to go.
Makes you wonder how much of the NNS we missed because of bad camera work.
Will they show the Winner's interview or go to football -
Oh that's right, this is the Speed Channel and they will do a post race.
Nice job by SPEED.
hey jd any rumor about a rule to eliminate shortcutting the dogleg tomorror?
I wish all TV networks would cover races the way Speed covered the K&N race. Lots of wide shots, announcers talking intelligently about what was happening, and several post race interviews. And they apparently did it with a lot less cameras than the botched ESPN NNS race coverage. Can't wait for who ever that new network is that JD has hinted about a few times!
Anon,
Steve O'Donnell from NASCAR said no.
Didn't watch the whole race,got back from shopping and watched the last part.Somebody please tell me if there were more than 2 cars left in the last 12 laps on the track.
WOOT!! Listening to the NNS race re-air on Sirius/XM NASCAR. Claire B Lang gave a bit of a slam-dunk to ESPN for bailing out so quick after the end of the race, then said the Sirius/XM was going to extend their post race coverage by an hour due to the late finish. Loved it! I know some of ya do not like Claire B Lang, but gotta love her for saying what's on her mind instead of being politically correct!
Well I just finished watching the race on my DVR. Wish I had thought to also DVR ESPN News, because I got no postrace.
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