They have been doing it for years and know how to get it right. No Digger, no Tim Brewer and respect for all the teams and competitors. It's Friday on SPEED from Talladega.
Noon is Nationwide Series qualifying with Rick Allen, Kyle Petty and Jeff Hammond. Since Allen is on-site for the ARCA race, this is a good opportunity for him to get some more TV face-time working on the Nationwide Series. Hermie Sadler and Wendy Venturini are the reporters. Hammond and Petty have been fun to listen to when working with Steve Byrnes, Allen better hold on tight.
The Sprint Cup Series cars take to the track at 2PM. That session will be Mike Joy with Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds. Krista Voda and Matt Yocum will be the reporters. Waltrip is very different on SPEED. His FOX personality is gone and we get observations from a veteran driver. If only he could transfer that to Sundays.
John Roberts and Kyle Petty will be up next with NASCAR Live from the SPEED Stage. This little show is a great tool for highlights, to follow-up on stories in-progress and do live interviews. Randy Pemberton and Wendy Venturini will be the reporters.
The final Sprint Cup Series practice is next at 3:30PM with Joy, Waltrip and McReynolds. This time, Steve Byrnes and Dick Berggren will be reporting. By this time, we should have a very clear picture of whether the "lovebug" style of two car drafting will be the order of the day in the actual race.
Roberts returns with Pemberton, Sadler and Venturini for the final edition of NASCAR Live. This show will bridge the time to the 5PM ARCA race.
Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Kenny Schrader call the live ARCA race, which has proven to be both exciting and rather dangerous over the past several years. For you IndyCar fans, the one and only Milka Duno is racing again so that alone should add some spice. Bob Dillner and Ray Dunlap will be covering pit road.
The night ends with Trackside at 7PM and then SPEED Center at 8PM. Adam Alexander has been given the task of trying to get a general interest live motorsports studio show up and running and slowly but surely SPEED Center is getting better.
Trackside has an identity crisis and I am not sure how it will be solved. Byrnes leaves the show as host once the FOX portion of the Sprint Cup Series season is over and that time is rapidly approaching. The new set is disjointed and while the conversation is still interesting, Darrell Waltrip often appears to be out of the loop of current events.
This weekend Brad Keselowski, Slugger Labbe and Paul Menard are the guests. It should be interesting to see how the production team integrates three guests into this one hour show. Trackside has tons of potential, it just has to find it's way since leaving Larry McReynolds behind.
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