Here is a review of what is going on Friday in terms of NASCAR TV:
SPEED is on the air at 10:30AM with Nationwide Series practice. The complete Friday NASCAR TV schedule is located on the left side of the website. Interesting to note that Darrell Waltrip will only do the early Sprint Cup Series practice. It will be Kyle Petty in the TV booth for final practice and qualifying coverage.
Because SPEED is covering the live Nationwide Series race, Trackside is being split into two shows of thirty minutes each. Matt Kenseth is the first guest at 7PM ET and David Gilliland is the nightcap at 10:30PM or at the conclusion of the live race.
NASCAR.com has announced that there will be a free RaceBuddy application for the Friday night Nationwide Series race. This should provide four additional cameras views and social media chat. Down the road, team scanners and live leaderboards will also be a part of this Internet tool.
Most everyone knows that the race will also bring Michael and Darrell Waltrip to the TV booth along with Rick Allen. Fans have suggested Allen bring everything with him from a hard hat to a fog horn. This idea of two Waltrip's is either going to be outstanding or cause a titanic trainwreck.
Thursday NASCAR hired a Vice President of Broadcasting. Steve Herbst is a stick and ball guy who worked heading-up CBS College Sports. Herbst first made his mark with a 20 year career at the NBA in a variety of TV and media roles. Herbst will be based in NASCAR's New York City office and will report to NASCAR Media Group President Paul Brooks.
Also on Thursday SPEED televised Denny Hamlin's late model charity race from the Richmond International Raceway. This was the first live telecast of this event, but when SPEED came on the air the K&N Series cars were sitting under rain tarps. Kudos to the network for showing the remainder of the K&N race and then airing the Hamlin event in full.
There is now a big push at SPEED for announcers to interact directly with fans via social media. There will be more detail on this topic tomorrow, but it is very clear that Twitter and Facebook are going to continue to be hotbeds of NASCAR content.
We will update any additional news that comes out on Friday, but in the meantime please feel free to offer comments on any of the Friday TV coverage on SPEED. Just click the button below to post your comment. Thanks for stopping by, there will be a live blog of the Nationwide Series race open at 7PM Friday night right here at TDP. See you then!
