Weekend TV News And Notes

Pictured above is the 1991 Sports Emmy given to the old ESPN Speedworld gang for the track-level camera that has been recently revived by Fox for that network's Digger creation. Emmy awards and NASCAR go way back.

The new Sports Emmy nominations have just been released. Click here to view the Emmy homepage. Just use the drop-down menu in the upper right and click on sports. Here are the NASCAR-related nominations:

ESPN
Outstanding Technical Team Remote: ESPN NASCAR 2008
Outstanding Technical Team Studio: ESPN NASCAR 2008 (Pit studio and Tech Center)
Outstanding Live Event Audio/Sound: ESPN NASCAR 2008
George Wensel Technical Achievement Award: Draft Track 2.0
Outstanding Open/Tease: 2008 Indianapolis 500: The Perfect Storm

NASCAR on Fox
Outstanding Technical Team Remote: 2008 NASCAR on Fox
Outstanding Live Event Audio/Sound: 2008 NASCAR on Fox
Outstanding Live Sports Special: 2008 Daytona 500
Outstanding Live Sports Series: 2008 NASCAR on Fox
Outstanding Sports Promo Episodic: Engine City

TNT
Outstanding Live Sports Series: 2008 TNT Summer Series
Outstanding New Approaches Sports Event Coverage: Racebuddy

Voom
Outstanding Camera Work: Quest For The Cup (NASCAR Media Group) This is the old Beyond The Wheel series that used to be on SPEED. Anyone have Voom?

Andy Hillenburg continues his quest to get the Rockingham Speedway running as a successful stock car track. He is naming the Media Center after legendary racing journalist Chris Economaki. In addition, he is naming the turn four grandstands after veteran racer Kenny Schrader. ARCA and UARA cars run there in April. Rockinghamspeedway.com is the homepage.

Jeremy Mayfield has a lead role in the new music video by the rock group Saving Abel. Their new single, titled "Drowning Face Down," depicts Mayfield as a small town racing hero. Also appearing in the video are Brian Vickers, Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer. SavingAbel.com is the homepage.

The new season of the independent TV series 3 Wide Life starts this week on regional sports networks and local TV stations nationwide. Shane Hmiel returns and interviews Tony Stewart while Hmiel is on-scene racing in the Chili Bowl. Charlotte's Brittney Cason returns as host, Tony Rizzuti is back with his technical racing feature and this year Meghan Stanton will appear to update fans on the online options available with the series. 3widelife.com is the homepage and good luck to all involved.

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Regional Racing And "NASCAR Now" Still Can't Connect

This is the third season of the daily NASCAR Now program on ESPN2. The series has grown by leaps and bounds from its early painful days of clueless announcers and a rookie production staff into a solid news and information show.

Unfortunately, the production team's learning curve continued this week with some of the content choices on the Tuesday and Wednesday shows. These two days, especially Wednesday, have long been suggested by TDP for regional updates and highlights.

Perhaps, some racing fans may remember "Open Wheel Wednesday" where ESPN's RPM2Night show used this mid-week day to show regional racing highlights. Well, this would have been the week to start for 2009.

When Rick Hendrick celebrated his 25th anniversary in NASCAR this past weekend, it dominated the media up to, during and after the Sunday Sprint Cup Series race. Hendrick certainly deserved the attention, but so does another family of racers.

Thompson International Speedway, just a short and scenic drive down the road from ESPN, will be hosting the opening of the 25th season of the NASCAR Modifieds. Sponsored by Whelen, the Mods open with the traditional "Icebreaker" on Sunday afternoon in the Connecticut countryside.

Names like Jimmy Blewett, Teddy Christopher and Eddie Flemke Jr. might not be known nationwide, but these racers have a big following on the East Coast. Ask around about Reggie Ruggiero, Jamie Tomaino and Mike Stefanik from Maine to Florida. Stefanik alone is a seven-time season champ of the Whelen Mods.

Tuesday, NASCAR Now took an entire segment to interview Dario Franchitti, primarily because the IRL opener is this weekend in Florida. ESPN will not telecast the race, the Versus network has its own IRL show and Franchitti does not even race in NASCAR.

Wednesday, it was Brian Vickers in the ESPN2 studio talking in circles about his season and then wasting time with a foolish interview of reporter Marty Smith. Even host Nicole Manske seemed annoyed. "Where is this going?" she asked.

This time could have and should have been spent talking about any of the three NASCAR regional series in action this weekend. The Southern Mods are at historic South Boston Speedway and the Camping World West racers are at All American Speedway for Saturday night shows.

Ironically, NASCAR Now has awkwardly stabbed at the regional series in the past, including having several of the Modified drivers in the ESPN2 studios. Despite the fact that video clips and highlights are easy to get, NASCAR Now continues to be hypnotized by the Sprint Cup Series.

Meanwhile, 25 years after Ritchie Evans roared home with the first Modified win at Thompson, a field of 36 cars sponsored by local companies like Triple G Scaffold Services, Buoy One Seafood and Reen Othodontics will begin another storied NASCAR tradition right in ESPN's backyard.

Maybe, someone at NASCAR Now will open the door and discover the racing reality that many fans have known about for a very long time. 25 years, in fact.

TDP welcomes comments from readers. Just click on the comments button below and follow the easy instructions. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

Thank you for taking the time to read The Daly Planet.

NASCAR About To Lose The ESPN "Overflow" Channel

Once and a while The Sports Business Journal turns an eye to TV and this week it reported on some news from ESPN. It may well impact NASCAR in a couple of months.

Here are some excerpts from a story by SBJ's John Ourand:

Executives in Bristol, CT are set to allow cable and satellite distributors to swap the ESPN Classic sports channel for its college network, ESPNU, which they hope presents a newer, hipper alternative to Classic’s staid and often dated programming

ESPN Classic is in more than 63 million homes, typically on analog and digital basic tiers. By contrast, ESPNU is in about 25 million homes, mainly on digital basic tiers

A deal clearly would mostly help ESPNU, which is battling another collegiate sports channel, CBS College Sports Network, for carriage deals on the nation’s cable and satellite systems. The channel, which launched in the spring of 2005, has been at the center of ESPN’s most recent media deals.

ESPNU will pick up a significant part of ESPN’s SEC schedule and is expected to run shoulder programming that supports ESPN’s BCS package.

Click here to read Ourand's full article.

In a nutshell, ESPN is looking to encourage cable operators to carry the ESPNU Network. For those cable systems who already have ESPN Classic, there is now an easy solution to this problem. Just replace Classic with the ESPNU college channel and call it a day. All of this can now be done with ESPN's official blessing.

This move is crucial to ESPN, a company who has been on a buying spree where college television rights are concerned. Billions of dollars have been spent and just like the NASCAR situation, there are simply not enough ESPN TV networks to carry the product.

Back in early 2007, we suggested that ESPN use the Classic Network to carry NASCAR when there was a live event conflict. We were laughed off the Internet. Click here for a review of that story.

Now, two years later, ESPN Classic has become a crucial link to NASCAR TV during the college football season. This is especially true for the Nationwide Series, the only NASCAR racing series that ESPN carries from start to finish.

In this newly proposed scenario, ESPN Classic could effectively be reduced in size from over 60 million to as few as 25 million homes nationwide. Adding "the U" and dumping Classic is a no brainer to the cable systems at this point in time. The college product is hot and ESPN Classic's main fare is dated program re-airs.

Here in March, this might be a topic easily forgotten. But come September when the Nationwide Series has been racing for seven months and suddenly a college football game blocks the action on ESPN2, there may be 40 million less NASCAR fans that have any kind of solution to that problem.

TDP welcomes comments from readers. Just click on the comments button below and follow the easy instructions. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.