Your Turn: Sprint Cup Series From Fontana On ABC

This is an opportunity to voice your opinion on the ABC coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from Fontana, CA on Sunday afternoon.

Allen Bestwick hosted a one hour pre-race show with Brad Daugherty and Rusty Wallace from the Infield Pit Center. The focus of this show was the Chase for the Championship.

Jerry Punch called the racing action with Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the broadcast booth. Tim Brewer was in the Tech Center. On pit road were Shannon Spake, Jamie Little, Dave Burns and Vince Welch.

This big and fast track demands that the TV coverage goes back through the field to tell the stories and show the racing. In-car cameras used live are tough because the action happens quickly.

ESPN uses a scoring ticker on the top of the screen. Green flag pitstops are often the case at this track. Cars can come through the pack with new tires and some good adjustments.

What did you think of the TV coverage? To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Your comments will be read by thousands of Internet users over the next several days. It is important to make a record of what happened right after the race.

TV Troubles With Chase Easy To Understand

NASCAR has always prided itself on the ability to change to meet any situation. Rules are constantly updated, procedures are constantly changed and conversations about what can be done to make the sport better go on endlessly.

In the meantime, the sport is feeling the ill effects that The Chase is having on TV for the third straight season. What started as new and fresh is simply now stale and boring. No matter who tries to spin the reality, the results are clear in the TV ratings and ESPN's coverage.

Last week, we published "The Island of Brian France" to bring the genesis of the Chase format into perspective. The initial efforts of this new format to get attention away from the NFL, Major League Baseball and college football were clear and made sense at the time.

As we wrote last week, there was one big problem that remained:

There is one fundamental truth that France and ESPN have overlooked. NASCAR fans do not change their allegiance simply because their driver did not make the Chase. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth fans do not put on Jeff Gordon t-shirts and pull for the #24.

The focused coverage and media hype on the Chase drivers forces fans of non-Chasers to abandon their NASCAR TV viewing and wait once again for the Daytona 500. The fundamental problem with the Chase is there are more drivers outside of it than in it.

This season, we have been trying to convince ESPN that by putting the race first and the Chase second they could attract the fans that left NASCAR after the "regular season." This has not gone over well with some in the NASCAR media.

Click here for the recent article by Jeff Gluck from the scenedaily.com website. Gluck contends that the Chase drivers deserve the lion's share of TV coverage. Here is a quote:

The bottom line is that if you want your favorite non-Chase drivers to get more coverage, he’s going to have to do something to deserve it. In the meantime, the focus is where it should be: on the drivers running up front and competing for a championship.

The problem with Gluck's argument is the same one that France and ESPN seemingly cannot understand. Regardless of a driver's position in or out of the Chase, the fans are still focused on the same team they have pulled for all season long.

Putting the national TV spotlight endlessly on the chosen 12 eliminates the remaining fan base from watching the races. The position of the cars on the track makes absolutely no difference to fans of drivers like Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton or Michael Waltrip. They want a race story told to them that is all-inclusive, not purposefully selective.

During the Kansas race, ESPN rarely even reset the field after the caution periods. Stories that involved non-Chasers were routinely allowed to fade. The forced emphasis on the chosen few never allowed updates on fan favorites who were having a non-Chase season.

Once again in Kansas, listening to the radio coverage painted a completely different race picture than TV viewers were experiencing. The inclusive nature of radio continues to shame the TV coverage where the lonely scrolling ticker is often the only source of information on favorite drivers.

Certainly, the Chase drivers deserve emphasis at this time of the year. However, choosing to eliminate the other teams, drivers and sponsors from national TV exposure is once again teaching NASCAR and ESPN a valuable and rather expensive lesson.

We would like your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. 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.

Monday's NASCAR TV Tripleheader

A new hat was thrown in the TV ring this week. From out of left field, a new daily NASCAR TV show has appeared at a very strange time and for rather suspicious reasons. The network is SPEED and the show is called NASCAR Race Hub. This expands the weekday NASCAR TV to three original series.

It will be Mike Massaro hosting ESPN's entry on Monday at 5PM ET in a show that does not re-air. NASCAR Now has been a big winner for ESPN2 this season. While normally hosted by Allen Bestwick, Massaro has been solid filling-in as the host.

The big gift for Massaro is that he has an all-star panel. Ricky Craven, Ray Evernham and Randy LaJoie will be making conversation and taking NASCAR. These three are absolutely the best combination on this Monday hour. Chemistry is tough to find on a three man TV panel, but this group is just great to watch.

Next up will be the new kid on the block. NASCAR Race Hub will be co-hosted by Adam Alexander and Krista Voda for the inaugural show at 7:30PM. This duo has been doing very well on The SPEED Report and is a good choice for this assignment.

Richard Petty will guest on this program. Voda will also update the rather interesting truck series test going on at Rockingham starring some unusual racing personalities. The location of the new thirty minute show is the SPEED studios and the network promises a new and unique setting. It should be interesting.

The day is capped with This Week in NASCAR at 8PM. This week the mix of personalities makes it a can't miss episode. Steve Byrnes gets the assignment of hosting this show which has recently undergone some personality and format changes. Byrnes is a veteran who can go with the flow on most anything.

Greg Biffle made the Chase and then struggled from the start. He had conflict with the Logano family on Saturday and then would up getting spun after a strong run on Sunday. Biffle has been working hard on his TV presence. Monday should give him a good opportunity to do a lot of explaining.

Michael Waltrip quietly made his way into the top twenty in the Sprint Cup Series race without as much as a peep from the ABC telecast. He has also been rumored to be courting Danica Patrick for a rent-a-ride and spoke to the media about wanting to run the entire Nationwide Series himself in 2010. This week, Waltrip may have to answer some questions from another panelist on those topics.

Jimmy Spencer returns after an outspoken weekend on NASCAR RaceDay. Spencer has lots of opinions on the teams and drivers in the Chase. It should be interesting to see if he is allowed to express them this Monday or continue to be the muted and user-friendly version of himself that appeared last week. Let's hope SPEED turns him loose to shake-up this TV series.

Monday is setting up to be a good day of TV viewing or recording, depending on your time zone and viewing habits. While NASCAR Now is sometimes rather scripted, the two SPEED shows both have lots of unknown factors and lots of potential.

TDP will have a column up shortly after TWIN to allow you to comment on all three shows. In the meantime, please feel free to offer your opinion about this topic on this post. Just click the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.