Live Blogging Sprint Cup Series In Richmond (7PM - FOX)

The weather is great, the gopher is gone and the lights are on. The Sprint Cup Series is running at night on a short track that lends itself to great racing.

Chris Myers leads the Emmy Award winning NASCAR on FOX team on the air at 7PM ET. Myers will be joined by Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Hammond from the Hollywood Hotel for a thirty minute pre-race show. The green flag flies at 7:44PM.

Mike Joy calls the action with Waltrip and Larry McReynolds from the TV booth. On pit road are Steve Byrnes, Matt Yocum, Krista Voda and Dick Berggren. Voda will not be at the truck race Sunday in Kansas. Instead, she will head back to Charlotte and host The Speed Report.

Richmond is a short track with lots of action. It's tough to go in-car live for fear of missing action on the track. The aerial shot of the facility is beautiful and it also works to show a fantastic perspective on restarts.

The RIR pit road is great for the famous triple-split effect used on the caution flag pitstops. With the incredible importance on pit road tonight, it will be important to clearly document the stops. ESPN made a big blunder on the final stops in the Nationwide Series race and never recovered.

It's going to be important for the TV team to keep the intensity level high. Unlike the relaxed style that FOX brought to Talladega, the short track in Richmond deserves excitement from the TV booth. That means Darrell Waltrip may have to scale back his extended comments and stories this week.

This post is going to serve to host your comments on the TV coverage of the Sprint Cup Series from Richmond, VA. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for stopping by!

Live Blogging Nationwide Series From Richmond (7PM - ESPN2)

Allen Bestwick returns to handle the play-by-play duties at Richmond. This is the first of five Nationwide Series races that Bestwick will call in 2010.

First on the air is Nicole Briscoe, who is hosting the pre-race show with Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty. Wallace will move up to the booth and join Bestwick and Andy Petree for the race.

Down on pit road are Dr. Jerry Punch, Mike Massaro and Dave Burns. Along with Marty Reid, Jamie Little and Vince Welch are in Kansas this weekend working on an IndyCar race for ABC.

Richmond is a snug little track that makes for great racing and sometimes lots of caution flags where the Nationwide Series is concerned. It will be nice to hear Bestwick back on the race call.

Richmond under the lights makes for good TV, but not really from the in-car cameras. The laps are short and the racing is intense, so it is easy for the director to miss a lot of action while trying to use the in-car cameras.

This post will serve to host your comments on the ESPN2 coverage of the Nationwide Series from Richmond. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for stopping by!

SPEED Warms-Up Richmond Crowd For ESPN

It's always interesting when SPEED and ESPN share a day of NASCAR racing. Friday at Richmond International Raceway, the networks are at it again. SPEED is set to offer seven hours of NASCAR programming before handing off to ESPN2 for the Nationwide Series race.

The big boys from NASCAR on FOX are up first. Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds and Darrell Waltrip start the day at 12PM ET with Sprint Cup Series practice. In between the sessions at 1:30PM Steve Byrnes hosts an episode of NASCAR Live.

Randy Pemberton is with Byrnes on the SPEED Stage while Hermie Sadler and Bob Dillner handle the reporting duties from the garage area. This program is usually very interesting as the interviews from crew chiefs and drivers can indicate in which direction a team is going as far as dialing-in the car.

The NASCAR on FOX team again handles the second session for the Cup Series. Byrnes comes back at 3:30PM with NASCAR Live while the Nationwide cars are being lined-up for qualifying. This is a weekend where both qualifying sessions are on SPEED.

It will be Kyle Petty and Randy Pemberton in the booth for Nationwide Series qualifying at 4PM with Joy. Normally, Hermie Sadler, Byrnes and Jeff Hammond handle this session. On this Friday, however, Hammond and Byrnes will be busy taping the Trackside program while Sadler will be trying to qualify his own car for the Nationwide Series race.

Joy's long Friday finally comes to a close as he hosts Sprint Cup Series qualifying at 5:30PM with Waltrip and McReynolds. This trio has a lot of fun with these telecasts. Perhaps this week, some of that fun might translate over to the NASCAR on FOX Saturday night race coverage. FOX needs some energy in the booth right now.

ESPN has some new faces in new places this weekend. Allen Bestwick has moved into the TV booth to call the race while Marty Reid handles an IndyCar telecast for ABC in Kansas. Rusty Wallace and Andy Petree will be the analysts.

Nicole Briscoe comes over from the NASCAR Now program to anchor the Nationwide Series pre-race show that begins at 7PM. That is a new pic of Briscoe above courtesy of ESPN. You can click on it to see it full-size.

With Jamie Little and Vince Welch also covering IndyCars, Mike Massaro will return to his old stomping grounds and anchor the pit road team alongside Dr. Jerry Punch and Dave Burns. Shannon Spake is up at ESPN handling the NASCAR Now duties this week.

This post will serve to host the comments of the daytime coverage on SPEED. There will be a new post up for the Nationwide Series race on ESPN2. To add your comment about SPEED's Friday TV from Richmond, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

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