Live Blogging Sprint Cup Series From MIS (TNT - 12PM ET)

TNT rolls into Michigan for what many expect to be a fuel mileage shootout among the Ford teams. Ford dominated the Nationwide Series race on Saturday and has quickly become the engine story of this season.

Lindsay Czarniak will be hosting the Countdown to Green pre-race show. She will be joined by Kyle Petty and Larry McReynolds. This week's Pride of NASCAR will feature AJ Foyt. Driver Carl Edwards will join the TNT on the Infield Rig during the show.

Adam Alexander will call the race with Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach Jr. alongside. On pit road will be Chris Neville, Matt Yocum, Ralph Sheheen and Marty Snider.

Once again this week Turner Sports will offer the expanded RaceBuddy application. Having this for MIS is the same kind of positive element that Pocono enjoyed last week. Despite perhaps the race appearing to be boring at times on TV, once fans were allowed to make their own online choices about what to watch things stayed interesting.

This year RaceBuddy has also put the actual TNT call of the race on both mosaic channels. This allows fans who do not have access to the TV to finally be able to see and hear the races. If TNT added a single channel of the actual TNT feed, then NASCAR would have finally become a portable online sports product.

The downside of TNT is that the network is dominated by entertainment programming. The pressure for live sports to get off the air and make way for promotion of new shows was evident last weekend. Despite an early finish, TNT did only a basic set of post-race interviews and then departed.

The TNT PR folks said that additional interviews would be done on RaceBuddy, but that simply did not happen. The only thing provided was the usual post-race press conference coverage from the Infield Media Center.

NASCAR is a sport most closely associated with golf. Once the action is done, there are plenty of stories to tell and every athlete involved in the competition that day has fans looking for information. Now well into the heart of the season, TNT would be better served to use the pit reporters and fill the allotted time.

As usual, there is a lot of media pressure on Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win today. While his team is running well, the buzz is that the Fords have an advantage at MIS. It should be interesting to see how TNT treats the most popular driver on today's telecast.

As of 10AM, it was raining on the IndyCars in Milwaukee and the NHRA folks in Bristol, TN. No such problems at MIS, where the weather is expected to be good and the race should run as scheduled. The Saturday crowd was light, so keep an eye on the grandstands today.

This post will serve to host your comments on the TNT coverage of the Sprint Cup Series from MIS. To add your TV-related comment, just click on the comments button below. You can also follow us at twitter.com/thedalyplanet for live NASCAR chat during the race. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Live Blogging Nationwide Series From MIS (ABC - 3PM ET)

Marty Reid is once again off in IndyCar land. So, it will be Allen Bestwick calling today's Nationwide Series race from MIS with Rusty Wallace and Andy Petree alongside.

Nicole Briscoe steps into the Infield Pit Studio with Ricky Craven and Wallace. Dale Jarrett and Brad Daugherty are off this weekend. Down on pit road are Mike Massaro, Shannon Spake, Dr. Jerry Punch and Dave Burns. Tim Brewer will be in the Infield Tech Center.

This is one of those weekends when NASCAR gets a nice exposure for the Nationwide Series on ABC. While there are other sports in progress, there is no NBA, NFL and the NHL season is now over. Great opportunity for some quality exposure.

Nationwide Series regular Justin Allgaier is the in-race reporter and ESPN has a solid number of in-car cameras for this event. MIS is often a fuel mileage race and it takes some consistent work from the guys in the TV truck to keep it interesting for viewers.

This post will serve to host your comments about the ABC coverage of the Nationwide Series from MIS. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Waltrip Back On TV Friday From MIS

It's been a heck of a week for FOX and SPEED's Darrell Waltrip. At 11:30AM on Friday, SPEED announcer Rick Allen may well be the first to welcome now NASCAR Hall of Famer Waltrip back to the broadcast booth.

Waltrip begins his weekend of TV work with Nationwide Series practice at 11:30AM ET. Larry McReynolds will join Allen and Waltrip in the booth for that session.

SPEED actually kicks-off the day at 11AM with NASCAR Live. John Roberts and Jeff Hammond will set the scene at the track. Hermie Sadler and Randy Pemberton are the reporters. The full TV schedule for Friday is on the left side of this page.

Waltrip is now done with his FOX duties. The only reason he is still on TV is because he is filling in at SPEED for Kyle Petty during the six TNT races. This weekend finds Waltrip in the TV booth, on the Trackside panel and finally alongside of Kenny Wallace and Roberts on RaceDay.

Earlier this year we talked about the desire of senior FOX Sports executive David Hill to raise Waltrip's TV profile throughout the entire NASCAR season. In the past, Waltrip departed after the final FOX race. Elliott Sadler used to replace him on Trackside for the rest of the year. SPEED has no official update on what will happen with Trackside talent after the TNT races are over.

Waltrip has talked about wanting to be more involved in NASCAR TV coverage when the FOX races were done. He began appearing all over the SPEED coverage of the final weekend of racing in Homestead, FL. Things grew from there.

Now, he is with TV viewers all summer and by being around for Trackside and RaceDay he is also available to get into the TV booth for some practice and qualifying coverage. There seems to be a little trend developing here.

It should be interesting to see how Waltrip handles his new Hall of Fame status on the air. There is little doubt it will be a topic mentioned many times throughout the weekend. Life has truly changed for Waltrip and just like being a Daytona 500 winner or a Sprint Cup Series champ, things will never be the same again.

The twist in Friday NASCAR TV is the fact that SPEED is sneaking in live the ARCA race from MIS at 5PM ET. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons do a good job on this coverage.

This post will serve to host your comments about the Friday TV coverage from MIS by SPEED. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.