Friday's NASCAR TV Mess

Here we go with the channel surfing and the DVR programming for the NASCAR at Indy weekend. This is the recently changed Friday line-up. You may choose to take notes.

SPEED starts at 1PM ET with NASCAR Live. It will be Steve Byrnes, Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds at the SPEED Stage for this one hour live news and information show. Randy Pemberton and Hermie Sadler will report from the garage. The fun part is next.

At 2PM, it will be SPEED carrying the early session of Sprint Cup practice. I know that this was not reflected in the SPEEDtv.com schedule, but trust me...it is there. More info on this will appear next week in a column. Byrnes, Hammond and McReynolds will actually voice-over the practice from the SPEED Stage. Bob Dillner and Wendy Venturini will be handling the interviews as reporters.

Somehow, the early Sprint Cup practice at Indy found a live national TV home.

The ESPN gang will be up next with the second half of Cup practice and it will be shown on ESPN2 at 3:30PM. The entire crew will be on-hand led by Allen Bestwick in the infield and Jerry Punch in the announce booth. This coverage will last one hour.

At 4:30PM it will be SPEED picking-up with post-practice interviews as they originate a thirty minute version of NASCAR Live. Byrnes will host with Dillner reporting and he will be joined in the garage by John Roberts.

At 5PM it is time for the Craftsman Trucks to qualify over at O'Reilly Raceway Park on the other side of Indy. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons will call the action with Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander patrolling the garage and pit road.

It is decision time for fans as NASCAR Now is next at 6PM on ESPN2. Ryan Burr hosts from Bristol, CT with Allen Bestwick, Marty Smith and Nicole Manske reporting from The Brickyard. This is a special one hour live edition that should feature a lot of information and interviews.

Halfway through NASCAR Now, Trackside begins over on SPEED at 6:30PM. Byrnes, McReynolds, Hammond and Elliott Sadler make-up the Indy panel. Mark Martin and Travis Kvapil will be the two guests at the SPEED Stage.

Lots of fans are waiting for the final episode of Shifting Gears at 7PM on ESPN. This is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s original production from his Hammerhead Entertainment company and is the last of five episodes. The show is one hour in length and should be well worth watching or recording.

Things get racy at 7:30PM with The Set-Up on SPEED. Krista Voda hosts this thirty minute pre-race show for the NCTS. Allen and Parsons return to call the live racing action from ORP at 7:30PM.

For those of you who missed it the first time around, the NASCAR Confidential show that looks at the inner-workings of NASCAR officials and even Race Control will re-air at 10:30PM or immediately after the NCTS race concludes on SPEED. It is well worth watching.

Weekend Notes:
Saturday at 1:30PM - McReynolds and NASCAR Performance on SPEED
Saturday at 2PM - She's back! Jenna Fryer of the AP on Tradin' Paint on SPEED
Sunday at 11AM - Tony Stewart will be a live guest on RaceDay on SPEED

We will try to keep this post updated with any changes due to weather or scheduling on Friday. This is always a hectic TV weekend with all three series in the same town at two tracks. If you see an error or something changes, please feel free to drop me an email at the address on the main page to keep us updated.

This post will serve to let you voice your opinions about the TV scheduling on this Indy Friday. Fans without the ability to record one show while watching another are going to be making tough choices between good programs. It should be very interesting to watch all of this unfold live.

To add your comment, simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page. Thanks again for taking the time to stop by.

ESPN2 Returns The Sunday Night NASCAR Hour

Many times this season we have talked about the crowded landscape of preview and review shows that come along on a Sprint Cup Series Sunday.

ESPN recently announced that with the first race of its Cup schedule from The Brickyard, the network would once again be adding a full hour of NASCAR Now to ESPN2 on Sunday nights. These new shows will continue through the end of the season.

It will be Ryan Burr or Nicole Manske hosting the new Sunday night shows that will debut on July 27th at 10PM. Although the network offered a program like this last season, fans do not have to think hard to remember just how much has changed since 2007 where NASCAR Now is concerned.

Last month, we documented how the RaceDay program on SPEED had been pushed earlier in the day as to not interfere with the ninety minutes of Sprint Cup pre-race programming on TNT. Now, as ESPN takes that series, RaceDay will once again be scheduled ahead of the NASCAR Countdown show.

This really shuffles the deck in a hard way for SPEED. ESPN2 will have the first preview show with the morning edition of NASCAR Now at 10AM Eastern Time. Then, without RaceDay overlapping, NASCAR Countdown with Allen Bestwick will air with no competition. Finally, after Victory Lane has ended on SPEED with Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace, ESPN2 will off its own wrap-up show with NASCAR Now at 10PM.

Since ESPN is producing the races, the network has all of its resources available to contribute to the Sunday night show. Look for the continual presence of the lead announce team of Dr. Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree to provide wrap-up reports. On the ground, ESPN will have the four pit reporters and the regular NASCAR Now news team to provide additional interviews and chase down stories.

Ultimately, starting on July 27th there will be nine-and-a-half hours of TV programming containing NASCAR preview or review content on-the-air every Sprint Cup race day. We are excluding ESPNEWS and SportsCenter because they have no specific shows about NASCAR. The total is just from ESPN, SPEED, ABC and ESPN2.

It sure is tough to think about the Craftsman Truck Series that has no TV support programming of any kind. Other than the pre-race show, that series is just surviving on racing alone. The Nationwide Series is even in worse shape. Dominated by Cup drivers, ESPN2 does not even have a thirty minute weekly show to profile the competitors and follow the stories. Only the pre-race show tells the tale.

In a world where seemingly only the rich get richer, it would be a good time to clean out hard-drive on the DVR and empty the TiVo. With a four-hour live race thrown-in, there will be almost fourteen hours of NASCAR TV programming on every Sprint Cup Sunday for the rest of the season.

It just might be time to buy that new recliner.

The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page.

JD On The Rowdy.com Podcast

Surf on over to Rowdy.com and listen to me talk TV with Buck and Bass. The podcast is free and all you need to do is click on the Listen Now link on the right side of the page for the 7/23 episode.

The Rowdy.com podcast is in the Top 100 Podcasts list on iTunes. This is my second season of helping "the boys" and I appreciate the opportunity to talk TV for all their fans. For those of you not familiar with podcasts, this daily NASCAR show can be automatically uploaded to your iPod for free. Check the site for details.

Comments on my conversation with Buck can be made below on any topic discussed. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.