Petty On A Long Road To Michigan For TNT

Trip number one is over and trip number two is in-progress. Kyle Petty is making good on his promise to ride his motorcycle to all six of the TNT races. These pics show Petty and his sidekick SPEED's Rutledge Wood leaving from North Carolina for Michigan, stopping for gas along the way and finally being located by some NASCAR fans using Twitter.

Petty has pushed the new media envelope this season like never before where NASCAR on TV is concerned. He first documented his most recent charity ride and now is aggressively pouring time and effort into pumping-up the NASCAR on TNT races.

It only takes a couple of minutes to sign-up for Twitter and for NASCAR fans it certainly seems to be worth it. All it does is offer updates from the folks you choose to follow. No spam, no email and nothing you don't control. It is free and there are tons of NASCAR drivers, tracks and websites (like TDP) who post information, story links and pictures. Click here for a great list.

With all the tough economic times and sad stories like Johnny Benson and Jeremy Mayfield, the Petty summer travels are a nice positive change of pace. Dubbed "The Ponytail Express" by Kyle, this is first-hand proof that someone in the media is putting themselves out there for the fans to see.

The TNT guys are calling Happy Hour practice on Saturday and then handling the Sprint Cup TV duties on Sunday. In addition, Petty and Wood continue to tape the NASCAR Smarts trivia show that essentially replaced the Tradin' Paint series on SPEED.

Even with his weekly opinion show gone, Petty is zooming ahead by skipping right by the media, his producer and even the NASCAR brass. Before, during and after the time he is on TV, Petty is actively commenting, taking pictures and asking questions of the fans directly.

This past weekend, Petty snapped pictures of everyone from Larry McReynolds to Mike Helton during the pre-race show and then asked for questions from the fans during the commercial breaks. During the race, fans would ask about issues like "mystery cautions" and "phantom debris." Petty piped right-up and asked his fellow announcers and the producer why the caution flag waved. How is that for service?

At Michigan, TNT is going to have Detroit native Kid Rock stop-by the pre-race show. Also, Richard Childress and Clint Bowyer will appear as guests. Fox's Darrell Waltrip will be featured on the Pride of NASCAR series while reporter Lindsay Czarniak goes into Race Control to find out how they figure out the new double-wide restart order.

Ralph Sheheen drew the lucky card and gets a personal tour of Jack Roush's private garage. Roush is all about cars and this is going to be a great peek into his personal car collection. Finally, Wally Dallenbach gets to explain MIS when he is superimposed over race footage in the new version of Wally's World.

Once the race is over, the TV crew and the NASCAR teams will be rushing for the airport to get home as soon as possible. For Petty and Wood, they will be staring at a pending trip to Sonoma, CA and then a return trip all the way to Loudon, NH.

Maybe like Alicia and Barbara above, you might wave hello or stop and say hi if you spot this crazy pair zooming by as they follow the NASCAR trail for the next couple of weeks. It's just nice to have some of the focus back on the fun side of NASCAR and the free spirits that still exist in the sport.

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ESPN Continues To Serve A New NASCAR Role

What would NASCAR fans do without NASCAR Now? In its third season, this daily ESPN2 show started out as a joke with awful announcers and even worse producers. Tuesday, the 2009 version showed why it has become "must see TV."

Ryan McGee has been fearless since his arrival at ESPN as a NASCAR writer and reporter. His interview with Aaron Fike turned the NASCAR world upside-down and sparked a major change in the sport's drug policy. Now, McGee is once again reporting the kind of news that gives everyone in and out of the sport a reality check.

Meth is a word that most of us know very well. We see it on the news and it normally involves police activity and broken lives. We see it on special shows presented on cable TV as the new drug scourge of this country. Methamphetamine is the illegal drug that NASCAR contends Jeremy Mayfield tested positive for in Richmond.

It was Mike Massaro in his first season as one of the series hosts who drew Wednesday's show as his assignment. Massaro quizzed McGee on how he found the information, what it meant and if it all could just be a simple mistake.

McGee reported the facts and didn't stray into opinion. Even with the drug known, Mayfield's camp contends the false positive was a result of Adderall and ClaritinD being combined by Mayfield on the weekend in question. McGee pointed out that after a first positive, a second more specific test for meth should have been done by Aegis.

Should is a key word, as NASCAR and Aegis are now under a gag order imposed by the court. Until the time for trial comes around, no one will know anything more than that the substance in question is methamphetamine.

Dr. Gary Wadler returned to the show as an expert. Wadler is from the World Anti-Doping Agency and he clearly has the most veteran perspective on the issue. He emphasized that it is still not known whether Mayfield was involved recreationally with this drug days prior to racing or used it on a race day.

Wadler is not a fan of the NASCAR policy and made his views quite clear. At times, he sounded like Mayfield's lawyer. "There is no published list of banned substances," said Wadler. "It's a very unusual (drug) protocol."

"Woefully lacking in all the details," commented Wadler on the NASCAR policy. "The root of all of it is what drugs are banned? If you can't answer that question, you cannot start (the program)."

While Massaro tried to re-focus on Mayfield's alleged use of meth as performance-enhancing, it did not make a lot of sense. Wadler said meth can be detected in the system days after use, so the issue of performance-enhancement vs. recreational use was going to remain up in the air until all the facts were revealed.

What better person to comment on this situation next than Ricky Craven. All season long, Craven has been the heart-and-soul of the Monday NASCAR Now roundtable and a tremendous analyst in the studio. The look on his face was more than serious, it was almost painful.

Craven said he was thinking about all the effort, the support and the help that a person needs to even get to the Sprint Cup level. He talked about the luck, the good decisions and the perfect timing it takes to be one of the 43 in the starting field.

"No where in there is there room for all this (drug) stuff," said Craven. "It never really existed in my mind and here we are dealing with it...and it really bothers me. None of what I just heard makes any sense to me."

Craven's point was that even the thought that the driver beside you at speed on the track may be impaired would change some of the dynamic of NASCAR racing.

Massaro later switched gears and talked with Johnny Benson. The issue was Benson's truck series team shutting down and putting the defending champion on the sidelines. Benson is great on TV and kept things upbeat. Economic reality was the reason, not performance or team problems. Only dollars in the door would return Benson's team this season.

Over the next several days, NASCAR Now should be expanding this new perspective on Mayfield and the overall issue of illegal drugs. There are still a lot of facts remaining to be seen, but McGee and Wadler put a lot of information out to the fans and kept it all in perspective.

Massaro returns on Wednesday at 5PM ET with Carl Edwards as a guest. Nicole Manske takes over the hosting duties on Thursday for the rest of the week. Perhaps, few of us knew that ESPN's NASCAR reporters would be spending time this season dealing with drug issues and investigative reporting.

It's just nice to have a TV platform like NASCAR Now that allows fresh and topical news stories to be delivered directly to the fans.

TDP welcomes comments from readers. Just click on the comments button below to add your opinion on this issue. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to drop by The Daly Planet.

SPEED And NASCAR Hiding Truck Series Reality

The Monday news release was easy to understand. "Red Horse Racing regretfully announces the closure of the #1 Toyota Tundra driven by Johnny Benson. The decision is effective immediately."

Just like that, the reigning Camping World Truck Series champion was gone. No sponsor, no dollars and no more hope.

The last race for the CWTS was in Texas and carried live on SPEED. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons have teamed-up for years as the TV faces of this national series. SPEED has a separate producer assigned to the CWTS and the telecasts for the last several years have been steadily gaining viewers. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the Texas race may have changed the way some NASCAR fans view both SPEED and its experienced announcing duo. Regardless of the reason, a decision was made prior to the start of the Texas race that is still mystifying. SPEED decided to ignore reality.

We all know times are tough. When IRL teams like Rahal-Letterman are parked and the NHRA is a shadow of its former self, that truth is certainly hammered home. While mergers solved some problems in the Sprint Cup Series ranks, the trucks have taken it right in the teeth. Last Friday may have been a truly defining moment.

The Texas race started 33 trucks, with several of the drivers being new names to the series. That in itself is not news, as the trucks often see teams try to qualify for a single race. Regional teams trying to make the move to the national level often choose the trucks as a first step.

Krista Voda presented the pre-race show with her usual smile and charm. Pit reporters Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander updated the top teams and the stories of the day. Allen and Parsons then took over as the trucks moved out on the pace laps.

Once the green flag flew, SPEED inserted the ticker at the top of the screen that updates the positions of the trucks on the track. On this day, that single strip of electronic information would be the only thing at TMS speaking the truth to the television viewers.

As usual, a field of only 33 trucks got strung-out rather quickly on the big TMS oval. Then, it began. The ticker at the top of the screen started listing trucks at the back of the field as "off." While Allen and Parsons continued to talk about the action at the front of the field, truck after truck made the big left-turn into the TMS garage and simply parked.

Before lap 40, almost one-third of the entire Camping World Truck Series starters had parked. 10 trucks were in the garage packing to go home before the first pit stop for fuel. Click here for NASCAR's finishing order. Terms like handling, ignition and transmission were listed as reasons these teams left the race.

NASCAR fans know better than that. As ESPN's Randy LaJoie would say, these were the "valet parking" teams. They fully intended to start and then park as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, in the SPEED TV booth, things were all rainbows and roses. Allen and Parsons never referenced that 10 of the 33 competitors in a nationally televised race had simply parked. From high above TMS they had both watched as this unfolded, but never said a word about it. The reason is simple.

Everyone but the SPEED TV viewers and the fans in the grandstands knew about it in advance.

We often refer to SPEED as the little network that could. Chugging along after starting as Speedvision, the cable TV company was actually moved to Charlotte, NC to become a full time NASCAR cable channel years ago. It never happened.

Instead, the resulting TV hybrid is a mix of reality and lifestyle programming blended with pre and post-race shows from the NASCAR tracks. Throw-in a smattering of open wheel racing and special events and the network is a mish-mash of the highest order.

The only high-profile NASCAR series carried on SPEED is the Camping World Trucks. The network even produces and televises the post-season banquet. To many viewers, Krista Voda embodies the friendly and honest nature of this series full of colorful characters and good human interest stories. Allen and Parsons seem more like friends than announcers as they let the action on the track take center stage.

That may be why it was so tough to watch the Texas race unfold as racing reality and the SPEED on-air presentation took two very different roads. If NASCAR and SPEED decided to take this approach in some public relations move, they certainly paid a price. In the mainstream media, however, there was barely a whisper.

Click here for a good story from Truckseries.com that tells the tale. "This was hardly the Truck Series we've come to know and love," it said. Matt McLaughlin at Frontstretch.com also mentioned it in his outstanding Monday column.

The issue of hiding reality goes back this season to TDP's problems with SPEED in February. This column documented the sharp contrast between what SPEED was "selling" to the fans and what the personalities really thought. The only way the truth leaked-out was a technical mistake.

As the remainder of this season goes by, there has to be a reality check from the NASCAR TV partners and there is a good reason why. NASCAR fans are not stupid. They follow their favorite drivers and teams online and live in the real world every single day. The role of TV in this sport is to accurately report, not to manufacture a new NASCAR reality and hope to get away with it.

The truck series is heading for Michigan and will hopefully pick-up some additional teams as Sprint Cup drivers cross-over for this event. It will certainly not be the same without Benson, but the real question is whether SPEED will decide to step-up and begin to restore the credibility lost after the Texas telecast.

TDP welcomes comments from readers. Just click on the comments button below to add your opinion on this topic. 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.