Midweek NASCAR TV Bonanza

What a wild Wednesday for both NASCAR fans and TV viewers. ESPN2 is offering coverage of the NASCAR trip to the White House while SPEED is offering a doubleheader from one of the best tracks on the circuit.

It will be a special time of 4:30PM when Nicole Manske leads ESPN2 onto the air with a special one-hour White House edition of NASCAR Now. A large group of NASCAR drivers and personalities are going to be meeting the President and getting the tour.

Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty will be participating while Marty Smith gets stuck reporting on the festivities. The President seems to be very sports-minded and it should be interesting to see the interaction with the group.

Update: Thanks to ESPN for the information that Manske and Daugherty will speak with the President live on NASCAR Now.

TDP will live blog this event for those of you who would like to express opinions and offer comments on the show. There have been several high-profile specials done by NASCAR Now over the past three seasons. Some have been wonderful and several have been disasters. This series has come a very long way and there is little doubt that ESPN will have things buttoned-up for this show.

Once everybody calms down, it will be time to go racing. SPEED made a great decision to carry the Whelen Modified race from Bristol, TN at 7PM ET. Even better news is that NASCAR on Fox's Mike Joy and Dick Berggren will call the race with Bob Dillner down on pit road. This is a very historic series with great action and colorful personalities. It should be fun to watch.

At 8PM, Krista Voda starts the Camping World Truck Series coverage with the pre-race show. This week, Voda will focus on Ron Hornaday and his challenge to continue his winning ways in the series. Crew chief Rick Ren will be featured as well. Voda will also follow up on the popular Johnny Benson and how he is doing after a tough wreck in a Supermodified car a while back.

At 8:30PM, the trucks take to the track for what should be a fascinating race. Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip will call the action. Down on pit road will be Adam Alexander and Ray Dunlap. A group of very diverse drivers have entered:

Max Papis is there in a special one-off Geico truck.
Short track aces Dennis Setzer and Butch Miller are entered.
TV favorite Kenny Schrader makes an appearance for Federated Auto Parts.
Kyle Busch is back in the Miccosukee truck for Billy Ballew.
Ryan Newman is driving for DeLana Harvick with Pringles as a sponsor.
Former Cup drivers Johnny Sauter and Aric Almirola are entered.
Brad Keselowski is driving a Chevy truck he owns with no sponsor listed.
SPEED's Hermie Sadler is driving a Victory Junction Gang sponsored truck.
Former ESPN announcer Stacy Compton is running and is very good at Bristol.

All in all, Wednesday has the potential to be a great day of NASCAR TV. TDP will be live blogging NASCAR Now at 4:30 and then the live races beginning at 7PM ET. Please join us if you would like to comment on the TV coverage.

We always invite you to comment on the topics discussed above. Just click on the comments button below to add your TV-related opinion. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Your Turn: "This Week In NASCAR" On SPEED

Before we get into the Chase portion of the season, we are going to ask for comments from those of you who watch This Week in NASCAR on SPEED.

This program is produced by the NASCAR Media Group and is recorded at the SPEED HD studios in Charlotte, NC. Steve Byrnes is the host and Michael Waltrip is the fulltime panelist. Chad Knaus and Greg Biffle alternate as the second panelist on the show. There are no reporters or guests on this series.

This program began life as Inside Winston Cup Racing and was produced for SpeedVision by Sunbelt Video. After several different hosts and names, it was revamped into its present form. The only consistent presence since the beginning has been Waltrip.

We are asking you today to consider the 2009 version of the show only. If you have watched the series this year, how have you liked it? What is it that you would suggest as an improvement and why do you want the change? Is there a feature that you particularly like? Finally, what announcers would you like to see remain on the program next season? Any other issues got your attention?

To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and help us with this topic.

What A Week For "NASCAR Now"

It was a spicy mix of panelists on the Monday edition of NASCAR Now. Boris Said, Ricky Craven and ESPN reporter Angelique Chenglis have mixed it up in the past and did so again this week.

Host Allen Bestwick is great at keeping the flow going and the pace crisp. From the start, all three panelists had different opinions on a variety of topics surrounding the Sprint Cup Series race from MIS.

Chengelis chastised crew chief Alan Gustafson for taking a fuel risk that ultimately cost Mark Martin a lot more than the race win. Said pointed to the fact that Gustafson's big picture should have been The Chase. Craven said the team was right to go for it, having won on fuel mileage in the past.

Said has come a long way this season and thinks before he talks. This has made his opinions a lot easier to swallow. He still maintains his own point of view and often differs with the journalists on the panel. Craven is still the top NASCAR studio analyst on TV and his comments are thoughtful and concise.

The Monday roundtable show has become the foundation from which the NASCAR Now franchise has flourished. During this time of the year, ESPN also adds a late night Sunday wrap-up show to the weekly series. Meanwhile, the weekday shows get a big jump-start this week with a trip to the White House.

After hosting the Tuesday show, Nicole Manske heads off to Washington DC for what may be the best promotion for The Chase that NASCAR has ever planned. President Obama will be meeting with a large group of present and former drivers and NASCAR personalities.

The ESPN contingent includes Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Marty Smith and Brad Daugherty. These festivities will result in a special one-hour edition of NASCAR Now at 4:30PM on Wednesday. Cable listings do not reflect this schedule change, so viewers who want to record the program may have to do so manually.

ESPN is quick to point out that this is the first regularly scheduled ESPN program to originate from the White House in the thirty year history of the company.

There should be plenty for Manske to discuss when she returns to the air at 5PM on Thursday from the ESPN2 studios. Wednesday night features Whelen Modified and Camping World Truck Series races from the other Bristol. Hopefully, NASCAR Now will open the doors and include highlights from what may be the best race of the year, the mods.

Friday, Manske continues her hosting duties and slips a quick half-hour show in at 7PM after Sprint Cup qualifying and before the Nationwide Series race. Depending on how long qualifying actually takes, Manske may be providing nothing more than a quick update. This show will have to be live.

The NASCAR Now week ends with a very long Saturday. The preview hour airs at a special time of 9AM. Ricky Craven will join Manske on the set while Angelique Chengelis and Marty Smith will report from Bristol, TN. While Craven and Manske head for brunch, ESPN will get ready for the big night race at 6:30PM.

After the race, that whole NASCAR Now gang will be joined by the ESPN announce team as they put together the late night wrap-up show scheduled to air at 9PM Pacific/12AM Eastern on Saturday night. This has proven to be a very good show for fans to record and contains lots of original interviews.

All in all, this is quite a week for NASCAR Now. The Monday show set a great tone, but it will be the White House visit that certainly has the potential to be memorable for a wide variety of reasons.

TDP welcomes your comments on these topics. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.