Frontstretch.com Story Link To ESPN Column

Lots of email means we need to make something available, in this case it is a link. Click here for Phil Allaway's recent column on the ESPN TV crew.

Phil has been writing a weekly TV column for Frontstretch.com this season and has been doing a very good job of talking about the coverage of all three of NASCAR's top series.

In this column, Phil takes a tour of the Watkins Glen TV compound and gets some behind-the-scenes information and interviews with some of the ESPN team.

There is an opportunity to leave comments directly on the Frontstretch website, but we are also going to open TDP for comments on the topics contained within the column. We have been discussing many of them for three seasons now and Phil's column gives some additional insight into the mindset of several on-air and production personalities.

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 thanks to Phil for making the column available through his hard work.

SPEED Adds Benson To Truck Series Telecasts

Fan favorite Johnny Benson has been added to three upcoming Camping World Truck Series telecasts on SPEED. Benson will join Rick Allen and Phil Parsons on the dates where regular analyst Michael Waltrip has a Sprint Cup Series conflict.

The first race for Benson with SPEED will be this Saturday night in Iowa. His remaining races will be Gateway in St. Louis on Sept. 12 and Las Vegas on Sept. 26.

Waltrip was added to the truck series broadcast booth several seasons ago to add some spark to the telecasts. Fans posting at TDP continue to be divided by his presence on the races, but the reviews for the last CWTS event were overwhelmingly favorable.

Benson was a staple on Monday night for many years as SpeedVision and then SPEED continued to carry a one hour program about NASCAR. Both Benson and host Allen Bestwick were suddenly released from the series after a change in SPEED's production management.

TDP welcomes your comments on this topic. 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.

US Open Pushes "NASCAR Now" To Midnight Shift

ESPN is now carrying a major portion of the US Open Tennis Championships. No sport on TV is tougher to televise than tennis. In fact, it may be one of the sports that drives TV networks crazier than NASCAR.

Tennis has no time limit, stops at the first drops of rain and is sometimes notoriously slow. Add-in caution flags and NASCAR and tennis have a lot in common.

Because of the live tennis coverage, ESPN2's daily show NASCAR Now is losing its first airing every day this week. Instead of appearing at 5PM ET, the show will air after midnight on the East Coast.

With the Chase for the Championship approaching, it is a shame that perhaps NASCAR Now could not be afforded the same courtesy as the new Sports Nation program series which was moved to the ESPNEWS Network and kept in its 4PM timeslot. NASCAR Now normally follows that show.

The Sunday race preview edition of NASCAR Now will air at its regular time of 10AM. The outstanding wrap-up show will air live at 11:30PM. Nicole Manske will anchor the Sunday shows while Mike Massaro will handle the weekday programs.

Complete TV listings for this week are located on the right side of the main page. Change the settings on those recording devices to catch NASCAR Now this week.

TDP welcomes your comments on this topic. Just click the comments button below to add your opinion. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for stopping by.