Every Day Is A Danica Day (Updated Mon. AM)

Update: JR Motorsports made it official at 8AM Monday. Danica Patrick will drive in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona. Waiting for confirmation that Kelly Bires is out for this event. Danica will be locked-in through points from 2009. She will have the points from the #11 car, not the #88 as previously reported in media sources.

Here are some quotes and information from the JR Motorsports press release:

“To be the one driving that Go Daddy car at Daytona means a lot to me,” Patrick said. “Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do. The ARCA race was a blast, and I’m not ready for my first Daytona Speedweeks to end just yet. I want more racing.”

Patrick’s entry in the Drive4COPD 300 puts her in a JR Motorsports tandem with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will drive the No. 88 Hellmann’s Chevrolet. Patrick will continue her Nationwide Series schedule on Feb. 20 at Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, Calif.) and Feb. 27 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.

Patrick is guaranteed starting positions in all three races based off JRM’s acquisition of points from CJM Racing’s No. 11 team, which finished 15th in the 2009 Nationwide Series owners point standings.

“I think Danica proved to everyone that she can compete in stock cars at a high level, and right now seat time is extremely important,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “She has worked extremely hard during the past two months for this opportunity. Her dedication and work ethic is infectious.”

This is the TDP original column from Sunday, Feb 7th:

NASCAR is getting a lesson in media manipulation and it's from a young woman who has never run a lap in any NASCAR racing series. Her single claim to fame on the track is one ARCA race at Daytona and a mediocre IRL career.

Danica Patrick is about to take advantage of a slow Monday and announce her decision about racing in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona sometime during the day.

Shortly after that information was released on Sunday afternoon, David Newton of ESPN got back into the familiar groove of using anonymous sources to offer this story. Click here to read it. Newton says the deal is done.

A couple of hours later it was Jim Utter from thatsracin.com who offered the same information. Utter said Danica would make it official early on Monday morning. Click here to read his entire story.

Over the weekend Kevin Harvick won the Bud Shoot Out, Bobby Gerhart the ARCA race and Mark Martin the Daytona 500 pole. Not a lot of that will matter once Patrick makes it official that she will be on the track Saturday with some of the top drivers in the sport at very high speeds.

If the announcement is made at 8AM, it will not take long for the aftershocks to be felt coming from the Bristol, CT area. Over the last three years, ESPN has been faced with an opening Nationwide Series event that often resembled Sprint Cup Series practice.

If Patrick joins the fray, it will give ESPN an opportunity for the kind of focused sports news coverage the network has become famous for doing. ESPN has a lot of media outlets and when they are all focused on promoting one thing, it's powerful.

ESPN2 will also be carrying the Nationwide Series practice on Thursday and qualifying on Friday. Two good opportunities to build up the excitement for the Saturday afternoon race. You can bet that will be the case if Patrick is in the event.

Since the new TV contract began in 2007, ESPN has been struggling to define exactly what the Nationwide Series really has become. Top Sprint Cup drivers use unlimited resources to mount campaigns for the series championship. The only personality blip on the radar was Brad Keselowski who subsequently moved on to the big leagues.

Having Patrick for Daytona and Fontana will certainly be a boost for Marty Reid, ESPN's new play-by-play announcer. This will also give Dr. Jerry Punch an opportunity to refresh his pit reporter skills while dealing with a very high profile driver.

We will use this post to get your opinion on this topic and then update it on Monday morning if and when the announcement is made. Patrick and her handlers have proven to be masterful at media management and Monday should prove to be no different.

To add your opinion on this post, just click on the comments button below. 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.

Fox Serves "Comfort Food" To NASCAR Fans

This is the tenth season for the NASCAR on Fox gang. They are well known to fans. Many on the TV team have extended their careers to other programs and networks using NASCAR as a launching pad. From the colorful network president David Hill to the good ole boy personality of Darrell Waltrip, Fox is NASCAR's "TV franchise."

When things go bad, it's Darrell Waltrip who shows up to discuss the situation on other TV programs. Mike Joy is widely regarded as the best motorsports TV play-by-play announcer currently on the air. No one works harder on the NASCAR TV trail than Larry McReynolds.

Last season, the Chase ended with a thud. The ESPN production team had decided that Jimmie Johnson was going to get the kind of hyper-coverage the network has provided for Brett Favre and others. It was overboard, misguided and backfired with the fan base.

NASCAR has its own personality. It simply cannot be compared to stick-and-ball sports where TV production is concerned. For a network that has developed an entire culture wrapped around exactly that, NASCAR has proven to be a challenge. ESPN limped away from 2009, but the damage had been done.

While some support programming has originated this week on SPEED, it was the Saturday coverage on Fox that was going to be the focus of the new season. In the past, Fox has struggled with hype and over-promotion of topics from Kyle Busch to Digger. Fortunately, Fox saw the ESPN chaos and made the right decision.

NASCAR on Fox debuted with Daytona 500 qualifying and used the opportunity to draw fans back into the sport. They simply served up an entire day of comfort food. Nothing fancy was unveiled. The formula was made simple from the start. Let the fans reconnect with the drivers and get out of the way.

The familiar interview, qualify and then interview again cycle played out as usual. Chris Myers hosted Robin Pemberton in the Hollywood Hotel to explain changes to the COT for 2010. The segment covered the live qualifying of two cars and reinforced that there was still a star system in place for who gets time on live TV.

Fortunately, the three men in the announce booth told the story of the changes in drivers, teams and owners throughout the session. The veteran pit reporters never missed a beat and let the drivers relay their thoughts to the fans. From the enthusiasm of eventual pole winner Mark Martin to the deliberate focus of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the personalities came through clearly.

After a break for the chaos of the ARCA race on SPEED, the NASCAR on Fox team returned for the Bud Shootout. All it took was cars at speed in Daytona to begin erasing the memories of 2009. Jimmie Johnson was rarely mentioned. Hendrick Motorsports was not hyped as the second coming.

Fox walked exactly the right path in pointing the cameras at the cars and just calling the action. Digger maintained a much lower profile and was not the object of forced announcer voice-overs and bad jokes. The gopher graphic never interfered with the telecast. What a nice change of pace.

Every network has issues and Fox continues to insert the in-car camera shots at strange times. Location of the cars on the track and which cars are being shown is always interesting. Nothing breaks up the momentum of a great lap like a random in-car shot that takes time to identify. Who is that and where is he on the track?

Luckily, the racing cooperated with no big wrecks mixed in with the normal pushing and shoving. Cameras captured the incidents and replays worked well to explain what happened. The cars provided enough excitement as everyone just seemed happy to get back on the track and racing.

While there are various opinions on the finish, one thing was clear. After the final accident, Mike Joy quickly said the race was over and the flagman displayed the caution and then the checkers. Earlier in the day, SPEED had mentioned that the Shoot Out could not end under caution. Race winner Kevin Harvick backed up that point in his post-race appearance on TV.

Even with that final glitch, NASCAR and Fox both breathed a big sigh of relief once the day was over. Saturday was meant simply to set the table for the Daytona 500 and that was done. Cars were back on track, personalities were on display and NASCAR was back on national TV.

If you watched these programs, how about sharing with us your impressions of the return of the NASCAR on Fox team. To add your opinion on this topic, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting your comments. Thanks for dropping by The Daly Planet.

Live Blogging The Bud Shoot Out (8PM - Fox)

Let's go racing boys! Here we go with the warm-up for the Daytona 500. The Bud Shoot Out has a wild field of all kinds of drivers. It may be fun to watch and the weather is windy, but no rain.

Fox is entering the tenth season of covering NASCAR. On this telecast, the cast is the same. Chris Myers will host from the Hollywood Hotel with Jeff Hammond alongside.

Mike Joy will call the action with Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds with him in the TV booth. On pit road are Krista Voda, Steve Byrnes, Matt Yocum and Dick Berggren.

Fox is ready to go and NASCAR is ready to race. This event may go a long way toward erasing the painful memories of the final ten races and the endless emphasis on Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports.

Before the Fox coverage, RaceDay on SPEED marks the debut of Kyle Petty. Let's use this post to include comments on the RaceDay show.

To add your comments on the Bud Shoot Out and RaceDay, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.