Live Blogging Nationwide Series in Texas (3PM - ESPN2)

Update: NNS race postponed by rain. Rescheduled for Sunday night at 9PM ET, 8PM Central. Details to follow on the TV schedule.

The picture above is Nicole Briscoe's view out of the ESPN Infield Pit Studio. Briscoe is filling-in this weekend for the vacationing Allen Bestwick. She may be in for a very long day. Rain has already cancelled the Sprint Cup Series practice and the track is still wet.

Briscoe will be joined by Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty for the NNS pre-race show. With Dale Jarrett also on vacation, Wallace is scheduled to move up and call the race if it ever gets underway. He will be joined by Marty Reid and Andy Petree.

Luckily, Jerry Punch is back on pit road along with Jamie Little, Dave Burns and Vince Welch. Rainy days like this really work the pit reporters and Punch is one of the best at conducting live interviews in these situations.

NASCAR tries to stick to the schedule and announces changes only when they are about to be put into place. Rumors today from the on-site media suggest that NASCAR is considering running this race on Sunday night after the Cup Series if rain forces a postponement today. Monday would be tough with a short week for many teams.

We will use this post to keep updated on the rain developments and possible track drying. We invite your comments as we all watch what ESPN2 decides to air during this timeslot. Just click on the comments button below to add your opinion. Thanks!

Huge Day of NASCAR TV Friday From TMS

The young man pictured above might find himself answering the same set of questions many times during the day on Friday. Kasey Kahne and the rest of the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series drivers are on the Texas Motor Speedway track all day long for practice and qualifying. That is, if Mother Nature cooperates.

The complete TV schedule is posted on the right side of the TDP mainpage. The start of the day should be interesting. ESPN2 has delayed the airing of Nationwide practice, so it overlaps with NASCAR Live on SPEED at noon ET. It is a rather unusual situation for NASCAR to have two programs from the same venue on the air at the same time.

The normal channel hopping happens as SPEED and ESPN2 swap between Cup and Nationwide coverage. Once the NASCAR activity is over, both networks go head-to-head once again at 6:30PM. Mike Massaro hosts NASCAR Now on ESPN2 while Steve Byrnes hosts Trackside on SPEED. Scott Speed and Paul Menard are the Trackside guests.

Capping the day is a doubleheader from SPEED. First, Rick Allen and Phil Parsons call the ARCA race from Texas. Then, a brand new series starts with the first NASCAR Hall of Fame Biography show featuring Bill France Sr. That certainly does seem like a logical place to start as SPEED ramps-up for the Hall opening this summer.

Let's use this post to offer comments on the Friday NASCAR and ARCA TV from ESPN2 and SPEED. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks!

Kahne Saga Unfolds On TV And Twitter

Note: Keeping this post up for Thursday as details continue to come in. Was Marty Smith right or wrong in his first report? Did you see Kyle Petty or hear the Kasay Kahne phone call on SPEED's Race Hub? What do you think of the TV coverage of this entire story?

Few things right now can beat the speed of Twitter and the flexibility of cable TV news. Every day, Twitter carries news stories as they are breaking live. At the same time, the mainstream cable TV news networks use live pictures to tell stories from all over the world.

In NASCAR's little slice of the sports pie, both of those tools have once again come into play. It was ESPN's Marty Smith who broke the news on Tuesday that Kasey Kahne had signed a deal to drive for Hendrick Motorsports beginning in 2011.

Smith launched his scoop on Twitter with a link to the full story at the ESPN.com website. Shortly after that, ESPNEWS began to include the information in their breaking news crawl. Ultimately, Smith appeared on ESPN2's NASCAR Now Tuesday program to offer updates on the story in person.

Once Smith broke the news, Twitter users began to repeat the story and spread it to other users. This included reporters and bloggers who did not credit Smith, but used his information as their own almost instantly. Exclusivity on Twitter can often times be measured in seconds.

ESPN put together a dynamic Tuesday NASCAR Now program. It's quite clear that ESPN scrambled to put a lot of resources behind this story. Reporter David Newton and analyst Ricky Craven appeared on the show. Newton updated several stories, including how Kahne's current Cup owner feels about the star of the team leaving for greener pastures.

SPEED offered Race Hub on Tuesday, where co-host Steve Byrnes said SPEED had confirmed that Kahne was leaving. He never mentioned if they confirmed it via Smith's ESPN story. Race Hub made this a non-story, using Darrell Waltrip on the phone as the only interview in reference to this topic. Waltrip was not a good choice. The series has Kyle Petty to address this issue on Wednesday night at 7:30PM.

Late this morning, ESPN advised that they had no landed an interview with Kahne and Marty Smith would conduct it. The results would be seen on NASCAR Now at 6PM. It should be interesting to see if SPEED references this or if Petty's interview was recorded earlier in the day.

Ever since the story first broke, Twitter has been filled with a mix of reporters, bloggers and fans repeating the same information almost endlessly. It seems that with every upside to technology and information sharing there is also a downside.

We are going to open this post and get your comments while we continue to update any other media developments on this story. Click the comments button below to add your opinion of how this story is being covered on TV and online.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.