Live Blogging Friday NASCAR TV From Nashville

The TV coverage from Nashville starts at 5PM and continues through the live Camping World Truck Series race at 8PM ET.

SPEED starts the day with Rick Allen, Darrell Waltrip and Phil Parsons calling the truck series qualifying at 5PM ET. Ray Dunlap and Hermie Sadler will handle the reporting.

Waltrip has been hit or miss in the truck series TV booth. He has been informative and supportive of the trucks at times, but has launched into his over-the-top NASCAR on FOX personality at others. It should be interesting to see how this day progresses.

Mike Massaro is hosting NASCAR Now on ESPN2 at 6PM. Massaro has been hosting gangbuster shows this week with outstanding content. ESPN has really stepped-up the quality of NASCAR studio programming and it is a welcome change.

Brad Daugherty has been turned loose from the Infield Pit Studio and is working in the ESPN TV booth at Nashville with Ricky Craven and Marty Reid. This trio is on the air at 6:30PM on ESPN2 with Nationwide Series practice. It will be nice to see exactly what Daugherty can bring to the table in this role.

No one does a better pre-race show than Krista Voda and the truck series. Not too many voices, no phony props and no acting. Voda dishes the news, sets-up the interviews and introduces the features. There is more racing content in a thirty minute truck series pre-race show than in the hour shows on FOX and ESPN combined. Voda is on the air at 7:30PM ET with The Setup on SPEED.

The trucks 8PM and the live race coverage should be the solid product we are used to seeing from this veteran crew. Straightforward coverage with the focus on the racing, updates on the teams and excitement from Allen in the booth.

Let's hope the truck series puts on a good show in the middle of struggling with quality teams and limited budgets. This is a viable series that only needs a couple more personalities driving the full season to make it come to life.

On the TV side, the struggle for air time between Allen and Waltrip will be the key. Simply letting Allen set the tone and maintain his regular rhythm will result in a nice payoff for Waltrip in the long run with fans and the SPEED TV team.

There are no NASCAR on FOX guys in Nashville. Waltrip is simply a loaner for his younger brother to a group that has been producing very successful truck series telecasts for a long time. Let's hope the thoughtful, veteran former driver shows-up instead of the carnival barker.

This post will serve to host your comments on the Friday TV from Nashville on ESPN 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. Thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by The Daly Planet.

Wednesday NASCAR TV/Media Notes

This is an off-week for the Sprint Cup Series, however both the Camping World Trucks and the Nationwide Series are racing in Nashville, TN. Trucks are on Friday night and Nationwide teams race Saturday afternoon as NASCAR stays away from the Easter holiday.

Michael Waltrip is away this weekend, so it will be older brother Darrell teamed with SPEED's regular CWTS crew of Rick Allen and Phil Parsons to call practice, qualifying and the race. Hermie Sadler and Ray Dunlap will handle the reporting duties.

The senior Waltrip is very popular these days. As you may know, SPEED is carrying the upcoming Nationwide Series race from Richmond, VA due to an ESPN scheduling conflict. There had been much speculation about who from the SPEED and FOX stable of announcers would be selected for this one-time special.

SPEED has now confirmed that the line-up will be Allen with both Waltrips. That's right, Michael and Darrell working together on a race without a "crew chief" up in the booth. This is a bit surprising, because Jeff Hammond and Hermie Sadler have been teaming-up on the Nationwide Series practice and qualifying telecasts on SPEED with good results.

Details are still being worked-out on the pre-race show, but covering pit road in Richmond will be Krista Voda, Ray Dunlap and Hermie Sadler. Look for Voda to be tapped to handle the pre-race duties.

Back in Nashville, ESPN is covering the Nationwide race with Marty Reid, Ricky Craven and Brad Daugherty in the TV booth. Since this is a stand-alone race, the pre-race show will be hosted by pit reporter Dave Burns. Shannon Spake and Jamie Little will be the other two pit reporters.

This is an opportunity for Craven to showcase his skills as he continues to emerge as a talented NASCAR TV analyst. Daugherty has been frozen in time since he came on the scene back in 2007. This telecast will put him in the position of doing a lot more than cheerleading from the Infield Pit Studio.

On Thursday, April 28, there will be a live telecast on SPEED of Denny Hamlin's annual short-track shootout charity event at 8PM ET. This year, with Southside Speedway temporarily closed, the Late Model race is going to be held at RIR.

SPEED has passed along that Mike Joy will call the racing that night with Ken Schrader and Kenny Wallace in the TV booth. Handling the interviews will be Bob Dillner and Dick Berggren.

Over at VERSUS, the new Comcast/NBC management team has done as we all expected and announced that network will be rebranded with something containing an NBC in it. The network of IndyCar and the NHL also hosts NASCAR programming consisting of post-produced Whelen Modified races and a late season weekly review program.

You can scroll down to the earlier post for full details, but the announcement that the former head of SpeedVision, Bob Scanlon, has returned with a new HD network backed by Discovery has some folks scrambling. Velocity is going to be 24 hours of male-oriented motorsports, adventure programming and high-end HD car shows. It will take the place of Discovery HD Theater on your cable dial.

The great news from Scanlon is that there is already an original series in development with the NASCAR Media Group. No details yet, but Scanlon is the original man behind the Monday night Inside Sprint Cup Racing franchise. Stay tuned.

Just as Rupert Murdoch used News Corp to buy SPEED and get into the motorsports TV business, there is a report out that he may be eyeing Formula 1. Click here for a story from Mark Kleinman about this latest project continuing the path of Murdoch and his family trying to acquire truly global sports TV properties.

On the ratings front, the Nationwide Series race came in with a 1.8 and the Sprint Cup telecast managed a 4.6, down slightly from last season. Ratings are affected by many factors and reading too much into them just gets the true discussion off the right track. ESPN and FOX have simply been resistant to real change and this is the result.

Mike Massaro is hosting NASCAR Now this week on ESPN2. It's unfortunate that ESPN has eliminated the reporter roundtable shows on the Sprint Cup Series off-weeks. That leaves a big TV hole on the Monday before Richmond. Danielle Trotta is hosting Race Hub on SPEED Wednesday and Thursday as Steve Byrnes is on vacation.

After his strong finish at Talladega, there has been a groundswell of fans who would like Dale Earnhardt Jr. to get on Twitter. Jimmie Johnson has recently come on board and is having a great time with the fans. If you have not done it, take a second to sign-up and download a free Twitter app to your cell phone.

Twitter is an amazing resource for NASCAR information and does not take up any more time than you allow. You can follow us at twitter.com/thedalyplanet for news, opinion and links. If you ever wanted to communicate directly with a driver, team or media personality, Twitter is the place for you.

Please feel free to offer your opinion on the topics mentioned above. To add your comment, 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.

TV Police: NASCAR on FOX from Talladega

Buford Pusser retired from professional wrestling and moved back home. He quickly found that corruption riddled his county. He ran for sheriff, got the job and proceeded to unleash a clean-up campaign that made for a powerful 1973 movie called Walking Tall starring Joe Don Baker.

Pusser wanted to deal with the elephant in the room, which was the gambling and moonshine activities in his county. It was an issue almost no one wanted to admit existed, but almost all wanted solved.

This week, the NASCAR elephant in the room was the two-car teams that drivers were forced to form in order to compete. No single car could race at Talladega and remain in contention. This was the single biggest issue that the TV telecast would deal with from start to finish.

The pre-race show contained all kinds of features and guests. Chris Pizzi toured the Talladega infield and discovered NASCAR fans eating food. The Auburn football coach got TV time as Michael Waltrip was driving a car with AU football sponsorship. The starting command was a tad weak.

Darrell Waltrip called the racing "different, but an exciting different." Waltrip, Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond were on the infield outdoor stage at the end of pit road. This time, fans were present around the stage.

Waltrip's "Revved-up" segment was about Talladega racing. His commentary was about last minute passing, accidents and surprise winners. Never in his comments did he mention the fact that the entire race was going to consist of teams of two-drivers who must stay nose to tail to win.

At one time, Waltrip appeared to drop the S-bomb. He did not, but was struggling in his unscripted commentary to talk about "sitting around a fire" (Survivor) as a reality show he hated and Talladega as a reality show he liked. This "Revved-up" segment has never clicked.

The race began with Mike Joy trying very hard to explain the new drafting format to fans. Larry McReynolds and his famous "pull the belts tight" is apparently gone for good as Waltrip screamed his customary "Boogity!"

The race immediately settled down into drafting practice with pitstops. There was not much the TV announce team could do. Some teams raced while others controlled the speed and hung in the back of the lead lap. Accidents between teammates were the order of the day early on.

FOX continued to deliver on caution flag pitstops with good angles and the graphic of cars as they left pit road. Green flag stops got a double video box with the leader on one side and the key car making a stop in the other. It worked well.

On the Kyle Busch accident, the network came back early from commercial. At one other point in the race, FOX returned to show a bumper bar on the track as the field continued to race under green. A caution flag was quickly thrown.

The event continued with little racing as the two-car teams just drafted up, then faded back as they had to swap positions to cool down the cars. It was a struggle for continuity as random teams appeared and then disappeared from contention.

A caution with less than 30 laps to go bunched-up the field and made it better for the finishing laps. The field stretched out again and then bunched up resulting in two accidents involving Ryan Newman. Waltrip claimed Newman's dirt track driving skills saved him from bigger problems.

The final segment was a two-car team dash for the cash with eleven laps to go. It was a lottery and ultimately resulted in Jimmie Johnson being pushed over the line by his teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the race. The post-race interviews revealed drivers frustrated by this style of racing. Look for some changes by NASCAR to make this go away before Daytona in July.

This post will serve to host your comments on the NASCAR on FOX coverage of the Sprint Cup Series race from Talladega. To add your TV-related comment, 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.