Saturday, May 30, 2009

Live Blogging The CWTS Race From Dover On SPEED


This is live coverage of the rain-delayed Camping World Truck Series race from Dover that was supposed to run on Friday afternoon. SPEED is covering the race live and it should be a good one.

Krista Voda starts the telecast with the pre-race show at 5:30PM. She will be joined by Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander as reporters. Once the race coverage is underway at 6PM, it will be Rick Allen calling the action. He will be joined by Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip.

The day has already seen a fast-paced Nationwide Series event and the track is fast. Passing is still at a premium because the track is green from the Friday rain, but the Trucks should be able to put on a good show.

This is SPEED's normally straightforward presentation of racing. No infield, no cutaway car and no hype. Just classic race coverage and good commentary.

This post will host your comments on the SPEED coverage of the Truck Series race from Dover. 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 for taking some time out of your day to stop by The Daly Planet.

Live Blogging The Dover Nationwide Series Race On ABC


This is one of the rare ABC broadcasts for the Nationwide Series. The exposure on an over-the-air TV network should be good for the series and perhaps let some new fans see the Dover action.

Allen Bestwick will kick things off at 2PM ET with the NASCAR Countdown pre-race show. Joining Bestwick this week are Dale Jarrett and Brad Daugherty. Rusty Wallace has the weekend off. Joey Logano is on the pole and he should be a topic. Whether or not Bestwick brings-up the Sprint Cup Series news of the crew chief change for Junior and the Mayfield legal challenge will be interesting to see.

Dr. Jerry Punch returns to call the action with Jarrett and Andy Petree in the booth. Vince Welch has the weekend off, so Jamie Little, Shannon Spake and Dave Burns will handle the action on the newly-renovated pit road.

Rain washed out the truck series race on Friday night and left the track pretty green. The Nationwide guys are going to face a track without a lot of rubber down. Dover is treacherous and the concrete surface is a challenge to the newer drivers.

The weather is clear and the pictures should be good. Dover is narrow on the backstretch and it has been a challenge over the years to follow the action in that area. But the biggest challenges at Dover can only be seen on the in-car cameras.

This track has two bridges over the speedway at the entrance and the exit of the backstretch. They are usually described as being between turns two and three. The cameramen use practice to perfect their moves that allow coverage of the racing action but never show the bridges during the race.

Look for this element during the telecast today. When the Director uses an aerial shot or stays with an in-car camera you can see the exact location of both of these bridges. This veteran ESPN crew uses the best triple-split on TV during caution flag pit stops. Also on-target is the wideshot of the finish with all the lead lap cars clearly racing to the line on-camera.

This post will serve to host your comments about the ABC coverage of the Nationwide Series race from Dover. 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.

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

Truck Race Rained Out But We Have TV Things To Talk About


The Camping World Truck Series race has rained-out from Dover. It will be run at 6PM on Saturday. We will have the updated TV schedule out shortly.

In the meantime, lots of NASCAR topics are up for discussion. Perhaps, the biggest one is the NASCAR on Fox team leaving the sport this season with some issues still brewing.

In USA Today, Fox Sports executive David Hill again rejected the notion that his animated creation called Digger is responsible in any way for alienating fans from the sport. As we all know, the Sprint Cup Series TV ratings have been down about 15%.

"It's the biggest crock of (stuff) I've ever heard," said Hill of the Digger issue. He went on to relate that over half a million dollars of Digger merchandise has been sold. Hill called Digger the Mickey Mouse of NASCAR.

Perhaps the most surprising element in this story was Hill suddenly blaming NASCAR for not starting the Sunday races at 1PM Eastern Time. He said NASCAR was afraid to start the races at 10AM on the West Coast. This was a very different comment than Hill made earlier this season when he lobbied for even later Sunday start times to get a bigger TV audience for the sport.

Hill did take a moment to try and lay part of the TV ratings problem off on Dale Earnhardt Jr. "I'm told by our research guys that if Dale won, more people would watch," Hill says. "I guess in a way because he hasn't, Elvis has left the building." What an interesting perspective. Click here for Nate Ryan's full story.

The second TV note is that Fox Director Artie Kempner has apparently had an issue with Hill and has been demoted. Click here for the full story from the Eye on Sports Media website about Hill changing Kempner's NFL assignment.

Kempner has been a topic of discussion here at TDP for issues ranging from only showing the winning car finishing the race to inserting endless Digger animations once the concept was created.

So, instead of watching the Truck race, please feel free to take a moment and add your comments about these NASCAR topics. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.