David Pearson Speaks His Mind On "NASCAR Now"

Nothing shows the disparity between the colorful NASCAR characters of the past and the polished spokesman of today then having those two groups together in the same place. Darlington Raceway served that purpose on Wednesday.

Nicole Manske has worked hard to maintain her polished and controlled style during her hosting duties for ESPN2's NASCAR Now. The program does a good job of setting things up in advance, so even the question and answer sessions are nothing more than a review of what has already been discussed earlier in pre-production meetings.

Leave it to NASCAR veteran David Pearson to throw a wrench in the best made plans of both NASCAR Now and the Darlington Raceway. The idea was to have Pearson drive his old #21 car around the newly-paved facility with Carl Edwards tailing behind in his COT.

This would give still photographers an opportunity to capture a unique shot and also give the upcoming Darlington race some publicity. Pearson's old ride was brought out of the museum and put in good enough shape to run a couple of laps at less than pace car speed. Edwards dutifully followed along.

By the end of the day, the publicity tour was almost done. Edwards and Pearson had one more duty, and that was appearing on NASCAR Now side-by-side. Some polite questions were asked by Manske, and the videotape of the two cars rolling around the racetrack was played. Everything was going well until David Pearson decided to start answering questions "old school" style.

Manske simply asked Pearson if he liked where NASCAR had gone in the past four decades? Pearson pointed at Edwards and said, "I don't...but he might." In the world of the polite and polished NASCAR drivers, things were about to get interesting.

"NASCAR ain't doing nothing I like right now," continued Pearson. "I don't like the rules they are doing...you can bump somebody and they want to fine you for it." Pearson saw the look on Carl Edwards face and made sure to say he knew that Edwards could not speak-up or he would get fined.

Manske asked Pearson what he thought of Edwards. "He's a lot nicer than I thought he was, if you want to know the truth," said Pearson. In the land of the politically correct, Pearson was wonderfully out of place.

Manske closed by asking Pearson about the current drivers. Pearson made a great point in saying, "they make a lot more money than we did, but they don't have time to spend it." Pearson's point was that in the old days, NASCAR drivers had a lot of "fun" in addition to the racing.

Pearson closed by saying NASCAR today was far too serious and had far too much politics in it. His open collared shirt and chewing gum was in sharp contrast to the perfect driver suit and physically fit appearance of Edwards. Nothing more needed to be said about "then" and "now."

Give Manske credit for hanging in there with Pearson, and continuing her questions. She once again proved that ESPN made a good choice in bringing her over from SPEED and giving her this additional responsibility.

As NASCAR Now continues to grow, perhaps getting a periodic perspective from a "old timer" would help to put some of the NASCAR stories of today in the type of "broader light" that is currently missing from the TV scene.

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Evernham And Wallace Team-Up In Mexico

After a good start on-the-air and an even better fan reaction to his work, ESPN viewers have been asking one question. Where in the world did Ray Evernham go?

Noticeably absent from some of the high-profile NASCAR Now and ESPNEWS programming, Evernham will be returning to the network in yet another role this weekend. He will be teaming-up with Rusty Wallace and Dr. Jerry Punch to form the announce team for the Nationwide Series race from Mexico City.

This is the first time for Evernham in the ESPN announce booth, and his crew chief experience should mesh well with the excitement and driver perspective that Wallace brings to the party. Since both men are also owners, addressing those issues might take a little bit of work to sort-out.

Added to this group will be the pit reporting of Dave Burns, Vince Welch and Mike Massaro. Jamie Little and Shannon Spake will not be making the trip to Mexico.

ESPN2 will have coverage of the final practice and qualifying, with ESPN handling the race itself. Practice comes along on Friday, April 18th at 4PM Eastern Time. With no other NASCAR action, qualifying will be on Saturday at 11:30AM and the race will be on Sunday at 1:30PM.

Seeing Evernham in the booth leads to speculation about Andy Petree's desire to continue behind the microphone. Both men provide the crew chief perspective, and Petree has spent the vast majority of his life actively involved in the business of racing. While this has been an outstanding season for him on-the-air, he may eventually choose to return to racing.

Viewers may remember that Evernham already has a very good relationship with ESPN, including his Race Wizard series that put him on the network regularly last season. While ESPN indicated originally that Evernham's participation in the NASCAR TV package would be outside the actual events, this coming weekend in Mexico City may go a long way to changing that for the future.

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Schrader Anchors "Lights Out" Edition Of TWIN

SPEED finally had the opportunity to welcome Ken Schrader back to Monday night. Unfortunately, the program was so poorly lit that viewers could not help but be distracted by the terrible lighting.

Host Steve Byrnes had shadows all over him, Schrader was washed out and Michael Waltrip was totally in the dark. The lighting on this program should have been corrected prior to taping this show.

What Schrader found was a much more structured environment than the old Inside NEXEL Cup program. The panelists now respond to video features and often are allowed to talk in only short responses before the program moves on to a commercial break.

As usual, the program format of TWIN included providing an extensive preview of the upcoming Talladega race. Normally, the next race is only five or six days away, but this week the Sprint Cup Series is off. This means that TWIN provided a preview of a race some thirteen days away instead of talking about a race run two days prior.

Waltrip and Schrader tried to rekindle the banter that made them cult heroes on Monday nights. Schrader began by calling the new official shirts "PJ's" just like Waltrip did previously. He and Waltrip tried to slip-in some below-the-radar comments, but Byrnes was having none of it.

There were once again two conversations in-progress. Byrnes was working hard to move the show through all the production elements. This time, there was simply no room for the kind of off-the-cuff and extended hilarity of the past.

Everytime that Schrader turned around there was a video highlight, a graphic or a feature. There was no time for fun, because there were things to do. This is the new dynamic of TWIN.

Several times there began to be glimpses of the brilliance of the old days. Schrader and Waltrip talking about Phoenix and the COT, giving Mark Martin his due on fuel mileage and asking what happened to Dave Blaney's spotter were "moments" that veteran fans can point to as why this duo built a following.

Just as Waltrip, Greg Biffle and Chad Knaus have worked-out an on-air relationship with Byrnes, Monday night was Schrader's turn. His dry sense of humor was on display, but Byrnes once again had no time to follow-up because of the pace of the program format. In the new show, there is no segment labelled "goofing around."

The NASCAR Media Group that produces this show has consistently provided top-flight video, audio and edited features. The struggle for the new TWIN is to find the balance between highly glossy TV and the absolutely spontaneous fun of the past.

This contrast in styles is made all the more apparent by the NASCAR Now program produced by ESPN2. In that Monday one hour program, four men in sharp business suits sit and talk about racing with Allen Bestwick leading the discussion.

The irony that it was the hard work of Waltrip, Schrader and Bestwick that originally grew SPEED's Monday night franchise show is not lost on viewers. Bringing Schrader back was a good first step, but this show misses a third voice on the panel and someone like Chad Knaus would have been perfect on this Monday.

It was unfortunate that Waltrip was allowed to talk about NASCAR's current drug policy in a confusing manner. Waltrip was absolutely off-base in his facts and his emotional outburst did not serve any purpose. Give Byrnes credit for trying to at least point-out the contradictions in Waltrip's own words.

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