ESPN Gears-Up For A Long Saturday Of NASCAR

Update: Raining at Pocono and Jerry Punch is trying his best to lead the network through two and a half hours of rain fill. Punch and company are in the Pit Studio, so no Allen Bestwick and Brad Daugherty.

Now that SPEED has finished coverage of the Friday Sprint Cup Series practice, ESPN2 becomes "all NASCAR all day long" on Saturday.

The network will kick things off with live coverage of "happy hour" from Pocono for the Cup Series beginning at 10:30AM ET. It will be Dr. Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree calling the action.

ESPN has everyone on site including Allen Bestwick, Brad Daugherty and Tim Brewer. The pit road reporters in Pocono are Dave Burns, Shannon Spake and Jamie Little. Mike Massaro and Rusty Wallace are on-assignment in Montreal for the Nationwide Series.

It will be qualifying for that series that is up at 12:30PM from Montreal on ESPN2. Marty Reid will be handling the play-by-play with Wallace and Randy LaJoie alongside. On pit road and in the garage will be Jack Arute, Vince Welch and Massaro.

It will be Massaro that gets the opportunity to host the one hour NASCAR Countdown show at 2:30PM. This road course is very different for the drivers. As fans saw last season the mix of Cup drivers, Nationwide Series "regulars" and road course ringers is a rather volatile combination. It will be up to Massaro and company to set the table for this event during the pre-race show.

The race coverage will start at 3:30PM and there will be a new post up for in-progress comments. While Reid and LaJoie have worked together and have a fun on-air presence, the insertion of Wallace into the booth should be interesting to watch.

Wallace is an series team owner, his son races the car and Steven Wallace on a road course should make for some memorable moments. During the Friday practice TV coverage, the Wallace entry blew the driveshaft right out of the car and onto the track causing a lengthy caution.

This Nationwide Series race is scheduled to go until 7PM and lead into continuing coverage of the X Games. At the present time, the threat of rain is viable for Saturday and the cars are going to use rain tires, windshield wipers and brake lights if the weather turns damp. Did I mention this could be memorable?

SPEED sneaks-in NASCAR Performance with Larry McReynolds, Bootie Barker and Chad Knaus at 7:30PM and then follows with Tradin' Paint at 8PM. This week's media guest is Tom Jensen from SPEEDtv.com and Kyle Petty will be on the program despite not driving in the Cup race.

This post will serve to host your comments about practice and pre-race activities on ESPN2. The Nationwide Series in-progress post will be up at 1:30PM. To add your TV-related opinion on the topics above, just click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy directions.

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SPEED Opens-Up "NASCAR Confidential"

Fans that tuned-in on Friday at 6PM were greeted by a very different episode of NASCAR Confidential. This program was opened-up to include live guests at the SPEED Stage in Pocono speaking with Fox and SPEED analyst Larry McReynolds.

In the past, NASCAR Confidential has been a slickly-packaged look at a NASCAR event from several different perspectives. These have included a selection of very different people from team owners to track photographers. This time, the pre-produced segments were wrapped-around on-camera question and answer sessions.

This approach worked very well to deal with a lot of outstanding issues about the Indy weekend. Seeing a slice of the reality and then having those involved talk about it on-camera is a format we see on reality-style programs on all kinds of TV networks. This time, it proved to be very effective.

While McReynolds is sometimes a cheerleader, he is also a straight-shooter when it comes to issues on the track. In this program, McReynolds spoke with NASCAR President Mike Helton, Goodyear's Stu White and NASCAR driver Elliott Sadler.

Helton is a much more effective spokesman for NASCAR than Robin Pemberton or Brian France. He speaks in terms that fans can understand and his lifetime commitment to the NASCAR world speaks volumes about his experience. In this special episode, without his customary suit and tie, Helton answered every question from McReynolds without hesitation.

Perhaps, the best part of Helton's interview was that it finally put a "human face" on the TV experience of the previous weekend. Without its own TV network, NASCAR relies on its TV partners, cable networks and local TV stations to offer video to fans nationwide. The experience during and after Indy was often disjointed and offered various versions of the racing reality.

Stu Grant from Goodyear was thorough in his explanation of what the company had done before the race, what they experienced after the practice sessions and what they intended to do to solve this problem in the future. Grant was much more effective than the on-camera company spokesman of the Indy weekend and his detailed explanations tied-up some loose ends about the Goodyear issues.

McReynolds used Elliott Sadler to relate the driver's perspective. Sadler is a regular on SPEED's Trackside show during this time of the season and has worked hard on his TV skills. His explanations of when and how teams knew this problem was going to be really big worked to add another perspective to the troubled weekend.

This episode of NASCAR Confidential was added only this Wednesday to air on Friday. Whoever made this decision did fans a favor by pushing this type of content onto the airwaves at a time when long-form NASCAR weekday programming is at an all-time low.

The downside is that fans now know what they are missing in terms of hour-long NASCAR programs that really capture the feeling of the sport through first-hand experiences and the outstanding TV production skills of The NASCAR Media group.

This single episode served as an effective TV-based message to the entire nation of NASCAR fans. It put content that will not been seen in the current NASCAR TV programs on-the-table and asked McReynolds to follow-up on the issues that arose. What a good combination of post-production and the topical use of live interview content. This program will re-air on Saturday at 11PM Eastern Time on SPEED.

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Thanks again for taking the time to drop by and share your views on NASCAR Confidential: What we learned at Indy.

TV Networks Ready For Some Racing

The two remaining NASCAR TV partners are on-the-air again this weekend from Pocono and Montreal.

The good news is that SPEED has picked-up the Sprint Cup practice sessions that were not originally going to be aired. The bad news is that SPEED will not televise the Saturday ARCA race from Pocono in which Chrissie Wallace will be driving.

Friday's TV coverage kicks-off with SPEED at Noon Eastern Time. This will be the recently-added coverage of the Sprint Cup Series practice at Pocono. Steve Byrnes will host the telecast with Larry McReynolds and Jeff Hammond alongside. Wendy Venturini and Bob Dillner will report from the garage area.

After practice, SPEED continues with a thirty minute version of NASCAR Live at 1:30PM. Byrnes will host and Venturini and Dillner will continue to report on the stories after practice. It makes a lot of sense to let these reporters follow-up on the issues they detailed during the practice session.

Things switch gears at 2PM as NASCAR TV moves over to ESPN2 for Nationwide Series final practice from Montreal. It will be Marty Reid on-scene with Randy LaJoie alongside. Reporting from the garage will be Vince Welch and Jack Arute.

Now that everyone in Pocono has finished lunch, the Sprint Cup Series qualifies on ESPN2 at 3:30PM. This will be the "A team" of Dr. Jerry Punch, Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree. The reporting crew consists of Jamie Little, Shannon Spake, Dave Burns and Mike Massaro.

At 6PM, things get interesting. SPEED will present a special last-minute version of the popular NASCAR Confidential program. This show will look at the Indy situation from the viewpoints of the teams and officials right in the middle of the experience. This show was added to the SPEED line-up out-of-the-blue and should be interesting to watch in terms of content and agenda. This program will also re-air at 11PM Saturday night on SPEED.

Over on ESPN2, it will be the thirty minute version of NASCAR Now at 6PM. This show will be hosted by either Ryan Burr or Nicole Manske and will review the day's activities and preview the remainder of the weekend. Please note there is no West Coast re-air of this program.

At 7PM, Byrnes returns on SPEED with Trackside. He is joined by Hammond, McReynolds and Elliott Sadler. This is a one hour talk show that has two guests who remain throughout the show and interact with the entire panel on a wide variety of subjects. Kevin Harvick and Scott Speed are the guests.

This ends the NASCAR portion of the night, but for those wanting to see the Montreal road course, the Rolex Sports Car Series race from Montreal is on SPEED at 8PM.

Having the early Sprint Cup practice televised is going to make a big difference for the fans and for ESPN as the stories from this session begin to tell the tale of the race itself. Kudos to NASCAR for making this available and to SPEED for covering the action.

This post will serve to host your comments about the Friday NASCAR TV on these two networks. There will be a fresh column up shortly after 7PM reviewing NASCAR Confidential and asking for your comments.

To add your opinion to this post, just click on the COMMENTS button below. The rules are on the right side of the main page and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.