In-Progress From Phoenix: Craftsman Trucks on SPEED

It looks like a nice night in Phoenix, but the stands are very empty. Perhaps, they will fill up a bit for the Craftsman Truck Series race.

Krista Voda will kick things off tonight at 7:30PM on SPEED with The Set-Up. She was originally going to have the CEO of Camping World, but NASCAR decided to push the unveiling of the new Truck Series logo back one week to Homestead.

Rick Allen will be along with Michael Waltrip and Phil Parsons to call the race at 8PM live. Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander will cover pit road.

This should be a great race on a fun track for the trucks. Look for the continued theme of the evening being the fight between Ron Hornaday Jr. and Johnny Benson for the season championship. Hornaday has something to prove after dealing with a media-driven "steroid" scandal this season. Benson has just announced that he will not be back with Bill Davis Racing next season and might retire. There is a whole lot on the line tonight for both of these drivers.

In the meantime, there are a lot of Cup drivers crossing-over to race in the Truck Series from Phoenix. This should add some great spice to the race as they mix it up with the series regulars. SPEED puts on a good telecast with the focus on the racing and the night sky in Phoenix and the lights at the track should make it quite an evening.

This post will serve to host your comments on the Craftsman Truck Series race on SPEED. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page. Thanks again for stopping by. Only one race left after tonight!

Wall-To-Wall NASCAR TV On Friday

Call in sick to work. Use a vacation day. Maybe even do the infamous "work from home." There are only two racing weekends left in the entire 2008 season and Friday's NASCAR TV is an all-day affair.

From 11AM straight through until 11:30PM, NASCAR fans can get non-stop coverage on ESPN2 and SPEED of what should be a very interesting day from the Phoenix International Raceway.

SPEED's John Roberts will preview the entire day's activities on NASCAR Live to start the coverage. Hermie Sadler and Randy Pemberton will join Roberts as reporters. This show will give fans a glimpse of how things are going at PIR on day number one of a very big weekend.

Steve Byrnes and his team of Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds are stepping-in this weekend to handle Nationwide Series practice and qualifying. SPEED will have the practice sessions at 11:30AM and 3:30PM. Bob Dillner and Wendy Venturini will be reporting from the garage area.

Sprint Cup Series practice pops-up on ESPN2 at 2PM hosted by Dr. Jerry Punch. He will be joined by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the Infield Pit Studio. Shannon Spake, Jamie Little, Dave Burns and Mike Massaro will handle the reporting duties.

The real action begins at 4:30PM when Rick Allen, Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip host Craftsman Truck Series qualifying on SPEED. There is an incredibly tight championship points race in this series and many of the drivers are experienced flat track specialists. It should be interesting to see who winds-up on the pole in this session. As usual, Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander will be handle the reporting duties.

The "big boys" come back at 5:30PM on ESPN2 when Punch and company host Sprint Cup Series qualifying. With only two races to go, some teams will be trying to start up front with an eye toward the final top ten while others are clinging to their top thirty-five spot in points. Some teams have absolutely nothing to lose by trying for the pole.

Updated: After the Halloween fun of last week, Krista Voda returns without the green make-up to host The Set-Up at 7:30PM on SPEED. This show previews the Truck Series race. Voda was originally going to have Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis on to unveil the new Camping World Truck Series logo. That has now been pushed back to next week at Homestead.

All three of those folks will have to clear the grid at 8PM as the trucks get ready to rumble. This series is on a roll, with ratings for last week up almost 40% over last year. Allen, Parsons and Waltrip should have their share of excitement as this is a great track for the trucks. Dunlap and Alexander will patrol pit road, but this time neither one of them will be in a dress.

The long day of NASCAR will be topped-off by Trackside at 10:30PM. The fun bunch of Byrnes, Hammond and McReynolds will be joined by Elliott Sadler for this hour. The program has two guests who remain on the set and join-in the conversation. This week Greg Biffle and Marcos Ambrose will stop by.

Over twelve hours of NASCAR to digest on Friday alone with a big menu of programming still to come on Saturday and Sunday. Program those DVR's, fire-up the TiVo's or better yet take a mental health day. Only Homestead is left on the NASCAR menu, but as veteran fans know, a lot of things happen in Phoenix that always add new twists to the final race of the season.

Please use this post to offer your TV-related opinions about the daytime coverage of NASCAR on both ESPN2 and SPEED. To add your comments to this post, just click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Darrell Waltrip Takes-Over ESPN's "NASCAR Now"

You really have to tip your hat to the newly re-vamped NASCAR Now program on ESPN2. The wholesale changes this season in on-air personalities and content have paid-off in an interesting TV series that covers all parts of the sport.

On Wednesday, it was Ryan Burr hosting the show. Little did he know what he was in for on this day. Two of the biggest talkers in NASCAR were the guests and they both did their best to keep their reputations intact.

Darrell Waltrip from Fox Sports and Ed Hinton from ESPN.com were along for a "mini-roundtable" discussion about a wide variety of NASCAR topics. All Burr had to do was mention a topic and then stand back. It might have helped if he had ducked.

Waltrip wants to start the NASCAR season in California on New Year's Eve with a night race followed by fireworks. His point was the season should run from January through September to avoid the tough conflict with the NFL and college football.

Hinton was all about throwing darts at Brian France and started by saying Waltrip should be Commissioner of NASCAR. Hinton followed that by suggesting the best way not to compete with the NFL was to cut The Chase to five or six races with drivers being eliminated every week. Waltrip said The Chase was "too long and there was not enough drama."

"If I can interject here let's move to the next topic," said Burr trying his best to direct traffic. Burr tossed-out the economy as the next issue and then ran for his life.

Waltrip called for owners to be more efficient and for NASCAR to open the tracks on Friday for testing. He has long proposed that testing be limited to the tracks where the Sprint Cup Series was racing that same weekend. His point is that it would create a real off-season for the racing families and keep testing expenses down.

Hinton's contention is that reality is reality. NASCAR will not fade away if everyone does not have a private jet or multiple team engineers. He believes that NASCAR has weathered earlier storms and this financial problem might wind-up re-inventing the sport simply from necessity.

Burr's final question was who should be "driver of the year?" Waltrip picked Jimmie Johnson should he win a third championship. Hinton picked Carl Edwards because he created the most excitement this season for the fans and the sport.

The final challenge for Burr was to wrestle these two on the topic of what would be better for the sport. Edwards coming from behind to win or Johnson getting the third championship?

Waltrip went for the dominance of Johnson. Hinton said the core fans wanted Johnson to win but the casual fans liked Edwards and wanted him to snatch the title away in the final race. Edwards would get "the swing voters."

"When we were putting this show together, I thought we might need an hour," said Burr. "But after listening to you guys talk we needed more like five hours." Burr barely had time to say a quick goodbye before another edition of NASCAR Now was done.

Credit goes to the production team for pairing-up these two and getting the little-used Hinton back on TV. This type of discussion in NASCAR-land now only takes place on Sirius Satellite radio's 24-hour NASCAR channel.

Hopefully, either ESPN or SPEED will see the value of having regular discussions on NASCAR topics with racing veterans and journalists and create a TV series for 2009. Even in this fifteen minutes of conversation, more ideas and topics flowed than NASCAR Now had seen in a very long time. This program re-airs at Midnight Eastern time for those who missed the original airing.

For those of you who have been asking, you can click directly on the picture to see it full-size. I think you can guess the track if you look closely. I will be kind to DW and not relate the year. Great shoes.

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