Live Blog Of The Las Vegas Nationwide Series Race

ESPN2 will present the Nationwide Series race at 4PM. Allen Bestwick will host the pre-race show with Dale Jarrett and Brad Daugherty. Rusty Wallace has the weekend off as does Vince Welch in the pits. Mike Massaro will sub for Welch.

Dr. Jerry Punch will call the action with Jarrett and Andy Petree alongside. The regular pit road cast of Jamie Little, Shannon Spake and Dave Burns will also work the race.

The track is fast and the Nationwide field is a mix of Cup drivers, Nationwide veterans and lots of drivers will very little experience on ovals like Vegas. Keep an eye on the tail of the field to see if there are some "start and park" teams in this event.

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Rusty Wallace Takes The Weekend Off

The Nationwide Series TV team from ESPN will be using Dale Jarrett for double-duty this weekend. Rusty Wallace has a scheduled weekend off, so Jarrett will be calling the race and also appearing as a panelist on the pre-race show.

It will be Allen Bestwick and Brad Daugherty alongside of Jarrett at 4PM ET as the NASCAR Countdown pre-race show takes to the air. After thirty minutes, Jarrett will scoot upstairs to join Dr. Jerry Punch and Andy Petree for the live race.

Once again this week, the Nationwide Series coverage on ESPN2 follows a live basketball game. Last week, NASCAR Countdown was forced to start on the ESPN Classic Network as basketball ran long. This week, race fans can only hope that either Illinois State or Creighton pulls away in the second half.

SPEED will start the day with Nationwide Series qualifying at Noon ET. At 1:30PM the NASCAR on Fox team will call two sessions of Sprint Cup practice on SPEED leading right up to the Nationwide Series race. Steve Byrnes will anchor the Nationwide qualifying coverage and Mike Joy will lead the Fox team.

SPEED's Hermie Sadler is doing a fine job in his role as analyst on the Nationwide Series practice sessions. Teamed with Jeff Hammond and Steve Byrnes, Sadler continues to expand his presence on SPEED this season. Saturday will find him alongside John Roberts on the SPEED Stage providing commentary during breaks in the on-track action.

Fox has expanded the Digger presence far beyond the races. On Friday night's Trackside show, Darrell Waltrip was nowhere to be found at the start of the program. Eventually, he appeared in a golf cart with the Digger costume character along for the ride. Waltrip explained he and Digger had been over on the QVC shopping network selling Digger merchandise. And the beat goes on.

One final ESPN note. It will be Nicole Manske stepping into the host role for the Monday version of the NASCAR Now roundtable on March 2. Allen Bestwick takes a break as Manske plays host to the now familiar faces of Ray Evernham, Ricky Craven and Randy LaJoie at 5PM for the program.

There are seven and a half hours of live NASCAR TV on Saturday. It should be interesting to see how Nationwide Series qualifying shakes out, how carefully the Sprint Cup teams choose to practice and then what kind of racing the Las Vegas track will offer as the real action finally begins.

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SPEED Handles The Las Vegas Action On Friday

ESPN the Weekend is in full swing down in Orlando, FL at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park. Click here for more info on the festivities.

That leaves the NASCAR action from Las Vegas all to SPEED on Friday. The network hosts both Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series with the Trackside program rounding-out the evening.

It will be John Roberts kicking things off at 1PM ET with NASCAR Live. He will be joined by Randy Pemberton and Bob Dillner as reporters. This show offers the stories of the day before the cars get on the track for the afternoon.

Next up will be Nationwide Series practice at 1:30pm. Steve Byrnes will call the action with Hermie Sadler and Jeff Hammond alongside. While this series has the races telecast by ESPN, the SPEED team offers a very professional and quite watchable practice telecast.

At 3PM the Sprint Cup Series cars take to the track for practice. This brings the NASCAR on Fox crew to the table as Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds take over. This crew will remain to watch the Nationwide Series final practice at 4:30PM as well.

ESPN2 will sneak-in a NASCAR Now program at 6PM hosted by Nicole Manske. Updates will be provided from Las Vegas and the news will be reviewed.

All hands will be on deck at 6:30PM as the full NASCAR on Fox crew present live Sprint Cup Series qualifying on SPEED. There are going to be some very good stories to follow in this session, which could prove to be the most interesting of the young season.

Names like Max Papis, Todd Bodine, Jeremy Mayfield and Brad Keselowski will be trying to make the field. There are 51 cars set to make a qualifying attempt.

The night will be finished with Trackside at 8:30PM. Jeff Hammond, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds will scurry down to join host Steve Byrnes for the show. Guests include Scott Riggs, Jamie McMurray, and Jeremy Mayfield. Bruton Smith's son Marcus, who replaced Humpy Wheeler at Lowe's Motor Speedway will also appear.

SPEED has been doing an excellent job at both practice and qualifying coverage since the new NASCAR TV contract began in 2007. Having a consistent day where all the action is on one network serves the fans quite well and also allows the ongoing stories to be paid-off regardless of when they are ready to be reported. This Friday should be no different.

Just a quick note: Randy LaJoie was flying solo as the expert on the Thursday edition of NASCAR Now on ESPN2. This is the first time we have seen LaJoie in this role which he handled quite well. It may not only be Ricky Craven who finds his role expanding with this TV series.

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