Vince Welch And Adam Alexander On Centerstage

What a wonderful weekend of NASCAR TV. Two familiar faces in new places should make it even more interesting.

ESPN is giving Vince Welch an opportunity to step-up and call the Nationwide Series race from Nashville, TN on Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile, TNT is giving Adam Alexander the career opportunity of a lifetime. He will call the six Sprint Cup Series races for that network this summer.

Before the green flag, both men will get tune-ups as they step-in to host practice and qualifying sessions. Alexander will call the Saturday morning Sprint Cup Series practice on SPEED, while Welch will work Nationwide Series practice Friday night and qualifying late Saturday afternoon for ESPN2.

Welch is a native of Indianapolis and is known to many motorsports fans for his IndyCar TV experience. Welch has actually been working with ESPN and ABC since 1999. While in Nashville, Welch will be joined by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree in the booth.

You may remember Welch working for ESPN as a college football sideline reporter. On a regional level, he has called many college events for TV and even worked in local TV in the Midwest. He has an Emmy on the shelf for his sports reporting.

Alexander has made himself a household name because of his hard work for SPEED. Hustling as a pit reporter on the Camping World Truck Series, Alexander found his hard work paying off as SPEED began to revamp its motorsports line-up.

There is no better motorsports TV program currently on the air than The Speed Report. Alexander is a frequent co-host and he took immediately to the program with his straightforward approach when dispensing information. It just clicked. Shows like NASCAR in a Hurry and Race Hub also began to use Alexander in the host role.

Now, he and Welch need to change gears and appear on the national TV stage in roles that are new. For ESPN, Sunday is a chance to audition a back-up play-by-play guy for Marty Reid. The network likes Allen Bestwick in his current infield role. ESPN's Dave Burns will also get an opportunity to call a Nationwide race this season. Welch is currently scheduled to handle the play-by-play on four races in 2010.

Alexander's baptism by fire comes this week and runs for the next six Sprint Cup Series races, including the big Daytona event where TNT offers "wide open" coverage. Dealing with the strange twists and turns of that assignment may prove the most challenging for him this summer.

Perhaps you could give us your opinion of these selections before the races this weekend. We can then revisit this topic next week. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. We will live blog the CWTS race on a new post Friday night.

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The TV Line In The Sand

We've been having quite a spirited discussion about the recent announcement that Phil Parsons will be the new pit reporter for the six TNT summer Sprint Cup Series races.

At some point, there has to be a line drawn in the sand that NASCAR personalities who want to mix business with TV should not cross. In my mind, Parsons is crossing it with the TNT deal.

We all remember that back in 2007 one huge issue was the fact that Rusty Wallace was calling the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series races for ESPN while owning teams in the Nationwide Series. Wallace tried hard, but his views on topics from Kurt Busch to Ryan Newman were just not balanced enough for TV.

In a move that made sense, ESPN put Wallace in the Infield Pit Studio with Allen Bestwick. Wallace could still contribute, but was no longer the primary analyst in the TV booth. When Brad Daugherty bought an interest in an existing Sprint Cup Series team, ESPN allowed him to remain on the air with the same warning. Offer us opinions from your NASCAR experience, but keep it fair.

While we were coming to terms with those two, the business dealings of everyone from Andy Petree to Darrell Waltrip bubbled up. Even the announcers on SPEED's Trackside series were allowed to sell NASCAR sponsorship space on their official SPEED TV shirts.

So, there is no doubt that most of the current NASCAR TV personalities have business dealings or personal connections to the sport. My issue is just how far is too far?

While SPEED does not ask Wendy Venturini to interview her JGR employed husband, they do permit her to cover the Venturini Motorsports pits during ARCA races. Matt Yocum interviewed Tony Stewart for FOX even as he produced Stewart's Sirius radio show. The list goes on and on.

The Parsons issue is one that has an interesting twist. Parsons has been profiled as building a "start and park" business in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series. He brings fast qualifying cars to the track, makes the race and then parks prior to the first pit stop. At Sunday's Coke 600, Parsons made over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for starting and parking his two teams.

Click here for Terry Blount's story at ESPN.com where Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage accuses Parsons of stealing money and says professional start and park teams should be banned from the sport. Strong words from a veteran promoter.

While Parsons goes about his business of "starting and parking," he also has a TV job. For many years now, Parsons has been the lead analyst for the Camping World Truck Series. Long before Michael Waltrip joined the SPEED TV team on the truck telecasts, it was Parsons working hard and helping to build that brand for the sport.

Parsons has been on other shows on SPEED like Race Hub talking about NASCAR topics, but Sunday in Pocono will be different. As a pit reporter for TNT and a two car team owner, Parsons will literally be a part of the story on which he is reporting. That story will be the Sprint Cup Series race.

Most fans I polled informally on Twitter and Facebook were ambivalent. They had grown so used to conflicts of interest within the ranks of the NASCAR TV crowd that they didn't care. Most just wanted the end product to improve after a rocky stretch with the NASCAR on FOX races.

On one hand, Parsons has worked hard for the sport on the air for many years. His personality and knowledge would be a plus for any telecast. On the other hand, how close is too close? Parsons himself could easily become a part of the story if one of his cars is involved in an incident.

Parsons may be talking to an angry driver who had his championship hopes ruined by one of Parsons' own cars at the start of the race. Perhaps, Parsons will be talking to a crew chief or owner who had a team car sent home by Parsons' two-car effort.

The potential scenarios for trouble just go on and on. In my opinion, things could get ugly fast. This is crossing the TV line in the sand.

How about helping us discuss this issue? To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Wednesday TV/Media Notes

Here are some topics under discussion as we come down to the start of the TNT races on a weekend where NASCAR's top series are racing in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

TNT has confirmed that Phil Parsons will be joining the network as a pit reporter for the six Sprint Cup Series races. Early feedback on this move has been mixed. While casual fans may not be in the loop, hardcore fans certainly have strong feelings about Parsons making "starting and parking" in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series a profitable personal business.

While others on TV like Rusty Wallace, Brad Daugherty and Michael Waltrip also own teams, those efforts involve racing for the win and not parking for a pay day. Parsons has Dave Blaney and Michael McDowell entered for Pocono, although both drivers have to make it into the field on time. There are 45 cars set to qualify.

Parsons move to pit road covers the spot many originally thought Adam Alexander would take. Instead, Alexander is upstairs in the TNT booth. This responsibility takes him away from SPEED, so Krista Voda will cover pit road for the three Camping World Truck Series races Alexander will miss due to his TNT duties.

We mentioned yesterday that Lindsay Czarniak was set to host the six TNT races. Now, in addition to those duties she will also be appearing on TNT's online RaceBuddy to offer recaps, updates and direct feedback from the telecast team during the race.

RaceBuddy is a hot topic and we got lots of feedback after yesterday's column. Here is some additional information and answers from TNT and NASCAR.com to questions you asked.

On the topic of RaceBuddy working on an iPad the news is not good. Originally, Apple promoted the iPad as being Flash-friendly. Click here for an outstanding article on what happened next. It turns out the iPad does not support any websites that use Flash technology. RaceBuddy is one of those. Sorry folks, but the only part of RaceBuddy that will work on an iPad is the leaderboard.

On the question of free team radio scanners. RaceBuddy will only have team radios from the in-car cameras that are being used on the application. NASCAR.com's Trackpass feature will be made available on Pocono and Chicago race weekends free to any users. That has multiple scanners. Also this season, the Gillett Young Guns sponsors will make a free online scanner available with two of the Young Gun drivers.

On the topics of what changed with RaceBuddy this season. The video portion will be almost 30% larger on the screen. There is a DVR function that allows fans to quickly rewind to create video replays. The leaderboard can be customized completely and so can a Twitter feed of NASCAR driver, team and media tweets.

Speaking of Twitter, the original leader of the Twitter pack Kyle Petty will again be interacting with viewers through his cell phone and Twitter in the TV booth. Last season I had the unique experience of sending Petty a question, having it answered live on the air moments later and then Petty send me a tweet in the next commercial break asking if he answered my question fully. That was an eye-opening social media moment.

Finally, this was offered by Darrell Waltrip on Twitter Tuesday night:

Read today that FOX needed to make some changes, we do races for everyone, not just a few that seem to think they know everything about TV!!

Speed is cable, on Sunday FOX is network, some people don't get both, so sometimes you repeat what you said because its a different audience!!

Sorry,just made me angry,we try to make sure if you tune in you'll learn something you didn't know and have fun doing it,I'm just sayn'!

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