Live Blogging Nationwide Series From New Hampshire (ESPN - 2:30PM)

The weather is beautiful at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. SPEED has handled all the TV activity this weekend as ESPN has been busy with other non-motorsports programming.

The network steps away from golf and into NASCAR with coverage of the Nationwide Series beginning at 2:30PM ET. Allen Bestwick hosts the pre-race show with Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty. It's a shame ESPN did not let Bestwick call this race, since Bestwick is a New Englander and would be a great presence for the network in New Hampshire.

Instead, it will be Marty Reid working with Wallace and Ricky Craven in the booth. Dale Jarrett is off this weekend and Andy Petree brought a Modified car to the track and was going to race until he crashed in practice.

Dr. Jerry Punch, Vince Welch and Dave Burns will handle pit road. New Hampshire Motor Speedway can feature long green flag runs if the field gets stretched out or lots of cautions if things bottle up and the spinning begins on this flat track.

This is a layout where the TV director has to hustle. Flat-track racing means lots of camera cutting and quick incidents. Forcing in-car cameras into this broadcast can mean the loss of perspective for viewers and the potential to miss key incidents.

There are lots of Sprint Cup Series cross-over drivers today led by Brad Keselowski, who is on the pole. That means some drivers will flat-out be racing for the win, while the "regulars" will have to keep the season championship in mind.

This is the final dress rehearsal for ESPN. After this weekend, the network hosts both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series coverage until the end of the season. Marty Reid wanted the pressure and he has it. He will handle the top two NASCAR touring series telecast for the rest of the season.

This post will serve to host your comments about the ESPN coverage of the Nationwide Series race from the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. To add your TV-related opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for stopping by.

Friday TV Comments From New Hampshire

We are opening up the blog for general NASCAR TV/media comments on Friday because there are a lot of things going on all day long.

NASCAR President Mike Helton will meet with the media on a video conference at 9AM ET from New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Expect many of the questions and quite a few of his answers to include the word "Kentucky." I am told this live video should be streamed on the NASCAR.com website.

The traffic disaster has overshadowed the race and continues to fester with no offer of refunds to fans with tickets who never made it to the track. SMI is offering a ticket exchange to other SMI races this season or the Kentucky Speedway Cup race in 2012.

Who knows what other questions may be asked or announcements also made at that time. We will update this post with those topics.

SPEED goes on the air at 11:30AM ET Friday and stays on the air all day long. Adam Alexander is going to anchor from the booth and John Roberts from the infield. Expect to see a ton of familiar faces throughout the day, including Darrell Waltrip on his last weekend out at the racetrack for a while.

The complete Friday TV line-up, including announcers, is listed on the left side of this page.

To add your comment about the Friday coverage or other news topics, just click on the comments button below. We will be answering questions and updating news on this post. Thanks for stopping by.

NASCAR Gets A Friend At ESPN

It's perhaps one of the worst-kept secrets at ESPN. The vast majority of the SportsCenter anchors hate NASCAR. They cannot stand the sport invading the time reserved for endless baseball highlights and news about important topics like another Brett Favre comeback or what Danica was wearing at the ESPY's.

When it comes to NASCAR again this year, SportsCenter has swung and missed. As they say in ESPN lingo, it was "a whiff." Click here to review a story originally posted in June about an incident that had fans fuming. This time, it was SportsCenter anchor John Anderson. His on-air antics after the Chicagoland Nationwide Series race were nothing short of spiteful.

Wednesday night on NBC4 in Washington, DC there was emotion on the set. Click here to see the send-off by the anchor team for sports reporter Lindsay Czarniak. Goodbyes in TV are usually awkward, but this one was clearly from the heart.

Czarniak was first seen by many NASCAR fans as the high-energy pit reporter who showed up for the summer during the six TNT races. Hardcore fans who watched practice and qualifying coverage know that during the TNT stretch Czarniak stepped right in and worked the garage and pits for SPEED like a veteran NASCAR reporter.

This season on TNT Czarniak has been hosting the pre-race show, remaining in the host position during the race and then handling both the TV and online post-race shows. It's been an impressive performance for someone who does not work the NASCAR trail full time.

Czarniak recently announced that she was heading for a new career at ESPN in Bristol, CT starting in August. After some quick speculation that she might be involved in NASCAR coverage, ESPN released the information that she was headed for SportsCenter as an anchor.

The photo above of Czarniak and Carl Edwards is from a feature she was shooting for TNT. In her summers in the sport, Czarniak has experienced NASCAR from a wonderful perspective. She has met and interacted with the top drivers and personalities. She has been on pit road during races.

Ironically, it was Carl Edwards who showed-up live on a TNT telecast after falling out of a recent race. Czarniak was completely comfortable with Edwards just hanging around and offering commentary. Comfortable on the air is a phrase that is often used to describe Czarniak's style.

When August rolls around and ESPN is handling coverage of both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series, Czarniak should just be getting her feet wet on the air in Bristol. That certainly is interesting timing.

Don't underestimate the impact of a high-profile ESPN anchor who not only likes NASCAR, but has experienced it first-hand for years. Now, the sport has a former veteran pit road reporter and telecast host in the anchor chair at SportsCenter.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Czarniak moved into the version of SportsCenter that the network uses as a flexible Sprint Cup Series extended post-race show. It also wouldn't surprise me to see some on-air attitudes toward the sport change rather rapidly.

It's going to be a lot harder to make fun of NASCAR when the SportsCenter boys figure out that the person sitting beside them at the anchor desk has been there and done that.

We will update the information on where Czarniak is assigned once she joins ESPN next month. Good luck to her as she makes this career transition.

We welcome your thoughts on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below.