Live Blogging Camping World Trucks From New Hampshire (SPEED - 2:30PM ET)

The Camping World Truck Series might be down, but it is definitely not out. The flat track at New Hamphshire is still a bit big for the series, but the trucks put on a good show for TV.

Kyle Busch was the class of the field, expect him to dominate. The regulars are still putting up a good fight with better stories in this series than the Nationwide tour. Lots of youngsters who fans will be seeing for many years will be on TV today.

Krista Voda starts the coverage with the pre-race show. The Mod race will just have ended, so pit road should be a bit busier than normal. The weather has also been iffy, with a rain delay in the Mod race.

Rick Allen will call the race with Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip. Ray Dunlap and Hermie Sadler are on pit road. The trucks are a familiar TV package with no surprises. Fans and TV viewers know exactly what they will get.

This post will serve to host your comments on the truck series race from the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. To add your TV-related opinions, just click on the comments button. Thanks for stopping by.

Ray Evernham Returning To NASCAR TV

Ray Evernham has been a lot of things in his NASCAR career. Most recently, he was a NASCAR analyst for ESPN. Working in a variety of settings, Evernham brought his rather unique perspective to TV viewers.

ESPN used Evernham in the network studios as a panelist on the big Monday roundtable show. He also traveled to the tracks and worked from the infield pit studio. On one memorable occasion, he flew to Mexico with Dr. Jerry Punch and Rusty Wallace to call a Nationwide Series race.

His original move to ESPN in 2008 was complicated. He came with a lot of baggage. The domestic and professional issues that dogged him late in the team owner portion of his career threatened to surface again.

While ESPN Motorsports executives continually said all was fine, it was not. Evernham was getting a free pass on ESPN when it came to Gillett Evernham Motorsports (GEM) and a range of issues. They included his continued financial interest in the team and the ongoing Richard Petty Motorsports merger affecting drivers like Elliott Sadler and AJ Allmendinger.

Here is an excerpt from a September of 2008 TDP column about Evernham's first season with ESPN:

While Evernham might talk about his cars and his teams during the race highlights, there is a code of silence at ESPN where Evernham is concerned that is simply not fair to NASCAR fans. Like all the other owners, Evernham should be fair game and he is not.

Where ESPN is concerned, suits-and-ties and silence cannot hide reality. These NASCAR owners who double as ESPN announcers simply cannot walk down both sides of the street and expect their commentary to be received by the fans as unbiased.

"Ray Evernham Needs To Clear The Air" was a TDP column from January of 2009. We suggested that Evernham clear-up the remaining issues and address the outstanding questions before his second TV season began. Click here to read the entire post.

A short time later, Evernham did exactly that with then NASCAR.com "lifestyle" writer Raygan Swan. Click here to read "Retired Evernham Looks Forward To What Lies Ahead."

Swan gave Evernham a controlled and friendly media outlet where he could put information out in a very public forum. NASCAR.com has high traffic and is a site that fans can easily access and reference. The bottom line is, it worked.

In 2009 Evernham cemented his reputation as someone who could speak to a wide variety of NASCAR issues with authority on television. His opinions were mixed with the type of analytical crew chief perspective that few possess. His TV star was rising.

After three seasons with ESPN, Evernham surprised everyone by stepping away from NASCAR TV before the 2011 season. Instead, he signed on to consult with NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick on some of Hendrick's non-racing interests. At the time, some speculated that Evernham was actually being brought in to help struggling Dale Earnhardt Jr.

True to his word, Evernham kept away from the racing and instead enjoyed a low-key season that featured few national media interactions. That is about to change. Admittedly a man who gets bored easily, Evernham is returning to NASCAR TV.

TDP has learned that Evernham will shortly move into a role as the NASCAR analyst for the new SPEED Center program on SPEED network. As part of the network's recent changes, SPEED Center was created to provide a constant studio presence from Friday through Sunday during the live racing from around the country.

The SPEED Center concept features inserts from the studio into all types of SPEED programming and covers various types of racing. Adam Alexander has been the primary host, stepping aside for a rotating group of existing SPEED announcers during his time working for the NASCAR on TNT races.

Evernham would be put in a similar role to ESPN's Ricky Craven, who works in the NASCAR Now studios previewing and then reviewing the NASCAR racing action from the weekend. SPEED is a bit different, already producing a large amount of live programming from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tracks all season long.

This is going to be a good opportunity for Evernham to take a short drive over to the Charlotte, NC based SPEED studios and get back to work. His perspective is thoughtful and his opinions are more than just the standard positive reinforcement of the sport theme so popular on NASCAR TV these days.

Patti Wheeler is the driving force behind SPEED Center and the executive that got the ball rolling where Evernham is concerned. Wheeler is heading both the programming and production departments at the network, which essentially means she can create, schedule and produce the kinds of programs that meet the new SPEED agenda.

With the Chase already underway, it should be interesting to see if Evernham starts in his new role right away. There is a SPEED Center show scheduled for 11PM Friday night that will be previewing the Camping World Truck and Sprint Cup Series races from New Hampshire.

SPEED should be making an official announcement sometime on Friday. We will update this post about the specifics, but it is going to be nice to have Evernham back on TV talking about the sport once again. This time, he's traveling light.

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

Day Two: "RaceBuddy" Reactions

It certainly sounded pretty good in the news release. Turner Sports and ESPN had made a deal. RaceBuddy was coming to the Chase. That is the Broadcast Slate 3000 pictured above that takes selected video feeds from the TV truck at the track and routes them to the video sources on the RaceBuddy page.

"Enhancing the viewing experience and improving the sport's digital and social presence for our millions of fans at the track, at home and everywhere in between is a goal we never lose sight of," said NASCAR's vice president of digital media Marc Jenkins.

"Turner Sports is delighted to partner with NASCAR and ESPN to expand the award-winning RaceBuddy on NASCAR.COM to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup," said senior vice president of Turner Sports Matthew Hong.

"Feedback from fans has been that they wish RaceBuddy were available for additional races outside the TNT portion of the season," Hong said. "We're proud to be able to bring them ChaseBuddy and extend the interactive experience of RaceBuddy to nine playoff races."

Hidden in the news releases from the various parties was this little nugget. "RaceBuddy will feature two mosaics with a mix of eight in-car and stationary cameras positioned around the track," said the Turner statement.

A key concern of ESPN when the network returned to the sport in 2007 was that an online product like RaceBuddy would take viewers away from the actual TV coverage. Racebuddy was created to simply be an addition to the telecasts, although it did have one camera dedicated to showing racing at all times. Now, that has changed.

While the in-car cameras and the "speed shot" from the stationary cameras were popular, it was the "battle cam" that gave RaceBuddy its heart and soul. That camera has now been completely eliminated from the Chase for the Championship version.

"Battle cam" was one of the "high cameras" positioned on the grandstand tower at the racetracks. It could see all the way around the track, but more importantly it was used to show something that current television coverage has long since cast aside. It constantly showed the best racing on the track regardless of position.

Follow the leader is the mantra of the current Sprint Cup Series TV partners. During the FOX portion of the season, the complaints pour in that the TV mix is simply the leader of the race and Junior. There is no RaceBuddy for these events. NASCAR on FOX absolutely wants nothing to do with online video.

When TNT rolls around, RaceBuddy eases the pain of viewers who again watch the leaders go around and around on TV. RaceBuddy allows users to watch the best racing on the track from the green to the checkered flag on the "battle cam." That will never be something shown on TV for more than a minute or two.

When RaceBuddy popped online last week for the first Chase race it offered fans multiple in-car cameras chosen by the Turner Sports folks. The two other slots were filled with cameras assigned to one specific view. ESPN had effectively shut the door to being able to use RaceBuddy to actually see cars racing around the track.

Fans who only had computer access of the rain-delayed Monday race either rode in-car with their favorite driver or watched the field drive through the other two camera views. While fans who attended the event told us there were some good battles in the middle of the pack, that was again eliminated in the ESPN production formula of tight camera shots of one or two cars.

It's not known who blinked, but RaceBuddy was effectively neutered in this deal. If your driver is selected for a featured in-car camera, then perhaps the value of this online application remains high. But without the "battle cam," it's just a watered-down version of the original concept.

For those asking, RaceBuddy will also not be providing an audio track of either the ESPN telecast or the radio coverage of the Chase races. Sound from team scanners can be heard when an individual camera is selected and the natural sound of the racing is heard on the other camera choices.

Sprint is paying the bill, so changing between mosaic views or individual cameras will get you a Sprint commercial playing on the screen. Perhaps, the 15 second versions will be inserted for the New Hampshire race instead of the longer 30 second versions that proved to be tough for race fans after several hours of use.

While RaceBuddy has finally cracked the online ice where ESPN is concerned, this Chasebuddy version packs a lot less punch by eliminating the most popular feature. Perhaps, this compromise deal meant that all parties had to give up something. It's pretty clear that "battle cam" is what Turner sacrificed.

We invite your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.