Motorsports on ESPN this week
NASCAR Countdown airs Saturday, Feb. 20, at 5 p.m. ET. The race telecast starts at 5:30 p.m. with the green flag at 5:46 p.m. Marty Reid will be the lap-by-lap announcer for ESPN2’s race coverage, joined in the booth for analysis by 1999 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Dale Jarrett and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion crew chief Andy Petree. Pit reporters will be Dave Burns, Jamie Little, Dr. Jerry Punch and Vince Welch. Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion crew chief Tim Brewer will report from the ESPN Craftsman Tech Garage.
Allen Bestwick will host NASCAR Countdown from the ESPN pit studio, with analysis by 1989 NASCAR Cup champion Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty, a team owner in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Evernham, Craven, Smith on NASCAR Now Roundtable
NASCAR on ESPN analysts Ray Evernham and Ricky Craven and NASCAR Now lead reporter Marty Smith will be panelists on NASCAR Now’s weekly roundtable discussion program on Monday, Feb. 22, at 6 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Allen Bestwick will host the edition of ESPN2’s daily NASCAR news and information program.
Mike Massaro hosts half-hour episodes of NASCAR Now airing Tuesday through Thursday of this week at 5 p.m. and Friday at 6 p.m. Massaro also hosts the one-hour weekend edition that airs Sunday, Feb. 21, at 10 a.m. with a preview of that day’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. Nicole Briscoe and Angelique Chengelis will report from the speedway. .
NASCAR Now is hosted by Massaro, Bestwick and Manske and originates from ESPN’s high definition studios in Bristol, Conn. Contributors include reporters Marty Smith, Shannon Spake and Angelique Chengelis, analysts Ray Evernham, Tim Brewer, Brad Daugherty, Ricky Craven and Randy LaJoie, and ESPN.com reporters Ed Hinton, Terry Blount and David Newton. The NASCAR on ESPN team event coverage team of Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, Marty Reid, Dr. Jerry Punch, Andy Petree, Dave Burns, Jamie Little, and Vince Welch also make frequent contributions to NASCAR Now.
NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series in Phoenix
The NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series races this weekend in the Lucas Slick Mist NHRA Nationals at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix, and ESPN2 will air highlights of qualifying and eliminations. Qualifying action airs Sunday, Feb. 21, at 2 a.m. ET, and coverage of eliminations airs later that day at 7 p.m.
NHRA’s annual duel in the desert has been a Southwest fixture since 1985, when it joined the tour in a late fall slot. Since 1990, it has been the second stop on the tour’s westward march and a place for teams to redeem mistakes made at the opener. Charlie Allen, a former Funny Car racer, constructed a track that makes people forget it sits at 1,100 feet above sea level. The facility is also known for its annual preseason tests and Tony Schumacher’s historic 330-mph quarter-mile blast in 1999.
Paul Page anchors ESPN2’s coverage with analysis by 22-time NHRA winner Mike Dunn. Gary Gerould and Dave Rieff report from the pits. Rieff and Dunn host NHRA RaceDay on Sunday at 11 a.m. to set the stage for that day’s eliminations action.
ESPN Classic Revs Up with Classic Riverside, North Wilkesboro Races
Two of the great NASCAR racetracks of the past will be featured on ESPN Classic this week as highlights of races held at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway and North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway air from the archives.
The famed Southern California road course held NASCAR races for nearly 30 years before being shuttered following the 1988 Budweiser 400. Highlights from that race, won by future ESPN analyst Rusty Wallace, air Monday, Feb. 22, at noon ET.
One of NASCAR’s original tracks, the 5/8-mile North Wilkesboro track produced classic short track racing until it was closed in the late 1990s. Fans can go back in time with highlights of the 1986 First Union 400 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 1 a.m.
ESPN Classic also airs an episode of its signature series SportsCentury featuring Richard Petty on Sunday, Feb. 21, at 8 a.m