Here are some Monday topics that you have been asking (or yelling) about:
NASCAR Now: The Sunday night 10PM Pacific/1AM Eastern Sprint Cup Series wrap-up show was not on the DVR's and VCR's of NASCAR fans on Monday morning.
Instead, NHRA Drag Racing ran for the full hour. It was interesting to watch NASCAR promos and commercials in the program. This was the only Sunday night version of the series. Still working on how all this happened. Email if you have more info.
Knoxville Nationals: Event rained-out on Saturday night and ran on Sunday. Adam Alexander on the 7PM Sunday SPEED Report said that the track decided not to keep the TV for Sunday.
On Monday, SPEED Tweeted that Lucas Oil made the decision not to pay for Sunday TV coverage. At this point, what we know is that racing fans again are the losers in this mess.
As veteran fans know, this has happened before with the Knoxville Nationals and TDP was right in the middle of it. Many NASCAR drivers own Sprint Car teams and they were none too happy that one night of rain in Iowa would cause the entire TV crew to leave town.
Update: SPEED checks in to say that the weather forecast for Sunday was also for rain and the track made the decision for TV to leave. SPEED advises they were not involved in that decision making process.
Sprint Cup Series post-race: It is correct that ESPN's Jerry Punch did not direct viewers to SportsCenter or ESPNEWS before the MIS telecast left the air. That was a shame because NASCAR continued on the ESPN networks.
Boris Said appeared on SportsCenter with Ryan Burr right after the race for highlights and analysis. The announce team from MIS also appeared during this segment. All involved did a great job.
ESPNEWS covered the post-race extensively. The fact that the late night NASCAR Now did not air as scheduled really made this entire situation far worse for fans who tuned-out after the race.
This is just another issue in the continuing struggles of ESPN to get their arms around the sport. I understand many of you feel Brian Vickers was slighted and his winning interview was embarrassing. If you feel this way, then email ESPN and tell them about it. There are viewer response forms on the ESPN website.
Thanks for all the Tweets and emails, we will keep updating this post as more information on these topics rolls in. Add your comments below.
