Motorsports This Week on ESPN

NASCAR Busch Series in Prime Time on ESPN2 From Phoenix

ESPN2 will have a live, primetime telecast of Friday night’s NASCAR Busch Series race from Phoenix International Raceway starting at 9 p.m. ET. The one-mile superspeedway will bring the Arizona desert alive for 200 laps of racing under the lights, with the race beginning just as darkness begins to fall in the Valley of the Sun.

Phoenix International Raceway is one of the most unique oval tracks in the world, with a modified “D” shape and different degrees of banking and radius of turn at each end. Turns one and two are banked 11 degrees, with a sharp radius, while turns three and four are banked only nine degrees, with a more sweeping radius. The frontstretch is straight while the backstretch has a distinct bend, almost creating a fifth turn.

Though Phoenix International Raceway has hosted auto racing since the 1960s, the NASCAR Busch Series has a relatively short history at the track, with Jeff Gordon winning the inaugural race for the series in 1999. PIR held one NASCAR Busch Series race a year until 2005, when the track was granted second dates for the Busch Series and the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series. Greg Biffle, with two wins, is the only driver to win more than once in the NASCAR Busch Series at Phoenix. Kevin Harvick is the defending champion of the April event, and Matt Kenseth took the victory in the most recent race last November.

Jerry Punch will anchor ESPN2’s telecast from Phoenix, joined in the booth by 1999 NASCAR champion and current NASCAR NEXTEL Cup driver Dale Jarrett and two-time NASCAR champion crew chief Andy Petree for analysis. Jarrett is filling in for ESPN’s lead auto racing analyst, Rusty Wallace, who has the weekend off. Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Vince Welch will serve as pit reporters, with Welch filling in for regular team member Mike Massaro. Erik Kuselias will host the telecast, while analyst Brad Daugherty will join Kuselias in the ESPN Pit Studio during the race, with analyst Tim Brewer at the ESPN Cutaway Car. ESPN2’s coverage will begin with the pre-race NASCAR Countdown show at 9 p.m. ET, with the race to start at 9:30 p.m.

ESPN2 is the home of the NASCAR Busch Series this year with coverage of 29 of the series’ 35 events. The other six will be televised by ESPN on ABC. In addition to the telecast on ESPN2, ESPN’s signature broadband service, ESPN360.com, will deliver a live online simulcast of the event, and a Spanish-language version of the race will be televised on ESPN Deportes, ESPN’s domestic Spanish-language network.

NASCAR Now Expanding to One Hour on Mondays

NASCAR Now, ESPN’s first daily news and information show totally dedicated to NASCAR, is expanding its Monday evening edition to one hour. The expanded format will provide more time for recaps and analysis of the weekend’s NASCAR races. The Monday program will air from 6-7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

NASCAR Now will air on ESPN2 for 30 minutes at its regular 6:30 p.m. ET timeslot Tuesday through Thursday of this week, with no Friday edition due to the live NASCAR Busch Series race at Phoenix International Raceway that evening on ESPN2. In addition, the weekend edition will air at 10 a.m. Saturday, rather than its usual day of Sunday, due to the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series running that night at Phoenix. Reports from Phoenix will be included in Saturday’s program. Sunday night’s edition of the program will air at midnight.

NASCAR Now is hosted by Erik Kuselias, Doug Banks and Ryan Burr and originates from ESPN’s High Definition studios in Bristol, Conn., with reporters Mike Massaro and Shannon Spake. Contributors also include analysts Tim Brewer, Brad Daugherty, Stacy Compton and Boris Said, along with NASCAR insiders Terry Blount, Angelique Chengelis, Tim Cowlishaw, David Newton and Marty Smith, as well as D.J. Copp, a member of the Dale Earnhardt, Jr., NASCAR team.

IndyCar Series Goes International with Event from Japan

The IndyCar Series will go international this weekend with the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi, a 1.5-mile oval located some 60 miles northeast of Tokyo. The race will mark the fourth visit of the IndyCar Series to Japan, which hosted the series’ first-ever overseas event in 2003. ESPN’s coverage of the 300-mile race will air at noon ET on Saturday, April 21.

The egg-shaped oval was built by Honda, the engine supplier for the IndyCar Series, and features turns banked 10 degrees and seating for 100,000. Dan Wheldon holds the track qualifying record for the IndyCar Series of 205.762 mph, set in 2004. Wheldon, who won the race in both 2004 and 2005, will be joined in the field with other previous winners Scott Sharp (2003) and Helio Castroneves (2006).

ESPN’s Marty Reid will be lead announcer for the Indy Japan 300, joined in the booth for analysis by former IndyCar Series driver Scott Goodyear. Reporting the action from the pits will be Jack Arute.

Sunday’s Houston Race Marks Champ Car World Series Return to ESPN Networks

Live coverage of Sunday’s event from Houston’s Reliant Park street circuit will mark the return of the Champ Car World Series to the ESPN networks for the first time in six years. The race will air from 3-5 p.m. ET on ESPN.

At least 13 events of the international open-wheel racing series will be televised on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic and ESPN on ABC in 2007, with the networks exclusively airing the series in 2008. The networks have a long history with Champ Car that began in 1981 when the first race ever aired live on ESPN was a Champ Car event from Milwaukee won by Mike Mosley. Series events appeared on the networks through the 2001 season. Many of the great moments in the history of the series were seen live on ESPN and ABC including Alex Zanardi’s 1997 win in Cleveland where he introduced the world to victory doughnuts and Mario Andretti’s final Champ Car win at Phoenix in 1993.

Rick Benjamin and Jon Beekhuis will be in the booth for the Houston race, with Cameron Steele and Bill Stephens reporting from the pits. Michelle Beisner will be a feature reporter on the telecast.

Champ Car Atlantic Las Vegas Action To Air Thursday

The Champ Car Atlantic Series, the feeder series for the Champ Car World Series, will be on the air Thursday, April 19, at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 with a recap of last weekend’s race from the famous Long Beach street circuit. The race was the second event for the 34th season of the historic Atlantic Championship.

Veteran play-by-play announcer Rick Benjamin, color analyst and former Atlantic racer Jon Beekhuis and pit reporter Cameron Steele will call the action from Las Vegas. ESPN2 will have tape-delayed coverage of all Champ Car Atlantic events this season.

NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Action Airs Sunday

The NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series will air on Sunday, April 22 at noon ET on ESPN2 with coverage of series action from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Featuring race vehicles that range from five-second Top Alcohol Dragsters and Top Alcohol Funny Cars to 15-second Stockers, the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series is the premier Sportsman series in drag racing. Eight categories are included in the series, which is showcased at selected NHRA national events. ESPN’s Dave Rieff will anchor the coverage from Las Vegas.

New Episodes of ESPN2 Garage Programs on Tap for Week

New episodes of eight shows in the ESPN2 Garage block of automotive programming will air this week. Designed to complement ESPN’s extensive coverage of NASCAR, IndyCar, Champ Car and NHRA racing in 2007, ESPN2 Garage is dedicated to the automotive, motorcycle and motorsports world. ESPN2 will air more than 1,100 hours of motorsports programming in 2007.

New episodes of the ESPN2 Garage programs Mothers Car Show and SpeedFreaks will air on Thursday, April 19. New episodes of The Bidding Wars, Funkmaster Flex’s Car Wars, Hot Rod Television, Metric Revolution, P.I.P.E.S, and Stacey David’s GearZ will air Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22, with replays to air on weekday afternoons the following week.

The new episode of SpeedFreaks was taped in Nashville and features two-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup champion Terry Labonte, NHRA POWERAde Drag Racing Series driver Ron Capps, AMA Superbike champion Matt Mladin and automobile designer Chip Foose. The SpeedFreaks debate who is tougher, the young guns or the old-school tough guys in NASCAR. The Freaks also go to the movies and Statt Mann eats his fill of Nashville BBQ. The show airs at 5 p.m. ET on April 19.

Mothers Car Show airs at 6 p.m. on April 19 and Mothers is headed to Chevelle heaven, Original Parts Group in Huntington Beach, Calif., as the judges handle their toughest, most grueling assignment yet. Mothers showcases cars, bikes, trucks, sport compacts, street rods and everything else with wheels and an engine. The Mothers crew will be everywhere to bring reports on exotic vehicles to viewers. The episode repeats at 5 p.m. on Friday, April 20.

Hot Rod TV will kick off the ESPN2 Garage schedule on Saturday at 11 a.m. ET following NASCAR Now. Hot Rod TV gets up-close and personal with the hottest cars in the country. The new episode features the amazing Goodguys Street Rod Nationals, the event that defined cool for American dream machines.A previously-aired episode will be shown at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17.

Following at 11:30 a.m. will be a new episode of P.I.P.E.S. Challengers modify their tuner car to race in a “king of the hill” competition, with the eventual series winner taking home a cash prize. The tuner must achieve a predetermined horsepower and fuel efficiency rating, plus run on pump gas. Viewers will gain insight on how to boost their own car’s performance and make it fuel efficient. A previously-aired episode will be shown at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17.

Stacey David’s GearZ airs at noon Saturday. In the previous episode, David made room, and this week, the transplant takes place as he stuffs a 400 horsepower V8 into a Mazda Miata. The episode demonstrates that it’s possible to actually build a blindingly fast car on a reasonable budget. Previously-aired episodes will be shown at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17, and 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18.

In the new episode of The Bidding Wars that airs Saturday at 12:30 p.m., movie cars come up for auction like the "Men In Black" Ford LTD, the outrageously pink "2 Fast, 2 Furious" Honda S2000, and the 'Cadirock' Cadillac from "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas." Previously-aired episodes will be shown at 5:30 and 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 18.

On Sunday, a new episode of Funkmaster Flex’s Car Wars debuts at 11 a.m. Flex and his sidekick Bobby Trends give one contestant a final warning. Someone leaves the project and Lori opens up about her dark past. An encore showing will air at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, April 23.

Metric Revolution airs at 11:30 a.m. Sunday with 22 of the country’s greatest motorcycle builders facing off in a competition unlike any other. This week Dean Kawczack, Sam Nehme and Carl Stephens struggle to build the most radical custom bikes on the Planet. The episode will be repeated at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 23. A previously-aired episode will be shown at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 20.

An episode of RM Classic Car Auctions will air at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 20. Set at one of the biggest auction houses in the country, viewers will see the auction scene in Monterey, Calif., and show some of the most beautiful and exotic cars in the world being sold for astronomical prices.

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