Wow, this is like NFL season when we have pregame quotage. Today, we have some releases to post. I like it.
From TNT, quotage from today’s NASCAR coverage.
Notes from TNT’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coverage – Sunday, June 14, 2009
TNT’s coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series continues on Sunday, June 21 from Toyota/Save Mart 350 from Infineon Raceway. NASCAR on TNT Live! begins at 3:30 p.m. ET, followed by Countdown to Green at 4:30 p.m. ET. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing begins at 5 p.m. ET.
NASCAR on TNT Live! from Michigan International Speedway
Marc Fein (host), Larry McReynolds (analyst) and Kyle Petty (analyst)
McReynolds on the first week of double-file restarts and how it will impact racing at Michigan: “When it dawned on me how exciting it is, I watched the Nationwide race in Kentucky last night and remember, they don’t have (double-file restarts). At the end of the race when all of them lined up in single file, I thought there’s no excitement in this. I think what’s going to be different here versus Pocono is for those wave by cars. At Pocono, once you took the green flag you could easily come to pit road and make a four tire green flag stop and still stay on the lead lap. It’s a little different here, I think maybe you can go to pit road and change right side tires, but if you change four tires you’re going to defeat what you just gained right back.”
Petty following Lindsay Czarniak’s Lindsay on Location behind-the-scenes piece on NASCAR Race Control: “It’s like air traffic control. you’ve got 43 planes in a pattern all wanting to land, but all wanting to land where they want to, when they want to do it and how they want to do it and any way to get to the lead is the whole deal. These men and women up there, it’s their job to control what goes on on pit road and what goes on on the race track. There’s a lot of pressure, but we can’t race without them.”
Dallenbach on the racetrack at Michigan International Speedway: “This is a racer’s racetrack. There is so much room to race on this track, you can run high, low, in the middle. You can run four wide in the corners and not worry about losing it. It’s a smooth track, there’s a lot of grip, everyone loves coming here and this is always one of the racetracks I could not wait to come to.”
Grammy-nominated artist Kid Rock, who is serving as Grand Marshall for the race, joined the NASCAR on TNT Live! show.
Kid Rock on being the Grand Marshall of the race: “Yeah, I never thought I’d be called grand. I love NASCAR, I love racing and it’s my son’s birthday; perfect.”
Kid Rock on the impact of the auto industry in Detroit on his life: “Huge, my dad sold Ford, Lincoln, Mercurys. My guitar player is here with his dad who worked on the auto line his whole life. Pretty much everyone I know I know is in a tool and dye company somewhere building something. It’s tough times right now, but it’s not our first time down, we’ll be back.”
Petty on Pride of NASCAR featured driver Darrell Waltrip: “(Waltrip) was a great racecar driver and he is still to this day incredibly passionate. But let me be clear, because I lived in a house with Richard Petty – he was a loud mouth punk kid when he came along. I heard it from Richard Petty every night about how loud-mouthed he was. But the deal was, he’s like someone else here on the racetrack, he backs it up and you can’t argue that point. Then there was a turning
point and became an incredible ambassador for the sport and he still is.”
No. 33 Clint Bowyer and owner Richard Childress joined the TNT set.
Bowyer on his No. 33 team trying to improve their performance: “Everyone has been working really hard at RCR to get things turned around. About two months ago when we hit these bigger racetracks we hit a bit of a hurdle. Everyone regrouped, went back to the shop, Richard (Childress) had one of his legendary Monday morning meetings and we all went back to the work. Everyone brought us better equipment to the track and I think all of us as a whole is running a lot better. Everyone has a smile on their face and we’re ready for a great afternoon.”
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Countdown to Green
Bill Weber (host) and Wally Dallenbach (analyst)
NASCAR CEO Brian France on General Motors pulling back their support of NASCAR due to their financial situation: “We are never satisfied when someone reduces their support to the sport. We understand why they will have to do it and why all of their partners will be affected. Our job is to figure out how to work with them on the other side and help them build this company they want to build and be a part of that.”
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Racing from Michigan at Michigan International Speedway
Announcers: Bill Weber (play-by-play), Wally Dallenbach (analyst) and Kyle Petty (analyst); Larry McReynolds (analyst) contributes from the in-field at the TNT Offtrack Robotic Car (TORC)
Pit reporters: Lindsay Czarniak, Ralph Sheheen, Marty Snider and Matt Yocum
Petty on some of the drivers positioned up front to start the race being competitive from the outset: “We mentioned A.J. Allmendinger, John Andretti and Bill Elliott earlier, they are maintaining, they have not fallen back in the first five or six laps of the race. A lot of times that’s indicative that they are on the race set up and they have come to race, they didn’t just come to qualify.”
Petty on Tony Stewart getting into a couple of cars: “The No. 20 (Tony Stewart) comes off the turn and decides to stop by Krispy Kreme and get a couple of donuts there.”
Petty on No. 42 Juan Pablo Montoya finishing in the top 10 at Pocono after struggling all day: “That’s depressing. You leave and you think we had a good finish, we stole one right there, but you can’t figure out why you ran bad.”
Petty on No. 48 Jimmie Johnson running extremely well in this stage of the season: “That No. 48 Jimmie Johnson and Chad (Knaus, crew chief), they are hard to beat. You want to do a 15 or 20 lap shootout? They are your guys right now because they would kill you.”
Dallenbach on No. 12 David Stremme spinning out: “The car just busted loose and he hung on for the ride.”
Dallenbach, answering an “Ask the Booth” question from TNT RaceBuddy on NASCAR.COM, on why drivers spin off pit road when they need to save their tires: “I don’t think you take any rubber off the tire when they are cold and you leave pit lane. If they were hot and you spun the tires you’re going to be taking off a lot of rubber. But when they’re cold, they’re hard and you can light them up and nothing really comes off.”
Petty: “That’s a good answer. I was just going to say because they can. It’s ungodly cool to spin off pit lane.”
Petty on crew chiefs distorting the facts during the final stage of the race: “This is the Larry McReynolds stage of the race, when all our pit reporters for TNT are down there and asking questions and not getting told the truth. Last week, how far can you go? ‘Oh I can only go 38 laps’ and they go 75 laps, it’s the same thing. You guys sitting at home know just as much about this as what we’re knowing. What we’re being told is not always the truth, we’re just relaying it.”
TNT’s Matt Yocum interviewed race winner No. 5 Mark Martin.
Martin on his final lap victory: “This team deserves to be in the chase and we were on the outside looking in with all the trouble we had. I went for the points, I thought those guys were running too hard for us to save gas. I couldn’t do both, save gas and run with them. When Jimmie (Johnson) ran out and we got over here I said if we’re this close I’m going to run hard and I thought we could make it.”
Martin on worrying about his future with Hendrick Motorsports: “I told Rick (Hendrick), ‘please don’t fire me.’ On Friday night I was laying in bed just worrying about it. I love this stuff, I want to drive this car forever.”
TNT’s Lindsay Czarniak interviewed No. 11 Denny Hamlin who finished the race in third place.
Hamlin on finishing the race in third place: “It’s a relief that we finally get a finish where we belong. We had a good car all day. I’m just proud of this whole FedEx Express team. We were definitely a car that could contend for a top two or three spot all day and it feels good to finally come out of here with a finish we deserve.”
Hamlin on having to conserve fuel in order to finish the end of the race: “It’s tough as a driver to go out there and not run as hard as you what you want to, but these races seem to come down to fuel mileage a lot. We’ve worked on it with our race team and I worked on it as a driver and got a little better. I felt like I’m running a little too hard at the end and I let the No. 24 go and turns out the front two both ran out of gas.”
Unofficial LifeLock 400 Results:
1.No. 5 Mark Martin
2.No. 24 Jeff Gordon
3.No. 11 Denny Hamlin
4.No. 99 Carl Edwards
5.No. 16 Greg Biffle
6.No. 42 Juan Pablo Montoya
7.No. 14 Tony Stewart
8.No. 2 Kurt Busch
9.No. 83 Brian Vickers
10.No. 33 Clint Bowyer
Then CNBC will have a documentary hosted by Darren Rovell on the business of NASCAR.
CNBC’s “Inside Track: Refueling the Business of NASCAR” Will Premiere on July 9th (ALL TIMES ARE ET)“Inside Track: Refueling the Business of NASCAR” will premiere on Thursday, July 9th at 9PM, 10PM and 1AM.
The documentary will re-air on the following dates:
Sunday, July 12th at 10PM
Monday, July 13th at 10PM
CNBC's "Inside Track: Refueling the Business of NASCAR" hos ted by Emmy-Nominated CNBC Sports Business Reporter, Darren Rovell, examines a sport that was once seemingly unstoppable. Infamous for its ties to southern bootleggers and famous for filling some of the largest venues in the world - 200,000 fans at some speedways – a decade of growth made it the fastest growing sport in America.
But the rise of the 90s has given way to a new century recession. An imploding car business and shrinking sponsorship budgets are threatening the corporate dollars that are the sport's very lifeblood. NASCAR is now feeling the pressure of the economic implosion as the companies whose names are decaled on the cars are reconsidering their investments. Owned and controlled by the France family, NASCAR is looking at ways to weather the storm.
"Inside Track: Refueling the Business of NASCAR" takes you inside the garage of driver turned owner Tony Stewart and a never before seen look at how NASCAR sponsors are looking for business...from each other. CNBC's Rovell goes one-on-one with NASCAR Chairman & CEO Brian France as well as NASCAR's biggest fan. CNBC takes viewers under the hood for a look at the people behind the iconic American companies that have stuck with this sport, which was born more than five decades ago.
The Golf Channel gives us some links to videos from its “At The Turn” feature at the LPGA Championship.
GOLF CHANNEL’s Rich Lerner interviewed Anna Nordqvist (Saturday), Kristy McPherson and Lindsey Wright (Sunday) after nine holes of play in a new feature during the LPGA Championship coverage titled, “At the Turn,” giving viewers a glimpse into the players’ strategies heading into their back nine.
Thursday and Friday, GOLF CHANNEL rolled out another new feature during its LPGA coverage, mic’ing up Christina Kim, where she was paired with Michelle Wie the first two rounds. The network first introduced both features during its LPGA Corning Classic coverage in May.
Below is a link to Lerner’s “At the Turn” interview with Nordqvist on Saturday. Also included is a link to the segment from Thursday’s telecast featuring Kim’s entertaining post-round interview with host Brian Hammons and analyst Dottie Pepper, and a funny exchange with Wie.
And that’s it for now.
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