Live NASCAR racing will return to ABC for the first time in seven years Saturday when ESPN on ABC presents the Busch Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Las Vegas event is the first of six select Busch Series races this season that will air on ABC, with the other 29 to be televised by ESPN2. Coverage will begin with the pre-race NASCAR Countdown show at 2:30pm/et, with the race to start at 3:00pm/et. Brent Musburger and Chris Fowler will host the telecast. Play-by-play announcer Jerry Punch will be joined in the booth by Rusty Wallace and Andy Petree for analysis. Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Mike Massaro will serve as pit reporters. Studio analysts Tim Brewer and Brad Daugherty will join Fowler in the ESPN Pit Studio during the telecast. The Las Vegas race will be the first of three consecutive Busch Series races that will be televised by ESPN on ABC, all on Saturday afternoons. The March 17 event from Atlanta Motor Speedway and the March 24 race at Bristol Motor Speedway will be the others. The Busch Series will return to ESPN2 with the April 7 event at Nashville Superspeedway. The last live NASCAR race to appear on ABC was the Brickyard 400 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Aug. 5, 2000, one of five NASCAR Cup Series events on the network that year. NASCAR races have appeared on ABC for decades, beginning with broadcasts on the award-winning Wide World of Sports program in the 1960s. NASCAR Now, ESPN’s first daily news and information show totally dedicated to NASCAR, will air on ESPN2 at 6:30pm/et Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with re-airs at midnight, and will air at midnight on Thursday and Friday. The program’s weekend edition will air at 10:00am/et Sunday with segments from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Host Erik Kuselias will talk with NASCAR insider Marty Smith from Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday and Wednesday, while ESPN motorsports analyst Brad Daugherty will join the program on Wednesday. #8-Dale Earnhardt, Jr., will be a guest on a new episode of SpeedFreaks that will air on Saturday at 11:30am/et. A motorsports and lifestyle show, SpeedFreaks blends superstar motorsports pilots with actors and musical guests, all while positioning The Freak Nation’ in a unique, cutting edge format unlike anything else in the racing world. The Freaks also ask their own brand of questions en route to covering the broad spectrum of the industry. In addition to Earnhardt, guests Saturday include #7-Robby Gordon and NHRA racers Joe Amato and Richie Stevens.(ESPN PR)(3-6-2007)
