Talladega Superspeedway is famous for its high speeds and close competition, and the Busch Series will make its only appearance of the 2007 season at the 2.66-mile Alabama track this weekend. ESPN on ABC will have live coverage of Saturday’s 312-mile race beginning at 2:30pm/et with NASCAR Countdown, the fourth of six series events on ABC this year. The other 29 events are televised by ESPN2. Jerry Punch will anchor the telecast from Talladega, joined in the booth by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree for analysis. Jarrett is filling in for ESPN’s lead auto racing analyst, Rusty Wallace, who will rejoin NASCAR coverage in June. Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Mike Massaro will serve as pit reporters. Brent Musburger will host the telecast, while analyst Brad Daugherty will join Musburger in the ESPN Pit Studio during the race, with analyst Tim Brewer at the ESPN Cutaway Car. Coverage will begin with the pre-race NASCAR Countdown show at 2:30pm/et, with the race to start at 3:00pm/et. NASCAR Now will air on ESPN2 for 30 minutes at its regular 6:30pm/et timeslot Tuesday through Thursday of this week, and at 3:30pm/et on Friday with reports from Talladega Superspeedway. In addition, the one-hour weekend edition will air at 10:00am/et with a wrap-up of Saturday’s Busch Series race from Talladega and a look ahead to that afternoon’s Nextel Cup race. Sunday night’s edition of the program will air at midnight. The Nextel Cup Series will return to ESPN beginning with the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard on July 29 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To build momentum for the return Nextel Cup racing, ESPN has launched a series of 30-second features counting down the 100 most defining moments in NASCAR history as selected by a special panel of historians and experts. ESPN Ultimate NASCAR will feature one new vignette a day for 100 straight days – culminating with the #1 moment on Sunday, July 29. The vignettes are featured on SportCenter, NASCAR Now and other ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic programming.(ESPN PR)(4-24-2007)
