ESPN on ABC will feature Busch Series racing live Saturday, July 14, from Chicagoland Speedway as the series makes its only appearance of 2007 at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. The telecast of Busch Series at Chicago presented by Old Spice begins with NASCAR Countdown at 2:30pm/et; the race starts at 3pm/et. Rusty Wallace will work in the ESPN booth as analyst for the telecast, joined by Andy Petree. Dr. Jerry Punch will handle play-by-play. Pit reporters will be Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Mike Massaro. Suzy Kolber will host NASCAR Countdown from the ESPN Pit Studio, joined by Wallace and analyst Brad Daugherty, while Tim Brewer will report from the ESPN Chevy Cutaway Car. ESPN2 will have live coverage of qualifying from Chicago at 11:00am/et Saturday, as well as the series’ final practice session on Friday at 5:45pm/et. ESPN Ultimate NASCAR, which is building up to the July 29 launch of Nextel Cup racing on ESPN with 11 hours of programming on NASCAR history, continues at 9:00pm/et Thursday, July 12, on ESPN with Hottest Rivalries, a one-hour program counting down the 20 greatest rivalries in NASCAR history, chosen by an exclusive panel of NASCAR experts and historians. The program is the second of three countdown programs, following Greatest Drivers, which premiered last week. The third program in the series, Biggest Races, will air Thursday, July 19. Starting Monday, July 23, the week leading into the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard will include seven hours of NASCAR documentaries The Explosion, The Dirt, The Cars, Speed and Danger and The Families. All shows will debut on ESPN. NASCAR Now, ESPN’s daily news and information show dedicated to NASCAR will air on ESPN2 for 30 minutes in its regular 6:30pm/et time slot Tuesday through Thursday of this week. On Friday, the program will begin at 5:30pm/et and will lead up to and follow Busch Series practice from Chicago. The one-hour weekend edition will air at 10:00am/et Sunday, July 15, with highlights from Saturday’s Busch Series race at Chicago and a look ahead to that day’s Nextel Cup Series race at the same track. The weekend wrap-up edition of the program will air at midnight Sunday. New episodes of the ESPN2 Garage programs SpeedFreaks, Race Wizard with Ray Evernham and King of the Strip will premiere this week. SpeedFreaks will air at 5:00pm/et Thursday, July 12, while Race Wizard is scheduled for 10:30am/et Saturday, July 14. King of the Strip will air at 11:30am/et Sunday, July 15.(ESPN PR)
