Published: Tuesday, January 6, 2009
NASCAR: Expanded roles for Massaro, Reid, Welch on ESPN
Herald news services
Three veterans of ESPN’s motorsports team, Mike Massaro, Marty Reid and Vince Welch, will have new NASCAR responsibilities on ESPN in 2009, the cable network announced on Tuesday.
Massaro, who has been a NASCAR pit reporter the past two years, will join Nicole Manske and Allen Bestwick as host of NASCAR Now, ESPN2’s daily NASCAR news and information program. Massaro and Manske will share the primary host role on a rotating basis, while Bestwick will continue as host of the Monday roundtable discussion edition. Massaro will still work the pits for selected NASCAR Nationwide Series telecasts.
Reid, who has been the lead announcer for ESPN’s coverage of the IndyCar Series the past three years, as well as a play-by-play announcer for selected NASCAR Nationwide Series telecasts the past two years, will see his NASCAR appearances increase. Reid will be the play-by-play announcer for ESPN’s coverage of the NASCAR Nationwide Series for much of the second half of the season, after ESPN begins its 17-race coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Dr. Jerry Punch will continue as play-by-play announcer for the Sprint Cup coverage and for the Nationwide Series in the first half of the season.
Reid will be lead announcer for the Indianapolis 500 and ESPN on ABC’s four other races on the IndyCar Series.
Welch will become one of ESPN’s four primary NASCAR pit reporters for 2009 after having worked selected NASCAR races the past two years while serving as a fulltime pit reporter for ESPN’s IndyCar Series coverage. He will work all of ESPN’s NASCAR Sprint Cup telecasts in the second half of the year along with multiple NASCAR Nationwide Series races throughout the season. In addition, Welch will be a pit reporter for ESPN on ABC’s five-race IndyCar Series coverage, including the Indianapolis 500.
The rest of ESPN’s team of announcers, analysts and reporters for NASCAR will return in 2009. Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree will be lead analysts for the race telecasts, joining Punch and Reid in the booth, while Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Shannon Spake will again be pit reporters. Tim Brewer will continue as analyst in the ESPN Tech Center.
Bestwick will continue to host the pre-race NASCAR Countdown program from the ESPN Pit Studio, with analysis by Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty. Analyst Ray Evernham will join NASCAR Countdown for selected races and will continue his role as an analyst on NASCAR Now and other ESPN studio programs. Wallace and Evernham will work selected NASCAR Nationwide Series telecasts as analysts in the booth, filling in for Jarrett and Petree.
NASCAR Now returns on Monday, Feb. 2, while ESPN’s live NASCAR racing for 2009 begins with flag-to-flag coverage of the NASCAR Nationwide Series opener at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, Feb. 14, on ESPN2.
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