More NASCAR races to be shown online

Race fans will get to watch a few more Cup races -- and possibly many more -- online this year on NASCAR.com, as the sport makes a greater push to reach its fans through the Internet.

The folks from Turner announced that the Gatorade Duels -- the twin 150-mile qualifying races at Daytona next month -- and the All-Star race in May will be shown on NASCAR.com in a format simliar to the Race Buddy program used to show the 6 TNT races during the summer. Both the Duels and All-Star race are broadcast by Speed Channel, which already features some video clips from its programs on NASCAR.com. What fans will see on NASCAR.com for the Duels and All-Star race is expected to be multiple camera angles that will help supplement the Speed's broadcast of those races. It will not feature the Speed broadcasters. You will get in-car audio and ambient sound.

This is meant to add to the TV broadcast but not exactly duplicate it. Just as TNT uses it on NASCAR.com when it broadcast its six Cup races.

The possibility remains that Cup races aired by Fox and ESPN/ABC could be shown online (most likely NASCAR.com). Scott Doyne, Senior director of business operations for Turner and NASCAR.com, says that they are in "active discussion'' with the networks to air their races online. Turner owns the online video rights for NASCAR events. That's why only the 6 TNT races were shown online on NASCAR.com's Race Buddy in the past.

"As NASCAR.com, we're not necessarily particular to any one broadcaster,'' Doyne said. "What we want to provide is the race fan a consistent experience on the web site the whole season. When Race Buddy went away after the summer series last year, we actually got complaints and that's not something we want to have again. We're trying to work with the broadcasters to have that the full year.''

Said Julie Sobieski, VP of programming and acquisitions at ESPN, about airing its races online: "I can tell you we're having conversations with NASCAR about the best way to deliver our content across multi-media platforms, but we just don't have anything to announce at this point.''

Having the Gatorade Duels on Feb. 11 is important for the sport because those races take place in the afternoon when many people are at work. This allows those people to watch the races and see who makes the Daytona 500 and doesn't from work -- just as many watch the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament on CBS' web site in March.

Doyne says the format for the Duels & All-Star race will be similar to the Race Buddy TNT setup with four different camera angles that fans can watch the race online.

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