Viewer's Guide: Nashville

Clint Bowyer heads to Nashville Superspeedway this weekend looking to grab not only another Gibson guitar -- the trophy at Nashville -- but also some ground on Busch Series point leader Kevin Harvick.

	Inside the Numbers Clint Bowyer at Nashville Year Start Finish 2004 19 4   5 3 2005 2 5   5 1 Average 7.8 3.2

Bowyer and Harvick are two of a total of eight Nextel Cup Series regulars -- a season-low -- that will take the green flag in Saturday's race. Bowyer is the last Busch Series winner at Nashville. He got his first career Busch Series win there on June 12, 2005.

Outside of the obvious connection, Bowyer also sees Nashville as the place where his racing career really got going.

"It was my very first race at a big track, at least what I called a big track at the time, and that track pretty much allowed me to be seen by Richard Childress," Bowyer said. "I was running in a guy's ARCA car from Kansas City and just immediately took a liking to the place.

"I went there pretty blind, but loved how fast it was. I have led a lot of laps there and got my first win in the Busch Series there. When you have those kind of stats, it makes it easy to say that Nashville is one of my favorites."

FX's coverage of the Pepsi 300 starts at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday.

FOX got more good ratings news this week -- sort of. FOX's broadcast of Sunday's Samsung/RadioShack 500 earned an overnight Nielsen Media Research rating of 4.8 and an 11 market share. That's 4 percent below FOX's 2005 Texas race. Still, you have to remember that race was a week later and not against The Masters.

The race that was against The Masters last year, the spring event at Martinsville, earned a 4.6.

In this week's "Ask the Producer" question, several users want to know how it is determined when -- and for how long -- racing broadcasts are in commercial.

	NASCAR on FOX producer Neil Goldberg
	E-MAIL •   Send Mark your take or an "Ask The Producer" question

FOX producer Neil Goldberg said it's a complicated process.

"Commercials are dictated by the sales group at the network," Goldberg said. "The length of the commercials are determined by the sales department.

"We have to get a certain number of commercials in a show. To get them all in you have to try to keep pace and getting a certain amount in per hour. As we all know there are not any TV timeouts in racing.

"As the producer, I try to place the commercial in at the most opportune time. The best time is during cautions and after pit stops. Beyond that we just have to go off the pace of the action. If the action dictates that we stay to finish a story, we will do that. But that will result in having to try to make the break up later which can result in a few breaks running close together in order to get back on rotation.

"The bottom line is that the commercials must air. If we hold off on breaks at the beginning of the race they will only stockpile to the end of the race. We try to keep ahead on commercials to be in a position to stay live for the most crucial action during the stretch run to the finish."

Each week, we'll ask a question to a NASCAR on FOX producer. Is there anything that makes you wonder every week when you watch the broadcast? Send it in by clicking the link on the right.

Now on to this weekend's brief schedule.

Busch Series: Pepsi 300

Track: Nashville Superspeedway

• 1.333-mile trioval
• 14-degree banking in turns
• 9-degree banking on frontstretch
• 6-degree banking on backstretch
• Length of frontstretch: 2,494 feet
• Length of backstretch: 2,203 feet

2005 FlashbackWatch Reed Sorenson cruise to the checkers Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Race distance: 225 laps/300 miles

TV schedule (All times ET)

• Busch Pole Qualifying: 11 a.m. Sat., SPEED
• Race: 3:30 p.m. Sat., FX

One year ago, Reed Sorenson won one of the most lopsided events in Busch Series history, leading 196 of the 225 laps to win the Pepsi 300 at Nashville. Kenny Wallace was second, nearly 15 seconds behind.

The most recent checkered flag went to Kurt Busch, who held off Greg Biffle in a green-white-checkered finish to win the O'Reilly 300 at Texas, Busch's first NBS start.

Keep an eye on Sorenson. He's looking to turn his Busch Series season around. Mired in 17th place in the point standings, he needs a good run as the defending race winner.

The Domino's Viewer's Guide appears each Thursday during race weeks.