An all-star talent cast and crew is ready to deliver live coverage of the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards season-opening Lucas Oil 200 at Daytona Int’l Speedway, live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) at 4:00 PM Eastern on Saturday, February 13.
FS1 lead play-by-play commentator Adam Alexander will call the action alongside veteran color commentator Phil Parsons in the booth. Ray Dunlap and Jim Tretow will handle the duties on pit road.
“ARCA’s Daytona race is a strong element of our more than 100 hours of coverage from Speedweeks,” said Steve Craddock, FOX Sports SVP of Production. “This is always the first stock car race of the season and the fans are ready to get back to racing. We look forward to showing off the new Daytona Rising Stadium with this first ARCA race of the season.”
Alexander, Parsons and Dunlap are also veterans of NASCAR broadcasts. Tretow has been a mainstay on ARCA telecasts for years.
The Lucas Oil 200 at Daytona, the 53rd annual since 1964, is considered to be the crown jewel event on the annual ARCA Racing Series tour, in its 64th consecutive season in 2016.
“FOX has put together an experienced and knowledgeable team for the 2016 ARCA race telecasts,” said ARCA President Ron Drager. “Adam Alexander, Phil Parsons, Ray Dunlap and Jim Tretow have, collectively, decades of ARCA Racing Series hands-on background to draw from. In addition to bringing the viewer an accurate and exciting account of each race event, this team will bring forward the in-depth and interesting stories of the people who make our series what it is.”
In addition to the all-star talent line-up, veteran producer Mark Smith, who also produces NASCAR Camping World Truck Series events, will again be at the production controls in ’16.
The Daytona opener kicks off a full season of live ARCA Racing Series coverage on FS1 and FS2. According to Nielsen Media Research, FS1 is currently available in 85.2 million homes, while FS2 is rapidly growing and now available in nearly 50 million U.S. households.
The 2015 season marked the first year of a new three-year agreement between ARCA and FOX Sports. ARCA’s relationship with the FOX Sports family of networks reaches back to April 20, 1997, when Speedvision covered the ARCA Racing Series race at Salem Speedway. In total, Speedvision, Speed Channel, SPEED and FS1 and FS2 have telecast 228 races encompassing 19 consecutive years of covering the ARCA Racing Series. NewsCorp, the parent company of FOX Broadcasting Company, rebranded SPEED to FS1 in September, 2013.
The ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards features 20 events at 18 tracks on its 2016 schedule. The series has crowned an ARCA national champion each year since its inaugural season in 1953, and has toured over 200 racetracks in 28 states since its inception. The series tests the abilities of drivers and race teams over the most diverse schedule of stock car racing events in the world, annually visiting tracks ranging from 0.4 mile to 2.66 miles in length, on both paved and dirt surfaces as well as left- and right-turn road courses.
Founded by John and Mildred Marcum in 1953 in Toledo, Ohio, the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) is recognized among the leading sanctioning bodies in the country. ARCA administers over 100 race events each season in four professional touring series and local weekly events.
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