TVSquad

You've probably seen the Burger King ads featuring race car driver Tony Stewart. One of the ads said that Stewart was going to undergo a lie-detector test to find out whether or not he really, really liked the Whopper. I have no idea how they came up with this or why a lie detector should be the final decision-maker when it comes to whether someone likes Burger King or not (everyone knows that lie detectors aren't admissible in a fast food court of law, ever since that case against the Hamburgler was thrown out).

Anyway, the results are in. Let's just say that Stewart likes Whoppers but he lies about a lot of other things.

[via Adfreak]

Remember the Wacky Races cartoon? If you were a kid in the 70's like me, then you probably do. It turns out that in England they're re-enacting the show live. You can even watch them take part in a race from here.

I'm oddly ambivalent about this. Cosplay is one thing. This seems dangerous. What if one of the drivers can't see out of their outfit? On the other hand, watching this live would be kind of cool. How come I've never heard of anybody doing this in America? Is someone afraid the bullies would beat them up?

Admit it, children of the 70's, you would love to take your children to this. It's a chance to share in something generational. Otherwise you'd be too embarrassed to be a grown man or woman attending this without such an excuse.

Do you think you'd attend the Wacky Races live if it were in a town near you?

[via ComicMix]

Patrick Dempsey will be the celebrity driver for the pace car during today's Indianapolis 500 race. And he's being very gracious about the opportunity. It really is a dream come true for him.

Fans of Dempsey probably already know that he's a racing fanatic and co-owns an Indy racing team. In this interview for Auto Racing Daily, he's dropping names left and right of legendary Indy drivers and seems to be genuinely in awe of the entire event. Dempsey's sure to make it clear that he was a race fan and one of the racing guys long before he ever was 'McDreamy' on Grey's Anatomy. Hopefully there will be a camera inside the pace car so we can see him having a ball.

The Indianapolis 500 race starts at 1 pm on ABC.

ABC News is currently shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary series with the working title of NASCAR in Primetime. The run of four to six episodes may air this summer and fall, though nothing is certain just yet.

Despite whether you're a NASCAR fan or someone who doesn't quite understand the allure of watching advertisements going in circles for hours, NASCAR is huge right now. I've never been a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a younger brother who used to race a stock car, and both he and my father are NASCAR fans. The attraction, I believe, is having a favorite driver (or drivers) and watching to see how they perform in the race. That makes it much more interesting than just passively watching men you don't know drive really fast. Also, I've been to stock car races, and trust me, it's much more exciting when you're seeing it firsthand.

ABC News hopes to close the gap between NASCAR fans and those who couldn't care less by focusing not only on the racing aspects, but also on drivers whose personal stories stretch beyond the sport itself.

Three top A&E reality series, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Driving Force will kick off new seasons in April.

The second season of Gene Simmons Family Jewels kicks off April 1 with two back-to-back episodes starting at 9:00 p.m. In "Gene's Big Mouth," Gene meets his newly-adopted infant son for the first time. In the second episode, "Face Off," Gene and his wife Shannon both undergo cosmetic surgery at the same time.

On February 6 at 9 p.m., the National Geographic Channel will air Moonshine, a one-hour documentary about the history of moonshine and how the outlawed liquor led to one of the most popular sports franchises of all time, NASCAR.

The special will feature the last interview ever conducted with racing legend and NASCAR announcer Benny Parsons, who passed away last month. Also featured in the documentary is Junior Johnson, who almost faced jail time for transporting moonshine when he was younger.

When prohibition struck in the '20s, skilled drivers were recruited to transport moonshine, a corn-based concoction introduced to the South by Scots-Irish immigrants. What was once a way to evade the law soon evolved into the sport of stock car racing, and later into the phenomenon known as NASCAR. Let that be a lesson to anyone currently breaking the law: your unlawful exploits just might be the next big thing in sports.

You can watch a preview clip of Moonshine here.

This seems like an unlikely pairing. Melissa Rivers has signed on to work the "yellow carpet" at a big NASCAR bash in New York City on Friday night for SPEED TV. (Why is everything in all caps for this sport?) Melissa will be interviewing NASCAR racers and their wives as they arrive at the Waldorf-Astoria for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Banquet.

I can see it now:

Melissa Rivers: "Who are you wearing?"
Nascar driver: "Uhhh... (reading the ads on his uniform) Viagra, Exxon, Tide..."

Wouldn't it be great if Melissa turned out to be a huge fan of NASCAR? She could talk shop about "aero pushing" and "dirty air" (yes, I did consult a NASCAR glossary for those terms). Check out Melissa Rivers starting at 7 pm Friday night on SPEED TV-- she'll either be making a fool of herself or surprising us all.

Spike TV is the latest channel to begin offering original broadband content through their website, SpikeTV.com. Right now they have three different programs available for viewing. Enduro at Erzberg chronicles one of the most demanding motorcycle races in the world. Among the participants are X-Games champion Travis Pastrana and longtime pro MXer Jeremy McGrath.

Next up is Rattlesnake Raceway. It follows a team of drivers that race on the 1/3 mile clay oval at Rattlesnake, the oldest track in Nevada. Among the featured drivers are Chantell, a 17 year old girl who doesn't even have her drivers license, and Glenn Plake. You may remember Plake as that crazy skier with the wild mohawk in all of those Warren Miller movies.

To the unenlightened, it might seem worse to actually be at a NASCAR race than to watch one on television. After all, at least you get to see the whole track on television. If you're in the stands you only see the cars when they drive by, or you're too high up in the stands to really make out anything. What these people don't understand is that real NASCAR fans use that downtime as "downtime" (as in, "downing more beer"). Really, it all works out in the end. Nevertheless, NASCAR, in association with Sprint Nextel and Kangaroo TV in Montreal, will begin renting handheld scanners to spectators called "FanView" that will offer views from inside seven different cars, and also allow fans to access racing stats. To echo what Lost Remote's Stephen Warley said, I'm no fan of NASCAR, but this is a pretty cool idea.

I admire NASCAR fans. It's not because I'm a fan myself, though I have always enjoyed watching my little brother race stock cars, but because it takes a lot of devotion and dedication to try and remember just when the hell all the races are being aired. I would think that having races spread out over three different networks (ESPN/ABC, TNT, and FOX) would test the patience of even the most diehard NASCAR viewer. This begins in 2007, and did I forget to mention the SPEED Channel? Yeah, they're in on it, too. Here's to you, NASCAR watcher, and the numerous mental breakdowns you've no doubt had trying to keep track of all this.