World Crown 300, Southern Super Series comes to TV in 2014

After a successful inaugural season, the Southern Super Series is, at last, coming to television.

The World Crown 300 -- literally a crown jewel of the tour -- will be televised as part of a four-race broadcast schedule at Gresham Motorsports Park in 2014. The deal includes GMP’s two Southern Super Series dates on July 12 and August 9.

The August date is the 31st-annual World Crown, an event that will be cut down into a two-hour, taped-delayed national broadcast. A pair of 100-lap Pro Late Model events -- as well as a 125-lap Southern Super Series Late Model race -- will be featured in one-hour tape-delayed television windows as part of the package.

The four Gresham Motorsports Park television events will be aired on a variety of cable, broadcast and satellite networks including MAVTV, Comcast Sports South, TuffTV, DirectTV and DishNetwork.

Southern Super Series Director Dan Spence believes television of some form makes a lot of sense.

“I think it’s a great step forward for us as a series,” Spence said. “This is our second year of existence, we’ve had a great opening season and I think this is the natural progression and it’s going to expose our series to people across the country and we’re really excited about it.”

The four telecasts will be produced by Carolinas Production Group out of Charlotte, NC, and will be hosted by veteran motorsports broadcaster Rick Benjamin. NASCAR racing legend Kenny Schrader will provide color commentary for the telecasts.

Defending SSS champion Daniel Hemric will return to defend his championship this season and is excited to be able to apply his craft in front of a television audience.

“It’s huge for us and everyone who supports our whole team,” Hemric said. “It’s honor to be on TV and establish what we’ve been doing with the sport to the public.”

Gresham promoter and general manager John Close believes his track is one of the premiere venues in short track racing and is thrilled to ‘show off’ to the racing world through his television partners.

“We’re expecting a great field of drivers and cars for each of these televised events,” Close stated. “There’s no better way for a driver to showcase their skills -- and the sponsors who support them -- than racing on national television.

“It is a great way for drivers to get noticed and to give their marketing partners a huge return on investment. It’s a win-win situation for everyone in the pit area.”

Preston Peltier is the defending winner of the World Crown 300.

The GMP video announcement can be viewed below.

Complete Southern Super Series coverage can be found on the front page of the Ranting and Raving short track blog. A 20-minute video package was put together for last year’s race on Raceweek Illustrated and that event can be viewed here.

Video recap of the 2013 World Crown.