Global InformationWindTunnel with Dave Despain information
| WindTunnel with Dave Despain | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | WindTunnel |
| Genre | Auto racing |
| Presented by | Dave Despain |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original release | |
| Network | Speed |
| Release | February 22, 2003 – August 11, 2013 |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
WindTunnel with Dave Despain was a live viewer call-in show exclusively for auto racing fans that debuted on Speed Channel on February 22, 2003, and ended on August 11, 2013. During the course of the show, host Dave Despain fielded telephone calls and read e-mail from viewers, some of them directed at the guest Despain is interviewing, which was done just after the first segment, titled "Hot Topics", which Despain reads the big stories from the racing world. After the interview segment, Despain did a segment just for him, titled "My Take", in which he gave his opinion on news from the racing world. There was also an award for the best e-mail or phone call from each show, as the winning viewer received a Despain bobblehead. It was a coveted prize among viewers.
When WindTunnel debuted, the show aired Friday nights at 11 pm. The pilot episode was only a half-hour long. The time length was changed to an hour the very next week. In August 2003, WindTunnel expanded to four nights a week (Monday-Thursday) and moved to a 9 pm timeslot. In 2005, to the chagrin of some of the series' fans, WindTunnel was scaled back to one night a week, airing for two hours beginning at 9 pm on Sunday nights. In 2006, WindTunnel was scaled back to one hour. There have been special episodes of WindTunnel shown as part of the lead-up to the Daytona 500 and the Sprint All-Star Race.
The 2006 season brought about guest co-hosts in the form of racing personalities like drivers (such as Tony Stewart, Mario Andretti) and journalists (such as David Hobbs, Robin Miller, Ed Hinton, and Bob Varsha). In 2009, Despain began to take breaks during the season; guest hosts such as Krista Voda, Tommy Kendall, and Robin Miller have presented the show while Despain was off. Before this, only Ralph Sheheen in 2004 had replaced Despain for an episode due to illness.
The show would take a hiatus following the last NASCAR Sprint Cup race to late January during the racing off-season. During this time, best-of episodes titled WindTunnel: The Interviews were shown. Only the most popular interviews from the previous season were shown, which included interviews with NASCAR great Richard Petty, NASCAR star Jeff Gordon, and drag racing legend John Force. Starting in 2009 Golden Corral, an American restaurant chain, became the show's sponsor. Previous sponsors have been Carquest, an automobile parts store chain in 2007, and Alltel, a cell phone company in 2008.