American Sports Cavalcade

American Sports Cavalcade was an American motorsports television show produced by Diamond P Sports that aired on TNN from 1983 to 1995. American Sports Cavalcade was also a winner of the cable television Ace Awards for their motorsports coverage.

Format

At the start of each episode, a narrator would say during the opening, "Diamond P Sports presents... the American Sports Cavalcade. A panorama of speed, color, drama, and excitement!" Over the years, American Sports Cavalcade televised such sports as NASCAR and ASA stock car racing, NHRA drag racing, CART Indycar racing, IMSA and SCCA sports car racing, AMA supercross and superbike racing, USAC and World of Outlaws sprint car racing, monster truck racing and truck and tractor pulling from TNT Motorsports, APBA offshore power boat racing, Swamp Buggy racing from Naples, Florida, and even a couple of rodeo events during their first few seasons.

This show usually aired during racing season on Saturdays and once or twice on Sundays, with the same episode airing each time during that weekend. The episodes were almost always taped, edited, and broadcast a week or two after the event had taken place (known in broadcasting as tape delay). The episodes were usually 90 minutes in length.

In the mid-'80s, Diamond P and TNN were the first group to televise racing from Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Highlight VHS

In 1989, Diamond P Sports and TNN collaborated and released a video entitled And They Walked Away. This VHS video featured a compilation of footage from the first six years of American Sports Cavalcade, and it featured a plethora of auto racing and motor sports accidents, crashes, and fires in which the driver(s) beat the odds to survive the incident. Fatal accidents, as the title alludes to, were not included in this production.

Hosts

This show was originally hosted by country singer Ed Bruce, who eventually left Cavalcade to host another TNN Show named Truckin' USA. Ed never really did a lot in the form of commentating while on ASC. He usually left the commentating up to Steve Evans and Brock Yates. Throughout the years, ASC would use other announcers as well, including Paul Page, Gary Gerould, Ralph Sheheen, and "Big Daddy" Don Garlits for NHRA telecasts.

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