SPEED Loads up 'Big Block Thursday' with High-Octane Hits for Summer

Popular PINKS All Out Drawing Crowds in Excess of 30,000 to Season Three Tapings Chicago-Based Wrecked Back for Season Two

SPEED will unveil its "Big Block Thursday" summer prime time lineup on July 16 at 8 p.m. ET with a three-hour package of popular shows, including PINKS All Out, Wrecked and Jacked.

"We won't be giving viewers a lot of time to catch their breath," said SPEED SVP of Programming Steve Craddock. "Each of the three programs has an identity all its own, but a shared level of palpable intensity that keeps you wondering what will happen next."

PINKS All Out (8 p.m. ET) returns for a third season with one-hour shows from historic U.S. drag racing venues like Indianapolis and Bakersfield, Calif., and highlighting historic, first-time four-wide racing from zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C. -- an event taped in front of a sellout crowd of more than 30,000 spectators.

"Every weekend at drag strips all across the country, racers line up and do this for nothing more than the adrenaline rush of beating the guy in the next lane ... for most of them, it's a way of life," said SPEED President Hunter Nickell. "PINKS All Out shines the spotlight on these grassroots heroes and captures that feeling we all have experienced at a stoplight once or twice ... foot on the gas, engine revving ... and magnifies it by about a trillion."

Wrecked (10 p.m. ET) follows the exploits of Chicago-based, family-owned O'Hare Towing & Recovery as the Gratziannas and their crew take on some of the most dramatic roadside mega-cleanups in one of the busiest transportation hubs in the country.

"Last winter was one of the harshest in recent Chicago history, and as a result the sophomore season of Wrecked is bigger, colder and more intense than ever," said SPEED VP of Programming and Executive Producer Robert Ecker. "The crew at O'Hare was really put to the test, and the production team on site experienced the rigors of working in sub-zero temperatures right along with them. There's a sense of the danger and duress caused by these extreme weather conditions that adds tremendous urgency and immediacy to these new episodes."

And joining SPEED this season, Jacked (9 p.m. ET) takes viewers along for a ride with the Auto Theft Task Force in Northern New Jersey as highly trained officers, known as the "Wolf Pack," give viewers an inside look at the rarely seen stealth tactics used to put car thieves behind bars.

SPEED will offer a "sneak peek" at the season premiere of PINKS All Out to cable operators for use on their VOD platforms, while SPEEDtv.com will support both PINKS All Out and Wrecked with robust micro-sites featuring personality pages, photos and full-length episodes from the current and prior seasons.
In addition, PINKS All Out and Wrecked long-form content will be distributed on iTunes, Hulu and Sprint, with "best of" clips available on iTunes, Sprint, AT&T and MobiTV.

SPEED is the nation's first and foremost cable television network dedicated to motor sports and the passion for everything automotive. From racing to restoration, motorcycles to movies, SPEED delivers quality programming from the track to the garage. Now available in more than 78 million homes in North America, SPEED is among the fastest-growing sports cable networks in the country and, the home to NASCAR on SPEED and an industry leader in interactive TV, video on demand, mobile initiatives and broadband services. For more information, please visit SPEEDtv.com, the online motor sports authority.