It's that time of the year again. Car collectors from around the world have descended on Scottsdale, Arizona, for the annual Barrett-Jackson auction. A mind numbing array of hot-rods, resto-mods, classics, and other automotive oddities have been selected for the catalog and everything must go.

If you have any interest at all in cars, this is great TV. An endless parade of amazing cars will roll across the auction block all weekend, including Alice Cooper's 1939 Lincoln Zephyr Custom (pictured). The Speed channel is in the middle of fourty hours of coverage of the auction with eight hours coming today, ten tomorrow, and seven more on Sunday.

It's the kind of programming that can suck all the time right out of your day. You pause to see what that Yenko Camaro will go for. But after that is a Shelby Mustang. And then there is a convertible GTO. Before you know it, it's getting dark. The whole day is shot and you didn't get anything done, but at least you now know how much the option to upgrade to the big block motor on a 1968 Corvette was, which is something.

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.