They’ll try to keep those lenses dry

Weather permitting, this should be a good weekend for sports viewing. However, rain might put a damper on some events.

The threat of wet weather, for example, hovers over Pebble Beach, site of the AT&T; National Pro-Am. But Lance Barrow, who is producing the coverage on the Golf Channel today and CBS on Saturday and Sunday, isn’t too concerned.

“If it rains and the wind blows, as it did today, that’s the main problem,” he said by phone Thursday. “Then we have to worry about water on the lens.”

Rain seems to be following Barrow, who produced CBS’ Super Bowl coverage last weekend. In that game, of course, plays were often seen through spotted lenses, never letting viewers forget about the Miami weather.

“Other than water on the lens, though, rain here shouldn’t have much effect,” Barrow said, “unless it comes with lightning or it rains so hard that they have to stop play because of standing water. But these courses here can take a lot of water.”

One thing CBS would no doubt like to see besides clear weather is the presence of Tiger Woods. He is not at Pebble, and it appears unlikely that he will be at Riviera next week when CBS televises the Nissan Open.

But golf isn’t the only sport likely to be affected by weather this weekend. Intermittent rain is forecast for Southern California, and that could affect the Carquest Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, the opening event in the $50-million Powerade Drag Racing Series.

Even the slightest amount of rain halts the racing. You don’t send a 13,000-horsepower top-fuel dragster out on a slick track.

Coverage is on ESPN2, but intermittent rain shouldn’t affect that, even if racing is suspended. That’s because coverage is all tape-delayed and edited, so any down time can be eliminated easily from the telecasts.

Because the sport has so many unpredictable interruptions -- beyond weather, there can be oil spills, mechanical problems or crashes -- it would be difficult to televise live, NHRA and ESPN officials say.

But tape-delayed coverage doesn’t appear to hurt ratings. ESPN2 averaged a rating of 0.6 for 24 telecasts last year, and the ratings have increased in each of the last three years. In comparison, live college basketball on ESPN2 last year averaged a 0.5.

ESPN2 will provide six hours of delayed coverage from Pomona this weekend. On Saturday at 7 p.m., there will be a two-hour show that wraps up the three days of qualifying that began Thursday. Each entrant makes four qualifying runs with hopes of making Sunday’s finals.

Of particular interest will be whether both Ashley Force and her father, John, advance to the finals of the funny car division. Dad is a 14-time funny car champion. Due to all the recent publicity, Ashley, 24, who is making her pro debut at Pomona, was the No. 1 most-searched person on Yahoo.com, ahead of Britney Spears and Oprah Winfrey.

On Sunday at 8 a.m., a one-hour show will look ahead to the best matchups for the finals. It could be called a pregame show, but the three-hour coverage for the single-elimination finals doesn’t begin until 5 p.m.

Paul Page, the longtime legendary voice of the Indianapolis 500, is now the voice of ESPN2 drag racing. Page, who did a few NHRA events last year, will be joined in the booth at Pomona by commentator and former drag racer Mike Dunn, who has been with ESPN2 since 2002. Gary Gerould and David Rieff are back as the pit reporters.

Asked to compare announcing drag racing to the Indy 500, Page said on the phone Thursday: “My friends say, ‘You’ve got it easy now; only two cars at a time, not 33.’ But with drag racing, it is difficult to establish a rhythm because of all the stoppages. You’ll do a run, then stop and 10 minutes later have to remember where you left off.”

Other weekend highlights:

You might want to stay tuned for the halftime show during the Lakers’ game at Cleveland on ABC on Sunday. In a taped feature, Kobe Bryant will name his five all-time favorite Lakers. Magic Johnson figures to be one of them. Will Shaquille O’Neal be another? Also, Mark Jackson will name his top five point guards.

The season is over, but there is still football on television. It’s the Pro Bowl from Honolulu on CBS on Saturday at 3 p.m. It might have escaped a lot of people had CBS not promoted it during the Super Bowl. The network has dispatched Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf and Phil Simms to call the game and will have Shannon Sharpe roaming the sidelines.

There will be a football-related story on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” Sunday at 6:30 a.m. Featured will be Brent Boyd, an offensive lineman for UCLA in the late 1970s who later played for the Minnesota Vikings. He has been on disability due to concussions suffered while in the NFL and is now fighting for benefits. Also featured will be former NBA player John Amaechi, now a British broadcaster who has written a book in which he discloses he is gay.

UCLA basketball gets some national exposure Saturday when the Bruins play at West Virginia on CBS at 10 a.m. Tim Brando and Clark Kellogg will handle the call.

Two of the fastest-rising prospects in the heavyweight division, Eddie Chambers and Cris Areola, will be featured in separate bouts on “Friday Night Fights” on ESPN2 tonight at 6. Areola, from Riverside, faces Zakeem Graham of Los Angeles in the night’s first fight. The Goossen Tutor-promoted card takes place in Selden, N.Y. ... Showtime on Saturday at 10 p.m. will have delayed coverage of a mixed martial arts event held at Southaven, Miss.

“SpeedFreaks,” originally a national radio show that became a television hit on Speed Channel, makes its debut on ESPN2 on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. Guests include Tony Stewart and Tony Kanaan.

larry.stewart@latimes.com.