i just don't understand how snow mobile racing and bobsled is a bigger market than traditional road racing? maybe it is just because we're still in the offseason? but speed channel is becoming more and more like ESPN2 to me, with the hours and hours of dirt bike and monster truck rally shows, and snowmobile drag racing on grass..ugh.

the one show i WILL watch on speed is Dave Despain's Wind Tunnel. while it is largely NASCAR oriented he makes an effort to talk about other forms of motorsport. in the Grassroots Motorsports magazine interview with Despain, he talked about how he would love to talk about other types of racing (he has a dirt bike racing background) but because his show caters to the public and call-ins, he is *forced to spend much of the show talking about NASCAR.

 

Besides the saturation of NASCAR, it sucks that they don't have HDTV broadcasts either. You would think that the profile of the average F1 watcher would rank fairly high in terms of HDTV ownership...

 

So if someone came along, and basically created a station with nothing but roadracing, endurance racing, classic sports cars, 5th gear/top gear, etc.. would you watch it all the time? Would you watch it even if the station could only afford to air re-runs of older races or older episodes?

I wonder if it could be turned into a profitable business venture if the operating costs are kept to a bare minimum.

 

You know my FAVORITE thing to watch on (what used to be called) Speedvision, was the "Lap of the Gods"

I loved that. What made it special was that they would show laps from Gille Villeneuve, Senna @ monaco, Nigel, Piquet, Schumy, Mika.. that was the stuff.

Why don't they show those anymore??? Man I would tune in and leave the TV on all day if somone aired non-stop "lap of the gods."

 

You bet. I used to even watch some of the boat shows because I learned a lot about fiberglass repair.

 

What works well for me is to record everything that I want to watch, then watch it when Speed is catering to the Masses during Prime Time (which i would also do if I owned the Channel).

It is the "off season", but Sebring is coming up quickly!

 

While I making new door panels for the 911 last night, I had $peed on in the background. They were planing SpeedNews or something like that, I wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, the one thing that did get my attention was that one of the desk jockies said that Speed set a new ratings record with the Craftsman Truck race! WTF! A truck race!?!

I can just see it now. When my toddler son grows up, I can tell him about the good old days when there were these things called sports cars, and people used to race them

 

You guys need to stop your whining. Nascar isn't going away, if anything its getter bigger. TV is all about the money and so is Nascar. So what you guys need to do is be proactive, get yourselves a TiVo or your local cable's equivilent. Speed still puts a fair amount of road racing on. this winter I watched the full Porsche Supercup series, and British Touring Car Championship. They carried the full FIA GT championship, the Australian V8 cars, World Rally and more. What they don't do is carry it in prime time. While I don't like it either, I understand it. So get a DVR and start watching racing when YOU want to. I still have races from this winter on my Tivo and Formula One is starting Friday. there's still plenty of Road Racing for me to watch.

 

Sports car racing isn't going away any time soon. What you are experiencing today is not a lot different than what it was like in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s, EXCEPT, that there is more coverage today of road racing than ever before and more people participating in one form or another of sports car road racing. Half of the tracks i raced on in the '70s are malls or golf courses now due to lack of interest back then. Try getting track time for any new event today!

 

I have one (Tivo). And actually it sucks as the vid quality on the highest quality setting is visibly lower on my HDTV than when watched live. But forget about that, what on earth gives you any confidence that they will be showing this stuff in future. Last year many of the events you mentioned were on weekends in the winter. Now, unless your scan their schedule all the time, you'll never even know their on. Last year they produced their own WRC coverage, now it would appear they get it from oversees and show it after 11PM. Its cheaper just to show re-runs of Chop, Cut, Rebuild (talk about low budget TV can someone there learn how to do audio mixing please!) over and over again.

Speed is on a slippery slope. I think your mistaken, if you believe that you'll be seeing half the stuff a year or two from now. First stop 2AM, next stop, out the door. This is going the same way that MTV did. In the beginning they showed Music videos, today they make their living pimping cars, promoting communal debauchery and punkin celebrities. IMO the only way you'll see the Euro cup stuff etc three years form now is going to be if they launch a Speed II, and rename Speed to the Nascar channel.

 

Well said! Every weekday morning I get up at 5:30 and drink my coffee and give myself an hour to wake up. What is on Speed then…..Consumer Product Showcase. WTF? You are right about MTV also. I am glad I don't have kids. I wouldn't let them watch that crap.

I wouldn't say this is whining either. That fact (edit: my opinion, but also many others) is Speed sucks and they need to know about it and that I/we would rather watch something other than NASwhatever. Speed II would be great, if M2 can survive, I would think S2 could also (like Speedvision did before the NASinvasion).

 

I recently bought a HD DVR and haven't looked back. I have set it up to record any broadcast that has the words "auto racing" in the title or description. I have a lineup so long of recorded races that I can't keep up. There is plenty of content out there. Get a DVR. As for the quality issue, if you have a HDTV, you owe it to yourself to get the HD DVR

 

All sporting events exist on a continuum ranging from pure, unadulterated sport to pure, commerical entertainment. Racing events are no different.

NASCAR exists almost to the extreme at the entertainment end of the spectrum, in my opinion. I find it repulsive that "drivers" are selected as much based on their perceived media marketabilty as they are on their driving ability. Some of the NASCAR drivers recently were talking about the younger guys needing to learn heel-toe shifting techniques for the upcoming road courses. I think that there are a few very good all round drivers in NASCAR (Jeff Gordon comes to mind), but there are quite a few who have a driving skills spectrum fairly limited to ovals.

Like it or not, entertainment "racing" is winning out commercially right now. I'm hoping some upstart channel will bring back more real racing to the airwaves.

 

Fully agree.

As to the upstart channel, there is one, interestingly based just one town over from me here in MA. Unfortunately, they are, as of now, not overly interesting in professional racing, although I think they are to some extent interested in club level stuff, which would be really cool. Not sure where they are on the curve, they've been at it for well over a year now, but hopefully they'll make it and they'll be some hope.

http://www.wheelstv.net/

 

Great thread. Gotta agree that Speed has really gone downhill, and seems to be sliding further. I haven't gotten to the point yet where I don't check the Speed schedule anymore - I'm just at the point where I still regularly check it, and mostly still get dissapointed.

I have never been a fan of Wind Tunnel - maybe because I can never watch it for any more than about 90 seconds at a time. But all of this talk of the show, Dave Despain and too much Nascar caused me to remember this incredible clip of Despain letting his real opinion on Nascar be known:

http://www.sm0k3.com/crap/videos/despain.wmv

For those of you who haven't seen it - Enjoy!

Tom