Speed channel, This channel is lame!! Options

[championgt1]

Speed channel sucks!! Two hours of the Petit LeMans and then for the next five hours it's cars and trucks going in circles. Does anybody remember when it was Speedvision and they showed cool stuff all day everyday? What happened to the World ralley, DTM, Australian V8 touring cars, British touring cars, and nonstop coverage of races such as 12 hours of Sebring, 24 hours of LeMan and of course the Petit LeMan. Sorry for the rant I guess I just needed to vent a little.

[kart54]

Let's see, for all you F1, Cart and IRL Fans.
Dario Franchitti-Nascar, Jacques Villenueve-Nascar, Juan Pablo Montoya- Nascar, Ron Fellows, Boris Said, Lewis, Tracy, Andretti -all looking for a full time Nascar ride. The kids I occasionally race with in karting all talk about going to the Bondurant school, F3 in europe and then maybe coming back, moving to the south and getting a Nascar ride. Like it or not, that's the popular route these days.

Jacques comments at last weekends Talladega race were very telling in my eyes. He was asked why he was coming to Nascar. His response was "to race with the best drivers in the world" and that F1 was very boring due to the lack of competition and passing. He said "it's fun if your out front but very boring otherwise".

I road race in SCCA, I work at the Long Beach Grand Prix for SCCA, Nascar at Sears Point and I worked the phoenix F1 races in the old days. The most entertainting by far is watching the skill required to throw a 3200 pound, 800 horsepower race car around Sears Point from 15 feet off the track at turn one.

You couldn't pay me enough to watch an F1 race anymore. Boring doesn't describe it. Same for Champ car, ALMS, IRL and Petit Lemans. I hate that that's what its come down to but the other series have decided that competition doesn't matter. Nascar has been smart enough to figure out that it matters very much and they work it. No, I don't like all the advertising but it does bring in the cubic dollars necessary to fund the racing. As far as advertising goes what do you think it is when a Ferrari or BMW is out front in F1 or Jake Raby is on this site talking about his latest engine? In F1 they don't just say that some car driven by some guy is out front. In that respect, Nascar and F1 are the same.

Oh, and let's talk constructors in Nascar while were at it, Penske, Roush, Felix Sabates, Gibbs, A.J Foyt, any of those names ring a bell for you guys? The best engineers in the world are presently in Nascar along with arguably the best drivers. They are getting more out of these cars than anyone ever thought possible. On Sunday those engines ran 8800 rpm for 500 miles. That's a pushrod V-8 with a carb.
Nascar not only knows how to turn left they also road race too bad the road racers can't figure out how to turn left.

The last NASCAR race I attended at California speedway I went with three other individuals, all road racers, all professionals in one field or another. The days of the red neck have been gone for along time, but I will admit Nascar thinks it has to be true to that base. I think there are probably, at least from what I've seen on this site, a higher percentage of rednecks driving 914's then there are remaining as Nascar fans.

As of next year Nascar has dropped all of the beer and tabacco sponsorships for its series and will now have nothing but technology companies in their place. They are realizing what their new base is and adjusting for it. To bad CART, IRL, and some of the other series didn't make that same adjustment.

Attendance figures? the numbers mentioned in the post above would only account for a typical one mile Nascar oval. Bristol now holds 165,000 and is sold out for the next five years and that does not include the corporate suites. Brickyard 400 attendance is normally over 400,000 each year and that is at the track. The figures for TV go into the millions.

Having said all of the above, I will say of all the series the ones I really miss are Trans-Am in its heyday and Lemans and Daytona when they meant something. Unfortunately, their demise was an inability to understand marketing and the changing views of the American and European peoples.

Randy Andell
SCCA Porsche 914 G production