Category: NASCAR

Weekend Preview: 18-19 April 2009

* * * *
Feature Event

FIA Formula 1 World Championship (3/17)
– Chinese Grand Prix
– Shanghai, China

See my Chinese GP Preview here!

Race coverage:
UK: Live on BBC1 @ 6.00am BST
US: Live on SPEED @ 2.30am EDT

* * *
Other Major International Events:

IRL IndyCar Series
– Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach (2/17)
– Long Beach, California, USA

See my Long Beach Preview here!

Race coverage:
UK: Live on Sky Sports 3 @ 9.00pm BST
US: Live on VERSUS @ 3.30pm EDT

American Le Mans Series
– Tequila Patrón American Le Mans at Long Beach (3/10)
– Long Beach, California, USA

The ALMS returns to Long Beach for another Saturday race. The field is slightly bigger this week with the final ever North American appearance from the Corvette GT1 programme. Pratt & Miller will be taking the cars to Le Mans before replacing them with a GT2 effort in the ALMS later in the year.

Race coverage:
The race takes place on Saturday afternoon/evening local time.

UK: Tape delayed on MotorsTV @ 5.00pm BST Sunday
US: Tape delayed on ABC @ 12.30pm EDT Sunday

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Subway Fresh Fit 500 (8/36)
– Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Another 500 miler! This time it is a Saturday night race.

Race coverage:

UK: Live on Sky Sports @ 1.30am BST Saturday night (Sunday morning)
Sky Sports Xtra has highlights at 8am, Sky Sports 2 has highlights at 6.30pm.

US: Live on FOX @ 8.00pm EDT Sunday

* * *
Other Events – check your TV listings:
(according to FORIX (sub req.))

World Series by Renault / Formula Renault 3.5
– Barcelona (1/9)
– Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

WSbR’s season kicks off with the usual double-header format at Barcelona. Driver line-ups were still being formalised as late as this week! As ever the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup will be in support, and I assume the Meganes and Clios will be there too.

Race coverage:
There is a race on Saturday and a race on Sunday. This year Eurosport will be providing coverage for selected rounds which is big news for this series.

UK: Race 1 is live on Eurosport at 12.45pm BST Saturday. Race 2 is live on Eurosport at 12.00pm Sunday.
US: n/a

NASCAR Nationwide Series
Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Firestone Indy Lights
Long Beach, California, United States

Australian V8 Supercars
Hamilton, New Zealand
(UK tape delay: MotorsTV 2pm Sunday)

Super GT
Suzuka, Japan

International GT Open
Imola, Italy

Weekend Preview: 28-29 March 2009

This blog covers a great many racing series to a greater or lesser degrees, and as regular visitors know this Weekend Preview strand is intended as a ‘broad brush’ to briefly touch on as many races happening in a given weekend as possible.

However, the main focus of the blog is Formula 1. For this reason I have elected to write separate preview posts for each F1 round of this season as well as ‘special events’ such as the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Australian GP preview follows shortly, in the meantime here is a quick run-down of what else is happening in the world of racing this weekend.

* * * *
Feature Event

FIA Formula 1 World Championship
– ING Australian Grand Prix (1/17)
– Albert Park
– Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
– www.formula1.com
– Track map

I will post a full preview shortly!

Support events:
V8 Supercars*, Australian GT, Australian Formula Ford, Aussie Racing Cars, Historic Formula 5000, Mini Challenge, Minardi F1x2 two-seaters, Ultimate Speed Comparison (road car vs V8 Supercar vs 2008 BMW F1 car)

* non-championship races billed as a manufacturer battle between Ford and Holden. This has to be one of the best support race bills of the entire F1 season, and you can add several air displays from the Royal Australian Air Force into the mix too.

Absolutely brilliant that they’ve included the old F5000 cars for this year. I’ve not seem them myself, but hear they’re quite a sight! A packed programme of events as always at Albert Park.

* * *
Other Events:

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Goody’s Fast Relief 500 (6/36)
– Martinsville Speedway
– Martinsville, Virginia, United States
– www.nascar.com

Another short track for the Cup boys.

UK TV: LIVE on Sky Sports 3 from 7pm BST Sunday.
US TV: LIVE on FOX from 1:30pm ET Sunday.

Support races: Camping World Truck Series (Saturday)

Stock Car V8 Brasil
– Interlagos (1/12)
– Autodromo Carlos Pace
– Interlagos, Sao Paulo Brazil
– www.stockcar.globo.com

Brazil’s answer to NASCAR? The first race of the season on the F1 track at Interlagos.

* * * *
Notes
I believe that’s all there is this weekend. You’ll thank me for the F1 split-out in a few weeks when this post gets busy!

Weekend Preview: 7-8 March 2009

Some more championships get going this weekend with the WTCC and IRC both starting their seasons in Brazil, and interestingly they will be at the same location. More on that later.

Note – My copy of Autosport hasn’t arrived today due to snow, so I’m relying on internet links and prior notes – this means no ‘minor races’ this week.

* * * *

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Kobalt Tools 500 (4/36)
– Atlanta Motor Speedway
– Atlanta, Georgia, United States
– www.nascar.com

Yet another 500 miler, those guys get through a lot early in the season don’t they? This time we head to the fast Atlanta track. Midweek Motorsport said this week that you get 8 lap manic sprints followed by 15-20 laps of running on worn tyres. Can they not do what they did in Days of Thunder and back off for the first bit, then in the later bit pass them all as if you have another gear?

UK TV: 6.00pm, Sky Sports 3 & 3HD
US TV: 1.30pm, FOX

Also racing at Atlanta:
Camping World Truck Series
UK TV: No deal.
US TV: 1.30pm Saturday, SPEED.

* * *

FIA World Touring Car Championship
– HSBC Race of Brazil (1&2/24)
– Autodromo Internacional de Curitiba
– Curitiba, Brazil
– www.fiawtcc.com

The WTCC gets started for 2009 with another visit to Curitiba, where for the 3rd year running there is a charity initiative to help the less well off of the locality, of which there are many. If a spectator brings 2kg of food they can watch the racing for free. I absolutely love this idea, last year the stands were packed and they collected 52 tonnes of food!! More here.

It’ll be interesting to see if one manufacturer dominates again. It took a few rounds last year for the balance to be restored. This year there is a new performance balancing formula to replace weights, which I’ve forgotten to read up on because I didn’t realise these guys were starting already…

UK TV:
Race 1 at 4.00pm, Eurosport 2
Race 2 at 7.00pm, Eurosport 1

US TV:
No deal.

* * *

Intercontinental Rally Challenge
– Rally Internacional de Curitiba (2/12)
– Autodromo Internacional de Curitiba
– Curitiba, Brazil
– www.ircseries.com

The second round of IRC is under way already and comes to a close on Saturday afternoon. That’s not a typo in the location section – the service park is stationed behind the main grandstand of Curitiba race circuit. Both IRC and WTCC are backed and promoted by Eurosport Events so this marks an interesting cost-saving move whilst bringing a variety of motorsport to one location. It’s certainly the first time I’ve heard of a race and rally being held in the same place.

UK TV:
Updates throughout the weekend on Eurosport’s channels.

* * *

Other:

AMA Superbikes at Daytona. I imagine this is on SPEED in the US. It isn’t available here, not live anyway.

Weekend Preview: 21-22 February 2009

It’s all about A1 and NASCAR this weekend, and in the UK both of these will air live on Sky Sports 2.

A1GP World Cup
– Gauteng (5/?)
– Kyalami
– South Africa
– Website: www.a1gp.com

The World Cup of Motorsport pays its first visit to Kyalami, although for some reason A1GP calls it Gauteng. South African rounds were previously held on a street track by the beach in Durban which was far too narrow, there were always silly little crashes at the hairpin first turn, but despite that it was still entertaining! Let’s see how the newer bigger cars get on at the former home of the South African Grand Prix.
(I put a question mark in the # of rounds section above, ‘cos really, who knows?)

British air time: Sunday 11:30am GMT, Sky Sports 2
Elsewhere: check listings or use a1gp.com

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Auto Club 500 (2/36)
– Auto Club Speedway (which is really California Speedway)
– Fontana, California, United States
– www.nascar.com

I’m not sure why, but NASCAR thought it would be idea to make the teams drive from Florida to California in a few days between a couple of 500 mile races. Good plan, NASCAR, nothing like tiring out your teams at the very beginning of a 36 race season. Tune in to see how the boys cope. It’ll be late here and I’ll be sleeping.

British air time: 11pm GMT, Sky Sports 2
American air time: 5pm EST, FOX

Support races at Fontana include:

Saturday:
NASCAR Nationwide Series
– Stater Bros 300

:shrug: I know nothing.

British air time: Not found.
American air time: Saturday 7pm EST, ESPN2

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
– San Bernadino County 200

Is that a local county? If they are sponsoring it, times must be tight..

British air time: Not found.
American air time: Saturday 3pm, FOX

Seems the 3rd tier event gets to run on Fox while the 2nd tier doesn’t, not sure of the logic but there you go.

* * *

This is all very interesting but probably the most interesting events of the next seven days happens on Tuesday where we will have two important announcements:

1) USF1 making an announcement on SPEED.
2) BBC announcing full details of their F1 coverage, I’m looking forward to that more than the USF1!

Okay, have a great weekend.