Category: Weekend Preview

Weekend Preview: 28 Feb – 1 March

This week is a stock car week so if that’s not your thing you may as well move along. I’m not planning to stay long either, I’d rather talk about sportscars and the ACO’s entry list so I’m off to do that now!

* * * *

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Shelby 427 (3/36)
– Las Vegas Motor Speedway
– Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
– www.nascar.com

427 laps or 427 miles? What sort of distance is that? They either picked it with a random number generator, or I smell a sponsorship tie-in of some kind.

British air time: 9.30pm GMT, Sky Sports 3
American air time: 3.30pm ET, FOX

Now we already know from two weeks ago that 3.30pm ET = 8.30pm GMT so we’re missing an hour. Sky have put it on a tape delay due to live rugby coverage. They’ve got live golf on SS1, live cricket on SS2 and live Spanish footie on Xtra, so they’ve run out of room – a busy Sunday night for Sky! The other thing I just thought of – maybe FOX has an hour of pre-race and Sky is jumping straight from rugby to the green flag.
By the way, The Sum of All Fears is on Film4 at the same time, you should watch that instead, that’s a great film.
It’s quite a friendly time so if I’m about I’ll see if I can jump in.

The Nationwide boys take to the track on Saturday. Americans can see it on ESPN2, I’m fairly sure there has been no late UK deal so no coverage for us for the first time in years.

Speedcar Series
– Dubai (2) (4/6)
– Dubai Autodrome
– Dubai, United Arab Emirates
– www.speedcarseries.com

Speedcar visits Dubai for a second time in their current season but this time it will head the bill, what with GP2 Asia taking a long break before Malaysia.

TV coverage: none but try the website

Other
I’ve decided to shunt smaller things to a little section at the end else things are going to get very crowded as we get to mid-March. Yes I know Speedcar ought to go here, it will next time!

New Zealand V8 Supercars
– Manfield (6/7)

And although I never usually do bikes unless it is MotoGP, the World Superbikes are starting their season this weekend at Philip Island in Australia. There’s live coverage on Eurosport at 4am with repeats at a more sensible time. I’m sure there’s US coverage on Speed or ESPN or some place.

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.

Weekend Preview: 14-15 February 2009

After a short quiet period following the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, racing gets under way again this weekend and at the same venue, this time for the Daytona 500. This weekend truly marks the beginning of months of uninterrupted competition throughout 2009 – I can’t see a completely clear weekend again for months – three cheers for racing!

* * * * Main Event

NASCAR Sprint Cup
– Daytona 500 (1/36)
– Daytona International Speedway
– Daytona, Florida, United States
– www.nascar.com

When we reach the weekend of the Daytona 500 we know the racing season is well and truly upon us. There have been a lot of changes in what is a very short off-season relative to other series, with mergers, driver deals and sponsor changes aplenty. I’m not going to insult you by fumbling my way around this because I know very little about NASCAR, although I am tempted to watch the 500 out of curiosity.

I’ve watched NASCAR before but never a full race. The UK network Five airs a short highlights show of about an hour, in the depths of the night midweek. I got hold of some of those shows last year and it was interesting to watch – for that length of time. I don’t think I can last three or four hours of droning around in packs waiting for big accidents to happen, which is why I’d prefer to try a full NASCAR race at a non-restrictor track. Perhaps some of you NASCAR fans could recommend an event to watch, and remind me nearer the time.

The event is actually already under way, with the Gatorade Duels already having been completed earlier this evening. I’m not entirely sure what they achieved because they’ve already had qualifying and the quali process at Daytona is mega-weird.

The Daytona 500 will air live on Sky Sports 2 and in Hi-Def on Sky Sports HD2. Coverage begins at 8pm Sunday. I should note that in 2008 Daytona was in HD and the rest of the year was SD only, there is no word yet on whether that will be repeated this year.

American coverage is on FOX at 3.30pm ET. So that’s half an hour LESS pre-race build-up than we get here.. hmm. Walk through this with me will-ya? Say it’s 3pm in Florida. Add 5 hours to get British time. 3 + 5 = 8pm Am I missing something here? Maybe they are doing that strange American thing of having the race build-up on a completely different channel beforehand, and I missed the listing.

Support races:

Saturday:
NASCAR Nationwide Series
– Camping World 300

The Nationwide Series gets under way on Saturday afternoon local time.

American air time: 1pm ET, ESPN2
British air time: Not found. This race used to be on the North American Sports Network (NASN), which changed to ESPN America over the winter and they don’t seem to be covering it this time. I’m hunting around forums as I pull this post together and nobody else can find coverage either.

Friday:
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
– NextEra Energy Resources 250

The trucks-that-aren’t-trucks-but-are-really-pickups kick off the proper racing this weekend, as opposed to the ‘racing to qualify’.

American air time: 8pm ET, SPEED
British air time: Not found.

* * * * Other Events

FIA World Rally Championship
– Rally Norway (2/12)
– Hamar, Norway
– Website: www.wrc.com
– Twitter: @OfficialWRC
– Video: YouTube and Joost

Every other racing series may only just be waking up, and some are several weeks off yet, but WRC is already on to it’s second event of the year as they head north to Norway. It looks like they’ve had some heavy snowfall and the drivers are very happy to have a ‘proper’ snow rally for once. The last few years have seen very little snow on what are supposed to be full winter rallies and the guys can’t wait to get stuck in, metaphorically speaking.

The Production WRC entrants are also competing on this event.

I should mention that WRC’s commerical rights are controlled by David Richards (yes, that one) and it looks like his team is doing a good job of embracing new media! Ironically one of the broadcast partners is a channel called ‘Dave’ (so-named because everyone has a friend called Dave).

There are daily updates on Eurosport from Friday to Sunday, and an event roundup on Dave on Sunday at 6pm.

GP2 Asia Series
– Qatar (4/6)
– Losail International Circuit
– Doha, Qatar, UAE
– Website: www.gp2series.com

The GP2 Asia boys head over to Qatar for more fun in the desert. Yet more driver changes mean this series isn’t really being taken as seriously as the main GP2 Series, though it does serve as a performance indicator for the coming year and a lot of guys are getting some good practice in. The extra track time is certainly helping some of them.

The event is supported once again by the Speedcar Series which is holding a night race.

NOTE – as with all Middle Eastern GP2 Asia events the Feature race is on Friday and the Sprint is on Saturday.

Coverage is on Eurosport at 10.30am on Saturday, I believe this is the live sprint race – it may also have some footage from the feature race because there doesn’t seem to be anything at all on Friday.
There appears to be absolutely no coverage at all of Speedcar (there may be something in locally).

Okay that’s it. I’ve decided I will not be posting all the little logos and icons when the main season gets under way, it takes too long!

Next week: A1GP and more NASCAR.

Weekend Preview: 7 & 8 February 2009

Weekend Preview: 7th & 8th February 2009

A quiet weekend this one, with one single solitary event in all of world motorsports and that’s a preseason non-championship NASCAR event. FORIX lists ‘indoor trials bikes’ which they’ve never had before, but I’m not counting that because I care even less about that than the roundy-round taxis. They don’t show the NASCAR presumably because it isn’t a championship event.

NASCAR [website]
Budweiser Shootout (non-championship)
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona, Florida, United States

I don’t think this falls under the Sprint Cup moniker, since it isn’t a championship event and thus doesn’t count toward Cup points. Anyway, there is apparently a lot of fuss in N-World because the format of the race has changed. Until now it was made up of last season’s pole winners plus past winners of the Shootout, but this year in a blatant attempt to keep the carmakers happy it will be based on the top six owner points for each manufacturer, plus a few wildcards. Hmm.. there goes another incentive to do well this year.

The Shootout is stupid anyway, it is just a high profile drafting test session with prize money, right? Do they other guys get at least a real test to make up for it? I doubt it. I guess they at least announce the competition yellow in advance, so that’s something.

This event will be aired live on Sky Sports Xtra at 1am Saturday night (or Sunday morning for the pedantic) – but don’t worry, there are three repeats on Sky Sports 3 and Xtra during Sunday, you lucky beggars. Those repeats are: 11am (SS3), 2.30pm (SS3) and 6pm (SSX).

In the US it will air live on FOX at 8pm ET. I don’t know about HD in the US, it isn’t in HD here.

Next week is more interesting with the Daytona 500 and support races, as well as GP2 Asia and World Rally.

**
Notes
Most of my small handful of readers reside in North America, so I’ll try to include US air times when I can. Most of the time I expect they’ll also apply to Canada. I will of course focus on the British broadcast times first and foremost, many of which will also apply to much of the rest of Europe.

I think the Red Bull F1 launch is on Monday so that’ll be interesting to see, and it looks like Bourdais will get the Toro Rosso seat.