Who else watches Formula 1?

Who else is a fan? I know Tux and Squid love their stock car racing, and i enjoy watching a good trip around 'Dega...but whos gonna be silly, stay up late and watch round 2 in Singapore at like 2 AM CST?

Dont' worry. I watch F1 as religiously as I watch NASCAR.

Dude you know Id be up and watchin if I had Speed Channel. Sucks cause all the good racing is on Speed.... Shoot 99% of practice and qualifying for Busch and Cup are on Speed now so I only catch the races mostly and man I miss my Nascar RaceDay and Craftsman Setup shows. Herminator is the man

I watch damn near anything if given the chance.... at least as long as it ain't bus or lawn mower races

What about a bus figure 8? Or lawn mowers running nitrous injected GXR motors or even the Mower that was on Tool Tim were Tim put a small Helicopter engine on his? Id watch

Nope, just cars and trucks for me

what if it was a lawn mower with a mini car body?

Here's a little of my background which will shed some light on my sourness today.

Speedvision, when it was known as that name, was awesome! It was pretty much any kind of racing any day, all day:

Boats

• Offshore power boats
  
• Drag racing
  
• "Picklefork" boat races

Those crazy Europeans racing semi rigs

Air races

Motorcycle races

Car races
Open wheel

• CART
  
• IRL
  
• F1

Drag racing

• Amateur
  
• NHRA

Circle track

• NASCAR Winston Cup
  
• NASCAR Bush Series
  
• ARCA dirt and paved

Amateur road course

• SCCA regional season events
  
• SCCA season finale

Professional road course

• Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft
  
• British Touring Car Championships
  
• Australian Supercars
  
• Trans-Am
  
• Le Mans

I'm sure you get the gist of it by now. If two guys plugged in their belt sanders with 1320' worth of extension cords and let them rip, chances are Speedvision would cover their event.

Aaaannnnnnnnndddddddddd deeeeeeeeeennnn??? And Den ownership changed. And Den it became NASCAR all day every day. That really soured me and ever since then I have ignored NAS-CRAP. Last year I watched part of the Daytona 500 for the first time since 1999. Yep, I missed Earnhard's crash. I've only seen it on a Discovery Channel show highlighting driver safety measures and on Internet video clips.

I loved the variety coming from Speedvision. To go from "We'll televise whatever can be raced" to simply "Welcome to the NASCAR channel!" really put me off. Unfortunately I'm a minority in this country and it made fiscal sense for "Speedchannel -> Speed" to get bought out and please the NASCAR fans in this market. I'm a minority because I enjoy watching road course auto races. Racers who race in the rain, racers who need headlights because parts of the track are dark, racers who know what the driver in front is doing because he sees illuminated brake lights, racers who drive a car that's not some sheet metal over a tube-framed chassis, racers who fly P-51 Mustangs at the limit and racers who race Volvo wagons against Honda Accord sedans (BTCC).

Folks who missed Speedvision's programming from 1996 through 2001 … you missed some awesome racing. There were years during said stretch, Speedvision broadcast a majority of the 24 hours of Le Mans with no other sports related update breaks. The programmers knew to schedule other events around the mid-June event. How do we get that kind of coverage today? Fly to France and be there.

Speed still shows Le Mans, Aussie V8's, British and German Touring Cars sometimes.... they show F1 stuff at night every so often too. And you're right, they do have too much NASCAR stuff on there, I mean I'm a NASCAR fan but there's nothing that needs to be known so bad that I can't wait until Sunday to hear it

You're definitely correct, they do show those other series sometimes. Since the change in 2002, the station has gotten better though it's still no Speedvision.

My issue is, Speedvision would air the entire event, Speed Channel preferred to air a Readers' Digest condensed, "Here's the green flag! Oh, and here's a pass for the lead. Here's the obligatory crash! And there's the checker! Now let's go back to our studios with Billy, Bobby, Tommy, and Joe for a NASCAR update" version. Whoa-kay-then. If immediately after the ownership changed, they managed to not air NASCAR 160 of the possible 168 week hours, I'd be more accepting today.

F1 is good stuff, I'll be up at about that time listening to my radio program anyway so I'll tune in to the Singapore event.

Dude the Speedvision GT series or was it the World Challenge series? The series that had Tommy Archer in the 1996-2002 Dodge Viper GTS's.... Speedvision was the ULTIMATE for grass roots privateer racing! Yea everything was awesome to watch on there!

Up until about 3 years ago SCCA did run the "SPEED World Challenge"...that was a lot of fun to watch...now its on Versus or whatever its called...its the condensed version and i dont care for it.

I don't know about you guys. but I LOVE Speed Channel's informative NASCAR shows about what kind of doggies Greg Biffle likes, and where Denny Hamlin likes to shop, and where David Ragan likes to fish. DON'T GET ME STARTED on how much I love listening to these game show host-like blonde bombshells tell us how much the drivers religion gets them through their day. I LOVE it when it's all about America, Jesus, boner pills, trucks, The troops, fast food, and nothing about actual motor racing at all. I think Speed channel's got it right. (It's not meant to be an anti religious or troops statement.. but you guys know what I mean.)

Josh on ze bass wrote:I don't know about you guys. but I LOVE Speed Channel's informative NASCAR shows about what kind of doggies Greg Biffle likes, and where Denny Hamlin likes to shop, and where David Ragan likes to fish. DON'T GET ME STARTED on how much I love listening to these game show host-like blonde bombshells tell us how much the drivers religion gets them through their day. I LOVE it when it's all about America, Jesus, boner pills, trucks, The troops, fast food, and nothing about actual motor racing at all. I think Speed channel's got it right. (It's not meant to be an anti religious or troops statement.. but you guys know what I mean.)

You forgot beer

Thank you, sir. and beer.

To be fair they have a lot of "Pass Time" showing recently. Ok, 3 people at podiums making guesses about how fast a car will go down a drag strip. Really?

Then there's the overhauling shows. You know the ones... "And I'm gunna run this nice shiny Edelbrock carb on top of this Holley intake, and really beef up the power. That'll go nifty with the BF Goodrich tires on top of the BBS whils (yes, pronounced whils) and our massive slotted rotors." Just a giant half hour commercial, with commercial breaks.

At least they run several hour blocks of monster truck racing, and motorcycle racing. That's a good way to kill a half hour here or there.

I guess I'm a NASCAR fan. I will watch it if I can remember the race is on and am free during the scheduled race time. I don't record them or make special plans to watch the races, but if I'm free and they're on I'll watch them. I can see why they'd have the practice sessions and whatnot, but 4 guys sitting around a table talking about racing is NOT captivating entertainment. I mean, during half the programming they have the scrolling info at the bottom of the screen anyways, and it talks about what is already being said by these windbags.

I never saw the Speed channel before a few years ago when it started coming with my cable package. All I know is most of it now I can't watch more than a half hour, maybe an hour if I'm real bored. Lately I just give up on TV and try to turn some laps. Speaking of which, I need to make Simcik not make the race so I can hopefully run mid-pack this next race and get another spot in the points standings.

Remaggib wrote: but 4 guys sitting around a table talking about racing is NOT captivating entertainment.

LOL Well I guess ESPN is not your channel of choice eh? Subtract racing for sport of choice and thats 78% of ESPNs programming

C4PT41N SL0W wrote:

Josh on ze bass wrote:I don't know about you guys. but I LOVE Speed Channel's informative NASCAR shows about what kind of doggies Greg Biffle likes, and where Denny Hamlin likes to shop, and where David Ragan likes to fish. DON'T GET ME STARTED on how much I love listening to these game show host-like blonde bombshells tell us how much the drivers religion gets them through their day. I LOVE it when it's all about America, Jesus, boner pills, trucks, The troops, fast food, and nothing about actual motor racing at all. I think Speed channel's got it right. (It's not meant to be an anti religious or troops statement.. but you guys know what I mean.)

You forgot beer

Josh on ze bass wrote:Thank you, sir. and beer.

Just don't mix the boner pills with too much beer, or else you'll be stickin' your rod in things and in places it doesn't belong. You know, kinda like peeing on the electrified 3rd rail.

Well wouldnt ya know it....enough rain in Malaysia to stop the race for almost an hour...missed the last half of the race.



Just glad to see Ferrari do well after Australia...and that Sauber! Man, if they replace Massa, and im sure yhey will, they need to grab Perez.

Smus wrote:Well wouldnt ya know it....enough rain in Malaysia to stop the race for almost an hour...missed the last half of the race.



Just glad to see Ferrari do well after Australia...and that Sauber! Man, if they replace Massa, and im sure yhey will, they need to grab Perez.

...and there was enough rain in So Cal to stop the race for good, allowin' Smoke to win which I happen to be happy about

Speakin of Nascar... I think Jimmie found his Fontana horseshoe

Was just watching Nascar Race Hub and they had Humpy Wheeler on talking about the evolution of the All-Star Race when he mentioned that Humpy is in negotiations with F1 to have a F1 race in the New York/New Jersey area sometime as he stated "soon as we can". If the Austin Texas race is successful then would Formula 1 "mob boss" allow 2 US dates in a season? That seems highly unlikely but would be HUGE for F1 in America.

I think Bernie has pretty much said its a go. Theyre planning on running it as a street circut in Newark or Hoboken or whatever stupid names those north east coasters come up with. Gov Christie said they want it in 2013...but F1 in New York would be huge. They thought Austin would get shelved due to the money issues and this race, thats how serious it is.

Last I heard Austin is good to go and Golden on the logistics and money front. Hmmm does that mean we may see a *GASP* 21! race season in F1???? I dont know if they have had a season that long before have they? I just checked and actually this season in 20 races but I swear not 10 years ago it was only like 14 or 15 race seasons

When this story first broke a friend of mine said, "That's it. There's the key to F1 coming to the states."

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