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[What's Burning?]

My patience is wearing thin with SPEED. I can forgive the few minute delays I can forgive them broadcasting from a studio in North Carolina or whereever they broadcast from instead of at the race venues... but they're not even making at attempt this year... might as well phone it in.

For those of you not familiar with their format, they've got one guy (Will Buxton) that does go to the races and creates little snippet, interviews and such. Never anything really insightful really, and doesn't seem to get access to the upper echelon of drivers and does not participate in post race interviews. Then there's David Hobbs, and although I can appreciate his pedigree and history, the guy is really not up to speed on what's going on today especially with regulations, rule changes and such. Basically there to give it all legitimacy. There is also Steve Matchett, who's actually not bad, and brings some eagle eyed points of interests to the broadcast. The one paperweight is Bob Varsha that really brings nothing F1 related to the broadcast other than being SPEED's "anchor" man, and currently spends exponentially more time working the Barrett Jackson auctions than he does reading about F1.

The kicker though was yesterday's broadcast, they all went on for a few minutes about DRS, where later in the race during the time Vettel was attempting to catch up to Alonso, Alonso opened up his DRS as well as Vettel and they were all dumbfounded that there was no car ahead of Alonso and so there must be a glitch in the DRS system and they even kept an eye out for it on subsequent laps. No one noticed that Alonso had an HRT in front of him during the DRS detection zone, and had long been past during the DRS activation. That's quality for you.

[bud]

They flew to Australia for Bathurst that's a long way from North Carolina

[What's Burning?]

They flew to Australia for Bathurst that's a long way from North Carolina

Yeah but that was with Leigh Diffey and the boogedy boogedy boogedy man DW. Never done that for F1. Interestingly enough, they also pushed back the broadcast of the GP because the Bathurst ran long, so it the programing change screwed with the times on the DVR and it didn't record for it.

BTW, found it interesting they had a prayer service before the race... man, Australia and the US seem like twins separated at birth.

[Jabberwocky]

Australia and the US seem like twins separated at birth.

Britain is mother to you both

[andrew]

I find it funny that you lot in the colonies complain about your F1 coverage. At least you're getting to see all the races for free next year! Us lot in the UK are not.

I'd rather have coverage that annoyed me from time to time than only half the races covered with the other half being (heavily) edited so-called highlights.

[darwin dali]

I find it funny that you lot in the colonies complain about your F1 coverage. At least you're getting to see all the races for free next year! Us lot in the UK are not.

I'd rather have coverage that annoyed me from time to time than only half the races covered with the other half being (heavily) edited so-called highlights.

Not quite for free - you have to subscribe to a certain cable channel package.

[darwin dali]

My patience is wearing thin with SPEED. I can forgive the few minute delays I can forgive them broadcasting from a studio in North Carolina or whereever they broadcast from instead of at the race venues... but they're not even making at attempt this year... might as well phone it in.

For those of you not familiar with their format, they've got one guy (Will Buxton) that does go to the races and creates little snippet, interviews and such. Never anything really insightful really, and doesn't seem to get access to the upper echelon of drivers and does not participate in post race interviews. Then there's David Hobbs, and although I can appreciate his pedigree and history, the guy is really not up to speed on what's going on today especially with regulations, rule changes and such. Basically there to give it all legitimacy. There is also Steve Matchett, who's actually not bad, and brings some eagle eyed points of interests to the broadcast. The one paperweight is Bob Varsha that really brings nothing F1 related to the broadcast other than being SPEED's "anchor" man, and currently spends exponentially more time working the Barrett Jackson auctions than he does reading about F1.

The kicker though was yesterday's broadcast, they all went on for a few minutes about DRS, where later in the race during the time Vettel was attempting to catch up to Alonso, Alonso opened up his DRS as well as Vettel and they were all dumbfounded that there was no car ahead of Alonso and so there must be a glitch in the DRS system and they even kept an eye out for it on subsequent laps. No one noticed that Alonso had an HRT in front of him during the DRS detection zone, and had long been past during the DRS activation. That's quality for you.

They did figure it out eventually.
Nah, it was just to confuse you, to create some artificial suspense (will the stewards look into it?) and thus, a better entertainment value

[andrew]

I find it funny that you lot in the colonies complain about your F1 coverage. At least you're getting to see all the races for free next year! Us lot in the UK are not.

I'd rather have coverage that annoyed me from time to time than only half the races covered with the other half being (heavily) edited so-called highlights.

Not quite for free - you have to subscribe to a certain cable channel package.

How much?

[darwin dali]

I find it funny that you lot in the colonies complain about your F1 coverage. At least you're getting to see all the races for free next year! Us lot in the UK are not.

I'd rather have coverage that annoyed me from time to time than only half the races covered with the other half being (heavily) edited so-called highlights.

Not quite for free - you have to subscribe to a certain cable channel package.

How much?

It's hard to say as it's part of a package deal. My guess is around 30 bucks a month.

[andrew]

I stand corrected.

We are going to be in a very similar boat with the colony to the west next year. If I am working by then, which hopefully I am, I'll maybe splash out on Freesat and tune into the German broadcast.

[bud]

BTW, found it interesting they had a prayer service before the race... man, Australia and the US seem like twins separated at birth.

I think it's just Bathurst they do it at, because its a 6 hour race 1000km, people have died. not sure about the rest of the races, Im usually getting another beer during the pre race hoo har

Britain is mother to you both

Yeah Americas all grown up, Australia's still living at home though.

I stand corrected.
We are going to be in a very similar boat with the colony to the west next year.

Australia gets F1 on free to air channels, we just started to get the Speed Channel down here on our cable service this year. its an Australian channel too so we have Australian racing, and shows on it as well as the American ones. Only thing is you don't get the American F1 Speed coverage.

[What's Burning?]

BTW, found it interesting they had a prayer service before the race... man, Australia and the US seem like twins separated at birth.

I think it's just Bathurst they do it at, because its a 6 hour race 1000km, people have died. not sure about the rest of the races, Im usually getting another beer during the pre race hoo har

We'll leave it at convergent evolution then.

[bud]

BTW, found it interesting they had a prayer service before the race... man, Australia and the US seem like twins separated at birth.

I think it's just Bathurst they do it at, because its a 6 hour race 1000km, people have died. not sure about the rest of the races, Im usually getting another beer during the pre race hoo har

We'll leave it at convergent evolution then.

Bogans and Rednecks are different species with similar characteristics.

[Drthjustice]

I lost my patience a while ago and I've been using a proxy server to watch the BBC coverage. Next year does suck though because I guess I'll have to watch most of the races on SPEED. But the few that are on the BBC I'll still be watching it there.

[killem2]

In my area to get speed, you have to have basic cable first, which is at least 50.00 a month pre taxes. Then a digital box and basic digital is another 12.99. Then the package that has speed is 9.99.

Its far from free for the US and if they went to an à la carte pricing system, it would much much more. The only reason its this price is they are able to spread that cost among everyone.

Speed channel used to be a fantastic place to watch EVERYTHING about cars from all walks of life. But now its corporate and it is a trash station hardly worth its money.

That's why I dropped cable all together, and now I just keep the fast internet (which isn't that fast compared to the rest of the world lol) and just torrent races after they aired.