Call those Highlights????

[RickP:Clio51]

For those of you eagerly anticipating the highlights of the Spa race of the LMES, I'm afraid you're in for a big disappointment.
I watched the 2 hours last night and it has to be said it was absolute rubbish. The highlights of a 6 hour race are not the first 1h15 min and then the last 45min tacked on the end... clearly the producer couldn't be bothered to watch the race and hence Patrick Pearce's shunt, the demise of the Nasamax, the desperate battle at the end in LMP2, the charge of the Creation through the pack are all missed. Given that Hindy and Robin hadn't been told there were 2 pace cars for much of the first hour so they thought the Herbert and RollCentre cars were in the lead when in fact the other 2 Audis were 1m40 up the road behind a different pace car didn't really help the comprehension of the average viewer either.
In fact it was a total dogs dinner: if it wasn't for some awesome guesses of what was going on by Robin Liddell (who showed great insight) it would have been a total disaster and the poor commentary team were on a total hiding to nothing. As it was the average viewer wouldn't have had any clue as to what was going on. I'd actually suggest that coverage this cr*p actually damages our sport rather than promotes it.

[Aysedasi]

Hmmm. Whilst I guess I'd take the point, I'd like to have been able to watch even that much.........

[RickP:Clio51]

I'd normally agree with that sentiment Aysedasi but given they didn't even manage any footage of Audi meets Ferrari then clouts TVR which was the defining incident of the first hour nor of the Pescarolo hitting the wall nor did they really show how much it rained and the number of cars that took wets then had to change back even the bits they showed weren't done well.
To be honest you've missed nothing.

[Aysedasi]

OK, understood Rick. Lets see what others have to say then......

[class4v]

From what RickP says, it looks like they copied the live showing on Belgian TV (La Deux - RTBF)of sunday, which was dull...

[marcush.]

I saw the cameraman in the righthander after rivage on the rundown to Pouhon watching Tv(!)on his screen instead of capturing the sticken Nasamax.....no wonder there is nothing of this incident available....I was tempted to ask him if he was paid for watching TV...but honestly I was not looking for a black eye...
Standing in the pits at Creation when the autosporthack came for an interview I was tempeted to ask him what he was doing there...Boring questions ,Nic and Jamie did their best to answer sensibly .At one time Nic got so annoyed he began his answer with:It´s always the same story....And if you´d ever had the chance to talk to him
you´d know how spirited his answers can be...so my hopes
for the 1andahalf pages in the worlds famous motorsportweekly are somewhat ,hm low expectations.Really,
is this really so difficult ? I´d say no.
To my mind the teams should name a person for each class
or inform the media at the end of the event at least to make sure the journos get somewhat of a picture.
It is beyond me how you could make something boring out of that thriller of last sunday.But to capture what was going on you have to watch and be interested,I´d guess.But if you
not even note the big bangs there´s no real hope...

[marcush.]

err,lefthander I wanted to say..Fagnes (?)

[mcgee]

It is a shame the tv was so poor on the 1000 km at spa as it was a great race.
I was working there and the race was full of action.
the most frightening thing was the audi coming into the pits when it was well on fire.check out this weeks autosport to see the pictures.
parking a burning car next to a fuel rig was not the best idea the driver had

the weekend was fun and the classic sportscar were great,
when did you last see a porsche 917 at racing speed,not plonked on a static display.

I would advise anybody with the chance of going to spa to take it as it is best race curcuit in the world.
the people are friendly and only about a 5 hour drive from calais

first posting so here goes

alan

[LC2guy]

Welcome to the forum mcgee. I agree with Rick. On Sunday i watched the first hour and a half before family matters took over, and i then watched the last hour. So imagine my surprise at seeing the exact same last night !!!! I missed the Rollcentre incident and also Kaffers assault, OK i saw the flaming Audi ( pun intended !!! ) but nothing atall of the incident. Was this shown on Sunday ? Anyway, if i had got my mates to watch those highlights they would have laughed at me for being interested in such a shyte series, whereas when they came to watch live at Silverstone they thought it was awesome. If this is how a 6 hr race is packaged, it doesn't really promote the series atall. Rant Over. PS Commentary was first class as always given the circumstances.

[Paddy_NL]

Race was great indeed. But haven't most of you non-visitors watched the race via live-cam?

Tomorrow my pics should be ready. I took shots of the flaming Audi from Eau Rouge with my telelense.
Can't wait to see them

[Aysedasi]

Welcome mcgee - first of many no doubt.

[RickP:Clio51]

Welcome McGee, good to have you along for the rant!
And whilst we are having a rant, how's about that coverage in Autosport? LMP2 was once again invisible although this time we were in the classified results and not deleted.
Given that Patrick Pearce had a bl**dy good go at killing himself and the Dallara was running really well up until that point, I imagine Shorty's not massively impressed at zero mention either, even if he has got a double page feature later in the mag. In fact isn't that a bit odd? You run a double page on the Rollcentre team, interest a few new punters in the series and then they flick back to the Spa 1000km report to see how they got on and find they don't get any sort of mention?
Bizarre...
RickP

[marcush.]

hm ....what did that autosport boy do the whole weekend then..?I could imagine better places to stay for the weekend if I where that interested in sportscarracing....
next time I see him I´ll ask what he really thinks.

[RickP:Clio51]

You've actually seen him?
In 3 races he's never been to our garage... given that there aren't many Brit teams and the press office was actually directly on top of our pit at Spa you'd have thought we might have seen him once...
To answer your question Marcus, I imagine he spends his weekend in Veloqx hospitality...

[marcush.]

as I said before I saw him for the best part of five minutes interviewing JCW and Nic after qualifying.They both tried their best to answer his uninformed boring questions...like:
Why is the Car so fast here in Spa....well..they barely qualified the blue thing on the three other occasions I suppose...
He did know nothing ,had no clue and appeared to make the
visit half forced ,because they had pole...my honest excuse if I have got a wrong impression but that´s how it looked .So sorry Rick,but unfortunatelly your pit was at the other end of the pitlane ,and you would be quite optimistic to expect someone to make that journey down,err up from the Veloqx paradise....

[jim69]

Why is it that the British teams hardly get a mention or any TV time. I know Mike and Tommy quite well, but hardly ever see them on the TV coverage. FIA GT is just as bad.

[Adam43]

Originally posted by RickP:Clio51
I imagine Shorty's not massively impressed at zero mention either, even if he has got a double page feature later in the mag.

I wondered how a double page feature on a team was going to be a bad thing...

There is finite space in the magazine. The LMES race report got the same space as the F3 report, the Champcar report and the F3000 report.

Back to that feature on Martin Short. It is excellent and gives a good insight into running a privateer sportscar outfit nowadays. Well done Autosport.