22 replies to this topic

[Barry Boor]

Let me explain to those from other parts of the globe.

Last night the CART race was advertised as being on Eurosport at 11 p.m. I knew this would not be live, but I stayed off the Internet and waited. 11 p.m. came and went while two chaps whacked small yellow balls at one-another and a third chap occasionally informed us that apparently, they were in love or were having juice.

Eventually after 11.30 they reached a point where they could be left to be in love without our having to watch them, although the announcer informed us that he was sure they would still be at it when the racing ended! Such stamina!

Cut to Vancouver; the cars were already racing. Indeed, they had been racing for no less than 60 laps out of 100. Were we given any idea of what had happened up to that point? Er.... NO! It was clear to me that the commentators had been rattling along since the start and were probably totally unaware that we had not been with them all the way through. Eurosport, it appears, in their wisdom had not seen fit to tell them that viewers were just joining and they might give us just a hint of what had gone before.

Cut away to CART itself. I know we have often debated this series and it has its fans. I am one of them; hell, it IS single seater motor racing after all! But I am getting a bit tired of a) the almost uniformally awful driving of the competitors and b) the ludicrous use of full-course yellows and c) the apparent arbitrary 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' rules being employed; e.g. the closing of the pits when everyone in the race teams assumed they would be open. We had the 'piece of lint' on the track comments on another thread just a day or so ago, but PLEASE, can somebody tell me why they did about 8 laps behind the pace car when 2 cars had slid into the tyres? Da Matta was back in the pits and back in the race not even losing a lap. while Fernandez drove off the race track and out of the way almost immediately.

If I were a spectator, and I might even be one at Rockingham, although I rather think I won't bother, I would be hammering on CART's door demanding a proportion of my entrance fee back for having to watch the 50 mph Grand Prix for 3 or 4 times longer than was actually needed.

CART is in VERY serious danger of making itself a complete laughing stock in the eyes of many race fans, if it hasn't already.

So which is the worst? Eurosport for making a complete Horlicks of the transmission or CART for making theoretically good racing into farce?

You pays yer money and takes yer choice!

[red bull]

Hmmm...Shouldn`t this be in Reader`s Comments?

[Barry Boor]

Maybe so, red bull, but once you have been around for a while, you will come to understand that although there is a degree of cross-over between TNF and RC, generally we tend to stick to the one we feel more comfortable with. Hence the location of this thread.

Anyway, the race was yesterday, which makes it historic!

[Wolf]

No, Barry- when I saw all them yella's the race was history...;) From my scarce viewing expirience with CART, I'd say that many a time yellows sort of follow up (shunts and spins on restart, or while tyres aren't up to their proper temperature yet). And, BTW, I am, due to some strange mixup, still without Eurosport commentary- just feed sound... I miss the commentators on MotoGP races!

[alessandro silva]

As for your question Barry, both CART and its Eurosport coverage are terrible. Also the commentators in Italian are terrible. The British commentators of the MotoGP on Eurosport, Toby and Julian, instead, are just great as Wolf says, by far the best I listened to in many years, possibly the best, period.

[Barry Boor]

Although I don't often watch bike races I must agree that the 2 Eurosport commentators are excellent.

They sound as though they are really having a good time.

[fines]

Eurosport have definitely a knack of employing the worst commentators available, at least for their German commentary. For example, per chance I just recently stumbled upon an article in a 1990 or '91 magazine complaining about the complete inaptitude of Stefan (?) Heinrich, yet this chap is still doing the bulk of the commentary these days, despite not having improved one iota! He's a complete and utter joke!

Additionally, Eurosport never seem to stick to their schedule, no matter how often they change it during the course of one week. Complete disregard of customer, I call that!

So, Eurosport is definitely worse!!!

As for CART, I agree, they seem to have lost their plot quite dramatically recently. I once quite liked the series, but rarely watch it anymore.

[Vitesse2]

Eurosport scheduling has always been a bit hit and miss - I suppose it's due to the fact that a lot of what they show is live and if something over-runs they have to make a decision whether or not to stick with it.

In addition, there are two main Eurosport channels, for Europe and Britain. They don't show the same schedule but it can happen that what is actually on view agrees neither with their Teletext listing nor the Sky EPG! We can but hope they might take a decision to switch events to the Eurosport News channel when problems like that outlined by Barry occur. Sky Sports do this often when events over-run - night cricket games very often get switched to Sky Sports 3 or Extra at 10.00pm.

As to commentators, I always enjoyed hearing John Watson take Allard Kalff apart - does Allard still work for RTL? He wasn't the best ever, although Wattie was great as expert summariser and he teamed very well with Ben Edwards afterwards.

[Rob29]

Yes I recomend everyone in UK to keep analogue sat gear.Then you can switch between Intl Eurosport & British Eurosport.I saw CART from about 11.05pm. The Eurosportnews channel apppeared on Sky Digital yesterday.So far looks like a website.

[FredF1]

I'm with you Barry.

I know Eurosports coverage of CART is usually a tad poor, but this season seems to be dire.
I noticed the lack of summing up by the commentators as well - I reckon nobody told them that the rest of us were only going to get the 2nd half of the race.
What I can't understand is.... Eurosport is a Europe-wide satellite channel, so I presume they take their viewing figures as a whole.
If CART is so popular with viewers, why screw it around so much. I mean, they'll show the European soccer matches they get the rights to 'til the cows come home - repeat after bloody repeat. It's not like they have so much stuff to show and so little broadcast space.


As for CART.....

I suppose it's safer to post this here rather than the kindergarden.
But the driving and organisational standards are just appalling.
Come on, a street course, tight and twisty, a restart and off they all go at full throttle into the first bend with no hope of overtaking, bumping and grinding away. NASCAR must have more influence over North American motorsports than we thought - since most CART drivers seem to think they're in a tin box rather than an open wheeler.

As for the 'piece of lint'
CART must really be in trouble if they can't afford the money to rent a couple of cranes for the weekend.
The officials really give the impression they couldn't organise the proverbial knees up in a brewery.

[BRG]

Thanks, Barry! I forgot to turn over to Eurosport until about 11.35pm on Sunday night and was kicking myself for missing much of the race. But now I know that I only missed the frustration of watching yet another obscure tennis match (was it the Tibetan Open?) whilst I knew the race was on, I am MUCH happier. I was able to catch up with the first part of the race on Channel 5 last night. Not the ideal way to watch races - see the finish and then the start, but beggars etc etc.

As for CART, I think that one of the long yellows was for them to blow the track clear of marbles - I caught a glimpse of the blower. But it was as crappy a race as usual on the ridiculous street courses that CART persists with. Vancouver is a DIRE track and always has been, despite the changes over the years. I wish CART would run all the races at Cleveland....

[Vitesse2]

Amen to that BRG - Cleveland is the race I NEVER miss!!

[Barry Boor]

In our periodic debate about F1 v. CART, I think I should strike a blow for F1.

There is a constant appraisal of the situation in F1, and while the changes that are made do not always achieve the desired results, they DO try.

I get the feeling that CART thinks it really is the dogs b******s and could not conceive that there are millions of people out here in spectator-land who would not wholly agree with their views.

[oldtimer]

I think the quality of CART racing in has really deteriorated over the past 3 years or so. Apparently, both attendance and TV ratings have been falling steadily, and it is not surprising with follow-my-leader races (even on some ovals), ridiculous use of the double yellow flag, fuel economy runs, and brain-fade (or desperate?) wheel banging. I wonder if the blame does not lie with all the internal politicking that is going on in CART.

As to TV coverage, we in Canada generally have had feed from coverage by ABC. Over the years, the commentating has improved, but the ABC producers have never seemed to have come to terms with what motor racing is about. They do seem to have learned not to gaze at a sponsors airship, or show us the tension on the faces of drivers' wives, just when exciting things were about to happen on the track, but somehow they still manage to miss some key happenings.

I still tune in, but with more anticipation of a screw-up than a good race. How can you mess up a race at Elkart Lake?

[NYR2119935]

It's not CART's fault.....blame Eurosport......complain to them! Demand better coverage!

[MattSmith]

Originally posted by NYR2119935
It's not CART's fault.....blame Eurosport......complain to them! Demand better coverage!

I did.....


And they ignored me.

[Darren Galpin]

You could always watch the full race on Channel 5 instead - they show the ESPN coverage at around midnight, so I managed to watch the entire race yesterday.

[BRG]

Yes, the Channel 5 option is a good fall-back to have when Eurosport have contrived to move the race so that their viewers miss it. In fact, I think C5 take it from Eurosport because it uses the same commentators, who in turn use the ESPN picture feed (there was an annoying point during Vancouver when we had both ESPN and Eurosport commentary at once).

[Vitesse2]

According to today's Motorsport News, the BBC have bought the rights to show Rockingham - 24 hours late!! Presumably it will go out live on Eurosport, then repeated on Grandstand, with the BBC's own commentary.

And I offer this without comment: "expert summariser" will be Mark Blundell ...

[LittleChris]

Vitesse,

Apparently Eurosport do not have the rights for either Rockingham or Lausitzring.

The other members of the BBC Commentary team will be Suzi Perry ( YEEES PLEEAASE !! ) & Leigh Diffey, both of whom currently cover World Superbikes for the BBC.

There will be a 24 hour delay, but one might ask what happens if it rains on Saturday and they have to run on Sunday, would the BBC be able to show it live ?

Chris

[Barry Boor]

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT - THEY DID IT AGAIN!!!!

My digital programme listing for Eurosport showed Vancouver at 5.15 this evening. I waited - football! I flicked back and forth so as not to miss the bit I didn't see on Sunday. 6.15 - football ends; right, here we go - British superbikes.

I'm speechless!!!!

[NYR2119935]

Originally posted by MattSmith


I did.....


And they ignored me.

Then Harass Them!

[Rob29]

The Sky EPG is USELESS for other than Sky's own channels.I think they compile it from the same data that monthly listing magazines use.ie weeks out of date.