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ABC’s broadcast of Sunday’s Camping World RV 400 Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway earned an overnight Nielsen Media Research rating of 3.1, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily reports. The rating is 10.7 percent higher than the 2.8 ABC earned overnight for the race in 2007, but that event was interrupted by rain and continued on ESPN2. This report came from SceneDaily and the StockCarGazette.com webpages. |
SPEED, the definitive network for motor sports and the automotive lifestyle, is set to present one of the most popular – and newest – forms of organized motor sport in America, drifting. The seven-round Formula Drift (Formula D) Championship will premiere tape-delayed on SPEED, Oct. 26 at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT., starting with the ‘Streets of Long Beach’ season opener from Southern California. SPEED will also air the season-culminating Red Bull Drifting World Championships on Dec. 21.
The hour-long Formula Drift presentations are led by play-by-play host Jarod DeAnda, the Voice of Formula Drift, with color commentary provided by Formula Drift co-founder Ryan Sage. On pit road, series insider Courtney Day will be conducting interviews and providing insights.
Each Formula Drift event showcases drivers competing in the art of sliding a high-powered race car around a set course to maintain the best possible line for speed and angle. To win, racers need to impress judges based on four set of criteria; speed, angle, line and overall impact of the aforementioned three. The competition is set up in pairs, as racers battle each other to score points and advance.
Drivers like 2007 Formula Drift champion Tanner Foust, star of SPEED’s original series SuperCars Exposed, Samuel Hubinette and Rhys Millen (who appeared in the SPEED original, Setup) will be some of names the audience will be watching as the season unfolds.
“Despite having been pitched on numerous drifting-related shows and series over the years, until now we’ve really only dabbled in it,” said Robert Ecker, SPEED Vice President of Programming. “Great events do not always result in great television; it’s really difficult to find the right balance that can effectively convey the live experience to the home audience. With the right mix of competition and lifestyle content, Formula Drift is poised to make this transition.”
Drifting is a relatively new form of motor sport in America. Its roots can be traced back to the illegal street and canyon racing culture that gained popularity in Japan throughout the early 1990s. As tragic incidents happened at an alarming rate, officials established a sanctioning body, wrote judging rules and created organized drift leagues where these competitors could practice their craft within safe environments; spawning a movement that eventually became one of the most popular motor sports in Japan.
Once its popularity began to cross the ocean and into the United States, mainly as enthusiasts on the West Coast became exposed to this new world, they created their own underground drifting opportunities stateside. In an effort to curb some of the illegal activity, a group known as the Drift Association was formed to help organize event locales where young enthusiasts could hone their newly acquired skills.
It wasn’t until June of 2003 however, when Formula Drift co-founders Sage and Jim Liaw hosted an open ‘tryout’ event at SoCal’s Irwindale Speedway, that the sport made its first official appearance stateside. That November, the duo announced the formation of a new sanctioning body at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas, giving birth to the United States’ first organized professional drifting championship. They held the inaugural Formula D event at Road Atlanta in April of 2004.
Four years later, through continued growth of the sport, the SPEED audience will have an opportunity to see what’s next on the horizon.
“The 2008 programming block on SPEED further legitimizes the sport of Drifting within the motor sports world,” said Jim Liaw, President and Co-Founder of Formula Drift. “By showcasing the Formula D Championship Series and the Red Bull Drifting World Championships, SPEED will deliver this contemporary motor sports programming to millions of savvy viewers.”
2008 Formula Drift Television Schedule on SPEED
(All Times ET)
Date Program Location Time
Oct. 26 Streets of Long Beach Long Beach, Calif. 4 p.m.
Nov. 2 Feel the Heat Braselton, Ga. 4 p.m.
Nov. 9 The Gauntlet Englishtown, N.J. 4 p.m.
Nov. 16 High Stakes Las Vegas, Nev. 4 p.m.
Nov. 23 Breaking Point Monroe, Wash. 4 p.m.
Dec. 7 Locked and Loaded Sonoma, Calif. 4 p.m.
Dec. 14 Final Fight Irwindale, Calif. 4 p.m.
Dec. 21 World Drifting Championships Long Beach, Calif. 4 p.m.
The American Le Mans Series announced that it has extended its international television contract with MotorsTV, ensuring that the Series maintains a premium position on Europe’s leading motorsports network. The agreement sees American Le Mans Series coverage on MotorsTV for a further two seasons.
“Our extension with MotorsTV represents continued growth of the American Le Mans Series,” said Scott Atherton, President & CEO of the American Le Mans Series. “It continues to give us truly world-class television coverage throughout Europe, which is extremely important to a number of our manufacturers and marketing partners. Given the sheer number of viewers we are able to reach through our alliance with MotorsTV, the extension ensures that the Series will continue to be at the forefront of premium motorsport coverage across the Atlantic.
“The American Le Mans Series represents the best professional sports car racing in the world, and with that comes global demand,” Atherton added. “Partnerships with world-class outlets like MotorsTV help us serve the rapidly growing interest in our Series.”
The large majority of Series events “live” to its audience of more than 45 million viewers in 31 European countries and in four languages (English, French, German, Greek). In addition, MotorsTV is continuing a year-long, 60-minute weekly Endurance Racing magazine program that began and was a success in 2008 with American Le Mans Series coverage as the premier component.
“The 2008 season marks the fifth year of our partnership with the American Le Mans Series, and it’s definitely been one of the highlights of the channel,” said Frédéric Viger, Head of Programming & Acquisitions for MotorsTV. “The Series keeps growing in entries and interest, and will certainly gain even more next year with Acura entering the LMP1 class.”
“We are confident the American Le Mans Series will remain must-see programming for our audience of 45 million homes in 31 countries via our Pan-European satellite service,” Viger said. “While it’s a bit early to give final indications, we’re also working closely with the American Le Mans Series in order to improve the quality of the coverage over the next two years, and are hopeful that it will help the series to gain even more well-deserved awareness onto the Old Continent.”
MotorsTV has stepped up support of its American Le Mans Series involvement by involving talent teams on site at various Series events and in terms of developing feature as well as promotional materials. The American Le Mans Series and MotorsTV are operating under the terms of a multi-year rights agreement signed in 2006.
India’s debut on the Formula One calendar has been put back by a year to 2011, the sport’s boss, Bernie Ecclestone has reportedly announced.
The BBC reports that construction on a new circuit 30 miles south-east of the Indian capital Delhi will start next month and finish in time for the start of the 2010 season, but that Ecclestone told reporters at the Singapore Grand Prix: “2011 is what I want”.
Abu Dhabi will make its debut next year in a 19-race schedule, while it had been thought that South Korea and India had would debut in 2010. Race promoters, the Indian Olympic Association, announced in November 2007 that Formula One management had approved a site in Noida – a suburb on the outskirts of Delhi. This came from SportsBusiness.com.
Formula One drivers could compete for a $1 million Friday jackpot as part of a revamp of grand prix weekends, according to a suggestion from McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh. Whitmarsh heads up the sporting working group of the newly created Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) which is working with the governing FIA and commercial rights holders to finds ways of improving the spectacle, cutting costs and increasing revenues.
“We (the teams) are looking at the whole format of a race weekend,” he told the autosport.com website. “At the moment we have formulated a Friday testing format, but in reality no one is doing the normal disciplined testing. We are preparing for the race (instead). “So we say, ‘is this good value? Does it help the show?’. “Or do you perhaps do something where you say ‘Let’s cut it down to 45 minutes only’. Maybe you give a completely different specification of tires, a really hard tire, and you create a mini-competition where everyone tries to set the fastest time and you give a million dollars to the winning driver?’
“It means there would be something to write about and it introduces the weekend. It is separate from the race. So there are all those sort of ideas about.”Whitmarsh and the working group would submit any recommendations to FOTA and then the FIA. This report also came from SportsBusiness.com. It’s an interesting new wrinkle in F1. But will it fly considering that we are about, or already in, a worldwide recession? This also came from SportsBusiness.com.
Officials with the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company recently announced that vehicle consignment spots for the company’s inaugural Las Vegas event have been sold out, proving once again that economic woes are no match for the thriving collector car hobby. Barrett-Jackson will continue to accept bidder applications from collectors looking to nab one of these amazing vehicles; tickets to the event are also still on sale. The Las Vegas event will take place Oct. 15-18, 2008, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Las Vegas Strip. The auction will feature over 500 desirable collector vehicles and lavish lifestyle events, while SPEED cameras capture live, high-definition coverage.
As the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company prepares for its inaugural Las Vegas auction, the company is already making waves for its 2009 event in Scottsdale, Ariz. One of the many highlights of the 38th annual automotive lifestyle event on Jan. 11-18, 2009, will be the No Reserve sale of a historic 1929 Ford 4-AT-E Tri-Motor airplane that was hit by bullets during the World War II surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. Recently restored to original specifications, the aircraft will made its final flight on Sept. 30 before the sale when it departs from Petersburg, Va., en route to Goldsboro, N.C.
From the Valvoline Track Talk Newsletter comes this bomb! Yes, He REALLY Said That -Kyle Busch, on tracks that have two Sprint Cup dates. “We don’t need to go to any of them twice a year. You’re always going to have races that get two dates. That’s just the way it’s going to be. To me, I think that if we went to every racetrack once plus a couple others once, that would be sufficient.” So that would make Kyle one “popular guy” with the all of the tracks that host two Cup races a season. But, for super-speedways that don’t have a Cup race, Kyle’s statement is wishful thinking.
Let’s check to see what’s going on this weekend in terms of motorsports coverage on The Tube. It all gets going on Thursday night at 6 p.m. with Cup Final Practice from Charlotte on ESPN2 followed by Cup Qualifying at 7 p.m. on the same channel. Friday picks up the momentum with a 1 a.m. F1 Practice session from Fuji, Japan on Speed. At 3 p.m. ESPN2/TSN2 offer Nationwide Qualifying from Charlotte with ESPN2 airing Cup Final Practice from Charlotte at 6:30 p.m. At 8 p.m. ESPN2/TSN2 combine to air the Nationwide race from Charlotte.
Saturday has Speed coming on line, early, at 1 a.m. with F1 Qualifying from Japan. TSN offers the NASCAR Canadian Series from Fraserville, Ont. at 11 a.m. ABC/TSN both air the Cup race from Charlotte at 7:25 p.m. ESPN2 airs NHRA Qualifying at 11:30 p.m. from Richmond, VA. Sunday is another early morning deal with RDS/Speed/TSN each broadcasting the F1 race from Japan. At 2 p.m. Speed airs the ARCA race from Toledo, OH with ESPN2 going with the NHRA Finals from Richmond at 7:30 p.m. (END)
NOTE: INFORMATION FOR THIS COLUMN CAME FROM VARIOUS REFERENCED SOURCES, PRESSES RELEASES, NOTES AND OTHER SOURCES.
