Whats with SPEED Channel???

Tonight was the show Quadrophenia... from 8:00-10:30... I only saw from about 10:10-10:30 all it was was "the who" music and a druged out weirdo walking around... He did get on a Vespa Scooter for the end before he sent the thing of off what I believe is the White Cliffs of Dover.


Is speed channel also now interested in the speed of Nascar as well as other things such as speed the drug??? I see no other connection to "speed"... can anyone help my sanity before I get my own drugs and watch the movie again???

LOL... I don't think it would be hard to get Speed to cover a few IT races such as the ARRC... especialy when they are running programing such as that.

Raymond
RST Performance Racing

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<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">LOL... I don't think it would be hard to get Speed to cover a few IT races such as the ARRC... especialy when they are running programing such as that.</font>

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I was thinking the same thing when I saw the "Quadrophenia" listing. It seems to me that the Mitty Challenge might be another place to get some footage that would be more on topic than "Quadrophenia".

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Doug "Lefty" Franklin
NutDriver Racing

Quadrophenia is one of those classic motorcycle (well maybe not cycles, more like Vespas) movies that had a profound (well maybe not profound, more like... non-existent) affect on society. And it was Two Wheel Tuesday (yesterday).

Aww beats me. maybe it's Dave Despain's favorite British movie of the 60's.

The secret to getting SPEED to carry IT in any form is $.

I spoke with Roger Werner (then President of Speedvision) about a grass roots oriented show, and he loved the idea. He required that I provide:
-The concept, which would be approved/ altered by the channel
-The production company (mine or hired)
- The talent
and so on...

and...
a series sponsor.
AKA $.

In other words, they were interested if they could fill their time and make $, but they sure weren't going to take the plunge and risk the bucks for what they saw as a low probablity payout. Tough sell to a sponsor for them.

At the same time I also asked him about the possibility of the Porsche Supercup races coming back and again, he cited $ as the reason. In thier first run with tha series, the ratings were poor, but that was OK, because Porsche was paying the bill. When Porsche stopped supplying the money, and the shows, pre produced, it was dropped like a hot potato.

He has since changed his role, as FOX is now the owner, but he was a real car guy. I imagine the chances of them considering such and idea are a bit slimmer these days.

Note that some similar programming does exist. Tom Kendall did a POC event at Willow Springs, and there was a recent show about the 24 hours at Summit point. Contacting the originators of those shows would be a good starting point.

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

I for one truly miss Speedvision.

I miss Lost Drive-In.

I miss the variety of racing that was on. I even miss the damned boat shows. At least I learned a bit about fiberglass fabrication on those shows.

The Speed Channel is NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR with the occasional cars that turn left and right. It seems that damned near every time I surf channels they have something NASCAR related on. It sucks.


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George Roffe
Houston, TX
84 944 ITS car under construction
92 ITS Sentra SE-R occasionally borrowed
http://www.nissport.com

Jake's point about TV programming math is worth reading again, for anyone whining about SPEED's content.

The Summit 12 hour program got aired because someone did the production work and scrounged up sponsors for the slot.

K

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Originally posted by Geo:


The Speed Channel is NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR with the occasional cars that turn left and right. It seems that damned near every time I surf channels they have something NASCAR related on. It sucks.

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Know why? Think about the previous post for the clue. Money! nascar is now the most watched sporting event in the WORLD. It has a bigger fan base outside the US than soccer (according to a nascar propaganda piece aired on Fox).

F1 is loosing money and fans. If (and this is a big if) nascar were to take the show on the road to Europe they could fill the stands and the surrounding hill sides for miles around.

And yes it really does suck.

How about we do IT on a super speedway and see how many people would come and watch.


[This message has been edited by jhooten (edited May 06, 2004).]

If I wanted to run on a super speedway I would go do the SM series Peter Keene is working on!!!

Raymond

Well I need to post this... Although I am not a "Nascar Fan" I do respect the series for what it has done to autoracing... It certainly isn't a "joke" in my opinion and it is still racing. I am sure that anyone here would absolutely love it if they had the opportunity to drive in any of the Nascar series. I also don't get upset with the mass overflow of "Nascar" shows on speed. That mass overflow to us (since we would rather see some road racing stuff) has generated such a huge fan base. This in turn has gained respect from the overall public/community that once thought racing was for outcast rebles. Racers are now as popular as Rock stars and Movie stars... They are idolized by people who know absolutely nothing about racing.

I for one havn't ever watched an entire Nascar race and I don't intend to (unless I had free tickets to an event), they are awsome events (I went to every nascar event for the first 10 years of NHIS including bush/winston/modified/trucks, never watched more than half of the race though).

I thank Nascar for what it has done to the automotive racing industry.

Now Kirk... I think you have enough connections get us a TV show!!!

Raymond

Just send me the first check, Raymond... http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

Nascar is real racing when its on a road course and Boris Said is driving.

Otherwise its just "how are we gonna let junior win again this weekend".

Did I just say that out loud?

But I do enjoy watching the fans throw garbage at the winner. Its kind of like the bog people.

Tom

Ahhhhh The BOG. I was there in 1967.

WOW! What a flashback.


Drive well.

So how much money are we talking? Porsche's spending on the Supercup and BMW's funding of "BMW Test Drive" were probably expensive, but those are prime-time shows.

How about 2:30 in the morning? Find some sponsors for production and pay Speed commission on product sold to air it. It's been done before.

Or how about a short 5-10 minute racing segment within one of those tuner shows?

Gregg

They say most people enjoy watching Nascar because of the wrecks. You want wrecks and rubbing and cars rolling over??? Come and watch an IT race, its mayhem. Two weeks ago in NH...I rest my case. Put 4 cameras on a track and 4 or 5 inside cars, you'll love it. Remember when Speedvision use to carry British Touring car racing, there was also something similiar from Australia. IT WAS AWESOME, fenders and bumper flying everywhere, guys bashing into each other, running side by side at 100mph!!! I'd be on couch sreaming and laughing my ass off. Now every night Speed features the same 3 bozo's and that Alen guy from Nascar going over the previous race over and over and over. "Hey yaw'll never sawwd dat caution flaaag dich ya" "YEEh YEEh all tell you what doo, dat dang number 33 wuss hooked up, dang he was fast". I watch a Nascar race the last 10 laps, they only good part. Also, whats the deal with everyone hating Jeff Gordon, he's always well prepared and can actually put a complete sentence together.

They still do show Aussie V8 super cars, Brit touring and GT, European touring cars, JGTC, German touring car masters, and a few others. It is their winter fill when nascar is on break. It will all start up again in late Sept.

[This message has been edited by jhooten (edited May 06, 2004).]

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Originally posted by bmw#29:
Also, whats the deal with everyone hating Jeff Gordon, he's always well prepared and can actually put a complete sentence together.

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That's the problem.

I hate NASCAR because I feel it is too slanted towards entertainment instead of the racing. And them good ol' boys were smart enough to figure it out before anyone else.

Obviously, I am in the HUGE minority as the "entertainment" is what has made them so successful. They figured out that you need to get the fans to either love or hate the drivers, the teams, the car makes, the sponsors. Who cares about the race? The fact that there is close racing going on is just icing on the cake. WWF on wheels!

I applaud Tracy for sticking with what he loves. I sure hope he never decides that the money is just too good and his future too uncertain.

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Originally posted by bmw#29:
Come and watch an IT race, its mayhem. Two weeks ago in NH...I rest my case. Put 4 cameras on a track and 4 or 5 inside cars, you'll love it. Remember when Speedvision use to carry British Touring car racing, there was also something similiar from Australia. IT WAS AWESOME, fenders and bumper flying everywhere, guys bashing into .

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I totally agree-hell, we'd have no problem since half the field is running in-car cameras. I'd pull mine out of the car and give it to somebody to tape the race. I bet everybody thought the video clip on the NER site was cool. If only there was an editor who could splice a tape together. http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif (Probably could charge us folks a couple bucks and we'd be happy to buy the tape!)

I agree that NASCAR has its place, but I do wish there was less of it.

Roger Werner was a REAL car guy, and the channel showed it. Too bad hes lost the tiller. Still, in the racing scheme of things SCCA regional racing is tiny, and IT is smaller than that! But for money, we cna be on.

Somebody has to know somebody, but I warn you it will be a ton of work to even get a 5 minute segment to air.

While I know most of us probably respect the NASCAR drivers. I'm still going to remind you that most of us, if given the same car as say, Gordon, on Thursday morning at Bristol, wouldn't even make the show Sunday, even with the support of the team. They are not to be taken lightly. Dumb as foxes.

I thank Speed for the SCCA proracing support and coverage, and I am surprised nobody here mentioned it. Our own Nick Leverone from Flat Out (ITS RX-7) will be doing some Touring car races this year. And James Clay has hit the front of the grid last race. Go ITers!

As far as I'm concerned, its the best racing on the teli!

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

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Originally posted by lateapex911:
...Still, in the racing scheme of things SCCA regional racing is tiny, and IT is smaller than that! But for money, we can be on.

Somebody has to know somebody, but I warn you it will be a ton of work to even get a 5 minute segment to air.

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So we pay someone to produce a short segment from donated video. How much would that be? I'm neither pro nor con at this point, just asking.

Gregg

Yeah, Speed/NASCAR doesn't even cover the cool kinds of NASCAR racing: Modifieds and the various late-model divisions. I bet there won't be any Sprints, Silver Crowns, Midgets, or (I could only hope) Super Modifieds-the coolest open wheel oval racers of all time, either. Well, at least Auto Racing gets mentioned in the papers and on the TV news (at least in towns where I don't live). Racing is like any other sport--the absolute best and purest of it is always viewed at the grassroots levels. Ever been to a AAA baseball game, or a county fair rodeo?

The best that cn be hoped for is that there will be a genuine spillover to all forms of racing.

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Originally posted by MarkL:
Yeah, Speed/NASCAR doesn't even cover the cool kinds of NASCAR racing: Modifieds and the various late-model divisions. I bet there won't be any Sprints, Silver Crowns, Midgets, or (I could only hope) Super Modifieds-the coolest open wheel oval racers of all time, either.

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Oh man, how I would LOVE to see Super Modifieds on Speed. I'd never say a bad word about that channel if they would only broadcast the International Classic from Oswego Speedway. I love the cars there much more than the winged cars in ISMA.

I usually go to Rochester every year in February but missed this year. I'm thinking about going over the summer, and if I do, I'll be going to Oswego.

And yes, you're right, coverage of the Modifieds would be great. It's actually probably the best racing in NASCAR. I'm not a big Silver Crown fan, but God I love watching the midgets both on pavement and dirt. At Oswego they are a trip because they are so light they can run damned near anywhere on the track.

I still believe that if they could, FOX would eliminate everything but Nextel Cup and BGN on Speed.


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George Roffe
Houston, TX
84 944 ITS car under construction
92 ITS Sentra SE-R occasionally borrowed
http://www.nissport.com

>So we pay someone to produce a short segment from donated video. How much would that be?<

Professional production companies charge by the finished minute. At least they did sevreal years ago when I had some short programs developed for training. Of course, that was before the advent of Macs with Avid and programs like Pinnacle for the PC. And that per minute charge was not cheap. To do the whole thing (stage and script it, story board the production, shoot, edit, re-shoot, etc) was around 10,000 dollars per minute. Editing customer provided tape (before widespread availability of digital) was about $1000 per finished minute on the low end. If the production company did any of the production design it added to the cost.

At the time, the cost of this actually drove us to set up an in-house capability to produce our own training tapes. A capability we no longer have.

The Nascar powers that be can exert huge amounts of pressure on the people who race/work/are around to tow the corprate line. Nascar is a business first and racing second. Look how they are treating non ISC tracks for example, and the coverage of the Simpson leagal deals.


I for one am just happy we have SOMEPLACE to see SOMETHING eles...just think back about 20yrs ago and try to find ANY kind of racing on TV. That said I do miss SpeedVision.

On a side note they must think that everyone that watches Speed is a fat,beer drinking, sitting around in his tighty whities all day, why else all of those Bowflex ads http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

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Originally posted by pgipson:
Editing customer provided tape...was about $1000 per finished minute on the low end.

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Now we're getting somewhere.

So, a five minute segment from donated footage would run $5K to produce. Does anyone know the ad rates for Speed TV?

Gregg

Hey guys...

How about contacting a performing arts type school or a college with an A/V ciriculum. Student projects cost nothing... often times students are chomping at the bit for subject material.

Another thought:
If we could get a few volunteers to film footage around the track and combine that with in-car footage, I have access to non-linear video editing with the job I have. http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

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-dave
8)
http://www.nerdsracing.com

I am not a huge NASCAR fan but I have had the oportunity to be on the crew for a few winston modified events. I think that SPEED is missing the best part of NASCAR. I think they should have a show called "Backstage NASCAR" or something like that followed a crew member for the preperation before the event and then what they do during the event. IT is amazing how much effort goes into those cars to make them perform the way they do. There is more preperation and car set-up stuff that they do than I ever imagined. I think if they showed the what, the how, and the why they do everythign they do it would be educational and interesting. I truely think it is amazing and it would open up a whole new respect for all NASCAR "haters". NASCAR really is racing and a ton more. I also honestly think it is definetly way more competitive than almost any other form of racing. NASCAR does a very good job at keeping things equal and I feel that that is one reason it is so popular.

Stephen

Stephen

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Originally posted by RSTPerformance:
NASCAR does a very good job at keeping things equal and I feel that that is one reason it is so popular.

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Agreed. This is exactly what turned me off to Winston Cup years ago. NASCAR was so concerned with the show that "CA"s were made throughout the season in attempt to pacify the manufacturers. This was done at the expense of the teams who "did their homework". In the big picture it is the right thing to do. Without close racing and your favorite with a chance you won't watch. You are also not going to keep the manufacturers involved in a series where they don't have a chance. So I understand the why, doesn't mean I have to like it.

I am not one of the stereotypical road racers who stick their nose up in the air at all those roundy-rounders. I have raced some oval track stuff. I also was the suspension tuner for a Late Model sportsman track champion a few years back. Good thing they had a good motor and tire budget http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif It is a far cry from a modified, but just saying I am not above being involved or seen turning a wrench at an oval track. I love racing, and would race just about anything I had the opportunity to.

IRL and NASCRAP have some of the closest racing out there. Doesn't mean I have to like the socialistic approach to obtaining the end result.

Since I work for a production company, I can give you a bit of idea of cost. To produce a race video from say, Road Atlanta, you'd need somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 cameras, all the equipment and people to run them, and then hours upon hours of pre and post production work. I'd say you'd need to start in the 6 digit range to get a good show, a single show. A late night spot with a so-so sponsor would have you losing big money. Right now only the big series are paying what it costs, and are capable of bringing in the money it takes to show it. For those who don't work in this business, it's hard to explain first how much the equipment costs, and second, the amount of time and people it takes to produce a product.

If Speed can buy shows for little money, like Austrailian Touring Cars, then they can put that on with little cost, and do not have to look for that big sponsor. With only 24 hours in a day, and having only 24 hours to sell, you have to put on what'll keep the doors open. They don't do this for our charitable sake, they do it to make money, and if Road Racing sold better, that's what they'd show. A harsh reality, but reality none the less. I also prefered the old Speedvision, but I do understand why they do what they do. I'm thankful we have it at all!

Dave

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Originally posted by RSTPerformance:
... I think they should have a show called "Backstage NASCAR" or something like that followed a crew member for the preperation before the event and then what they do during the event. ...

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You need to watch the listings for NBS 24-7 It is a VERY cool look behind the curtain, following several Busch teams from week to week.

K

[quote] VERY cool look behind the curtain [quote]

I saw something the other nite on CMT (Country Music Television for the culturally challenged) called DRIVE . The show was following 5 racers trying to make the break into a bigger time. Some were going for an ARCA ride. Covered the off track stuff very well.

The CMT series "DRIVE" is very entertaining. I'm not much of a stock car fan anymore but it does give a good perspective into what some of the drivers and teams go thru to get a car on the track. It's also very insightful for anyone (everyone) interested in the sponsorship side of racing. It shows alot of interaction between drivers, teams, car owners and sponsors or potential sponsors. It's worth a look.

As stated aerlier, I also miss Speedvision. The only thing I really like about speed channel are the saturday morning shows (MCC, DCG...) and the occasional autorotica movies from the 60's/70's. I loved that one narrated by andretti. Theres not enough attention paid to where it all came from anymore.

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Drew
18 years old
Wyndenup Racing
ITS Mazda RX-7 #99 - Me
Historic '76 Porsche 914-6 #49

The film/art school idea is a possibility. Covering a live race though would take $$$ for people and equipment.

I also think that the general public has a hard time following something that gets spread out and non-linear like road racing.

Check out http://www.fourbangers.com/. A couple guys in film school put it together at a roundy-round in Lake Geneva, covering the "entry-level" four-cylinder front wheel drive class a lot of the tracks are now running, through a whole year. Perhaps they'd be interested in branching out....

I ordered a copy and it's pretty good for a home-brew.

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Steve
[email protected]
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/jake7140" TARGET=_blank>My racing page
</A><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/elrss" TARGET=_blank>Elkhart Lake Racing_&_Sipping Society
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