[Anonymous]

I wasn’t there in person, watched it on Fox Sports Speed channel.
First off I have to say the broadcast was done in an excellent manner.
They of course made comparisons to NASCAR while explaining the cars and such, but they didn’t dumb it down or anything and made it seem interesting. I think any NASCAR fan or lover of motorsports would have had their interest piqued in the lead up to the first race.

Secondly, during one of the races (out of the confusing multiple format, get to that in a moment) the broadcaster started showing on board close up shots of one of the drivers feet and the absolute magical dance he was doing with the pedals. Next, the Aussie commentator said they were going to follow that car for a full onboard lap and to “turn up the volume on the television”. The commentator shut his mouth, I cranked the TV to almost max, and what followed was darn near motorsport perfection! OMG the sound the sound the sound. Plus, the driver banging through the quickshifter, jumping curbs, wrestling the wheel. It was fantastic. The network cycled through the different on board shots during the lap as well, on the dash, over the shoulder, and footwell shots. My hat is off to the FOX Speed producer who let this roll.

Now for the bad.
I have watched V8 Supercar footage of course being a motorsports fan. Stuff on youtube. The mighty Bathurst circuit, that loon drifting after his win last year! checking out the new AMG entry etc.
But, living in the states and not realizing they are now showing all the races here on TV I had never watched a full race. So, I had never seen their pitstop procedure.
As I was watching I got excited because they were ducking into the pits en masse. I then became confused because it seemed as if all the cars had stopped in the pitlane and also there were pit/team personal calmly walking across the pitlane. Why was this? What was happening.
Well, I came to find out the cars were actually moving, at a whopping 40kmh per hour!!!!!!!! A whopping 24.85 MPH!!!!!!!!
And THEN, after pulling away from their pits there is to be no “burning of rubber”, in fact there was a team that got penalized for the briefest of burn out.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????????????
Sure, lets keep the pits safe, but this is ridiculous. Absurd. Laughable.
I GUARANTEE the average NASCAR fan who might have gotten a bit interested in Aussie V8’s will be forever lost once they see that.

And then the race format. It confused the heck out of me. It was like four races of 100kms each? Or something like that? Made absolutely no sense. The drivers on the podium after the first race couldn’t swig their champers because they had to get back in the car.

There seemed like there could be such promise. The cars are loud, the racing is rubbing motto applies, the ad verts and liveries are bold and obnoxious (interesting the similarities between Aussie’s and Americans preferences and personalities. Got Jack Daniels or Jim Beam anyone?).

Was really interesting all and all and if those figures were correct, 68,000 is a pretty darn good turnout for this event. With a few changes I think these Supercars could really catch on in the ole US of A.

Or not.

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