> Just a brief bit of MG news from the Adelaide LeMans Series "Race of a
> Thousand Years".
>
That's nice Eric, but, just to show the contempt Panoz and his mates have
for the city that has paralysed much of its centre to run this piddling
race, there is NO telecast. Oh, there will be two hours of highlights (out
of a six hour race) in a week's time - big wanking deal seeing the
organisers of other races here ensure we get live coverage of the race,
live coverage of qualifying, coverage of practice and coverage of all the
support races.
For the people who don't live in Adelaide, the circuit is constructed from
streets near our city centre. The city centre is actually a square - one
mile to each side, and one of these sides is now completely closed to
traffic for the race, and has been for over a week.
This track was the home to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix for ten
years and hosts a major touring car race every year. Now John Panoz has his
Le Mans cars running here for the first time.
I'm a big motor race fan and have generally have no problems with them
placing the track where it is and the considerable disruption it causes to
traffic in and around the city. In the past, we have been compensated by a
decent television coverage of the racing, something that has enabled us to
make the race our own. With this LeMans race however, the organisers have
chosen not to have any telecast at all - no highlights at the end of the
day, no live telecasts, just 30 sec grabs in the news services. Sorry, but
that sort of arrogance, the arrogance that believes you can disrupt a city
to the extent they have and give nothing back, is inexcusable. Not everyone
has the money or the time to get to the race track. Everyone can turn on a
television - or change channels if they aren't interested. Adelaide has a
very good reputation for the support it gives to the big motor racing
events it has staged - it would be a terrible to see that support eroded by
an organization too arrogant or shortsighted to consider the people who
make their race possible.
You may assume that I am a tad grumpy about this.
Cheers
Richard
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