Just back from Atlanta - thanks for the comments.

Just thought I would address some issues raised.

The commentary was being sent to London via ISDN for the live Radio coverage on Globecast - Motors then tapped into that with another ISDN link from Paris. The Pictures were being uplinked via satellite from Atlanta which involves several legs, each with an up and downlink each adding a delay to the vision. Unfortunately there was no space for the ALMS Radio on the Sat link. So that's why the pics were behind the sound...

The pics themselves were being cut for Speed and not for Motors, there's no 'International Feed' as it would require extra staff and equipment and neither the series or the Channel have budget for that. I did not have the TV 'off air' sound available to me so I could not mix it in on site. Hence you saw interviews from TV without sound and even TV presenters in vision when Speed were coming back from other coverage. Please note that Speed did not cover the whole race with their commentators.

ALMS Radio had two reporters in the pits at all times and you heard (but did not see) their interviews - an essential part of all our radio braodcasts - our pit team really tell the story of the race, often in the drivers' and teams' own words.

I apologise for the drop in feed around the last hour. The ISDN line to Paris and then to Atlanta cut us off unexpectedly - fortunatley we were under yellow for most of the problem.

I hope the ALMS Radio coverage added a new and different dimension - remember our primary audience does not have the pictures - we would do a TV commentary quite differently.

What you heard on Saturday is what we do for every ALMS event. Every test, practice session, qualifying and race. You can tune in to the non- televised sessions via SKY Ch 0157, www.0157.org or www.amercanlemans.com where there is also live timing.

At www.radiolemans.com you can access the live feed and a growing archive of previous ALMS content.

Finally I have no idea if Motors will be taking the Laguna Seca show. What I can say is that we will be on air Thursday for the night prcatice and then for the other sessions. Graham Tyler is back in the pits for us and Graham Goodwin from Dailysportscar.com will be our studio expert.

The PLM podcast is available from iTunes and otehr similar sites, search for Radio Le Mans.

I'm back on the Radio Wednesday at 8pm Uk time.

Happy Listening (and Viewing)

John

Thankyou very much John and all at ALMS Radio aswell as Motors TV. Your commentary and SPEEDs pictures were really superb. The problems you mentioned are insignificant when we get such good coverage.
Lets hope we get to hear from you again at Laguna.

I did notice that, if i tuned to the globecast channel, it was sufficiently delayed (more so than on motors), so that the two pictures synced up pretty good. Problem is, you can only watch one sky channel at a time, unless you have more money than sense.

Still, superb coverage, enjoyed every minute, just wish i'd stayed with it to the end (but alas, sleep prevailed!)

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Steve Pearce - COME ON JIMMIE #48 D

Thanks John to you and the team for great coverage - it added a lot more insight into the sport than the normal coverage.

Lets hope they they hire you for Laguna Seca

coundn't agree more with the previous post, the words I wanted to use and coundn't think of.

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motorstv

ummm not sure

in my opinion, it will be way better to use SPEED/NBC/CBS/whatever TV commentary during the time, when they are actually showing it on american TV, and fill the gaps, when american TV crew is off-air during long-distance races, with ALMS Radio commentary.

ALMS Radio is great in it's own right, but to see TV experts-commentators and many interviews with drivers on screen while unable to hear what they say - that's a joke, complete rubbish
I really hope, Motors Tv will never do it such way again...

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this is what we call the engine, which actually produces what we call power, and of course without power we don't get what we call speed

The problem with that is that on CBS the commentatore now very little about what is going on and don't seem to understand endurance racing. The only thing they know is that there are 4 classes of car which they tell us every 5 minutes. Also the tv channels are on advert breaks every 5 minutes as is the way in the states.
I really hope that we get ALMS Radio for Laguna and for the whole of next season.

I really like radio le mans commentary and not being abel to hear the american commentary is a blessing in my book. It does help that i'd listen to hindy whatever he was commentating on, alms, britcar it dosen't matter he's always brilliant, imho.

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motorstv

ummm not sure

I think, US commentators are basically the same group of people during broadcast on any channel: Calvin Fish, Brian Till, Dorsey Schroeder and others. they just change their uniform for each channel with it's specific logos and colours...

and while I have huge respect to "Hindy" & Jeremy Shaw, I don't really think, that former (recent) sportscar race driver Schroeder or journalists like Fish or Till (also former CART racer, if I recall correctly) have less knowledge and passion about sportscar racing - ALMS, Grand Am, whatever. their advantage is that they commentate just for TV and therefore they have all they need to do best job for TV viewers.

all this is just personal opinion, of course. I would watch ALMS races with any commentary, but I would definitelly like to hear TV crew during TV coverage, not radio sound while TV sound is available, but wasted big time.

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this is what we call the engine, which actually produces what we call power, and of course without power we don't get what we call speed

Motors should use Radio Lemans for coverage of Endurance racing always, we want to understand more of the race weekends and nothing does that better than chats with drivers and team members so that we get a real feel for the mood and expectations of the teams and great stories to boot!

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