With races being cancelled, what are you watching,?

[RedheadDane]

Remember back at the beginning of this, when we were (briefly) all watching those marble races. Well… Danish media just went and made an actual article about it. That's where we are now; serious media is making articles about marble racing…

 

[Oldermanish]

Watching 2018 Vuelta stages. Then move on to 2019....Re-watched Alpine skiing, Sochi and Pyoncheng Olympic skiing and anything else that moves faster than marbles or toppling dominoes.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Remember back at the beginning of this, when we were (briefly) all watching those marble races. Well… Danish media just went and made an actual article about it. That's where we are now; serious media is making articles about marble racing…

I heard ESPN was reshowing older spelling bees.

 

[RedheadDane]

I present to you; the Rouleur Charity Quiz

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkgBCjdO3Gw

 

[SafeBet]

2006 Tour stage to Morzine with italian ES broadcast is priceless.

"Where the f*ck is Landis going?"
"I don't know but Phonak is sure giving him bad avices. It's ridiculous."
"Come on, he's no Merckx."
"It's beyond belief that his DS knows so little!"
Then a 10 minutes rant about Landis climbing the whole first Col with the bidon in his hand.

Approaching the final climb.
"When they catch him, someone else will attack..."
"Sinkewitz could really drop him on the last climb, he hasn't pulled a metre..."

Funniest 3 hours of my quarantine.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I present to you; the Rouleur Charity Quiz

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkgBCjdO3Gw

Simple tastes: I see Cille, I click. I know I will be entertained.

That's the guy that does all the presenting on UK programmes I think. Apart from resenting that he mentioned Cille coming to everybody's attention after de Ronde (she was already gaining a lot of popularity before then, but I guess that was within the relatively limited women's cycling milieu, whereas that interview brought her to a more mainstream level of attention), I thought it was fun. He's obviously a well-versed guy in presenting programs and interviewing people but just having to do it through a more limited means than usual, and Cille obviously has charisma to burn.

 

[el_angliru]

Tiz-Cycling will apparently "live"-stream the 2019 Amstel Gold Race today at 13:00 UTC/GMT.

 

[Sciatic]

I’ve been watching videos of old races when we’re at the appropriate spot in the racing calendar (so old RVV broadcasts on the scheduled weekend on 2020).

Watched the last 35 km of the 2012 Flèche Wallonne last evening, and was struck by two things:
1. It seemed like there was real racing going on from farther out than we typically get? Or perhaps I’ve gotten in

 

[Sciatic]

I’ve been watching videos of old races when we’re at the appropriate spot in the racing calendar (so old RVV broadcasts on the scheduled weekend on 2020).

Watched the last 35 km of the 2012 Flèche Wallonne last evening, and was struck by two things:
1. It seemed like there was real racing going on from farther out than we typically get? Or perhaps I’ve gotten in

Argh, the server cut me off while composing the last post and kept cutting out every time I tried to edit. Anyways, observation #2:
How the heck did Purito NOT win more of these! He was regal in taking the win in 2012.

 

[tobydawq]

Argh, the server cut me off while composing the last post and kept cutting out every time I tried to edit. Anyways, observation #2:
How the heck did Purito NOT win more of these! He was regal in taking the win in 2012.

The last couple of years have been the best editions of FW since I can remember.

And yes, Purito only having won once is odd. Valverde not being particularly close to winning between 2006 and 2014 to then win four times in a row without breaking a sweat is also odd.

 

[Oldermanish]

NASCAR'S coming back. Yeeeeehaaaah! Not really big in this house but sure someone's happy.

 

[Sciatic]

NASCAR'S coming back. Yeeeeehaaaah! Not really big in this house but sure someone's happy.

If the cars have to stay 6 feet apart for social distancing it just won’t be real NASCAR, since their normal distance is more like 6 inches!

 

[Forever The Best]

Formula 1 when I have the time. Watched the 1999 European GP yesterday from their youtube channel ( Oh Frentzen... ). There are some great full races in their channel, including the title deciders 1997 Europe and 2012 Brazil ( an absolutely epic race, but the result was massively disappointing for me as an Alonso fan, as I think he was the best driver of the year and his performance throughout the year was legendary ).

 

[tobydawq]

Formula 1 when I have the time. Watched the 1999 European GP yesterday from their youtube channel ( Oh Frentzen... ). There are some great full races in their channel, including the title deciders 1997 Europe and 2012 Brazil ( an absolutely epic race, but the result was massively disappointing for me as an Alonso fan, as I think he was the best driver of the year and his performance throughout the year was legendary ).

You can get a month's access for free to F1TV.com which has a full archive of all previous Formula One races. I haven't really followed the sport particularly closely and not at all the later years but after having watched the Drive to Survive series on Netflix (which was awesome) I thought it was a good chance to get a sort of live sport experience as I have no idea who will win each individual Grand Prix (except the Hungarian one where I attended in the flash last August) - though I do know who ends up as the world champion but that was kind of a done deal pretty early in the season.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I rewatched the 2007 and 2008 Giro d'Italia. A bit weird, but fun to watch. Imo, the overall level was higher in 2007, Contador was below his best in 2008 and benefited from that.

 

[Forever The Best]

You can get a month's access for free to F1TV.com which has a full archive of all previous Formula One races. I haven't really followed the sport particularly closely and not at all the later years but after having watched the Drive to Survive series on Netflix (which was awesome) I thought it was a good chance to get a sort of live sport experience as I have no idea who will win each individual Grand Prix (except the Hungarian one where I attended in the flash last August) - though I do know who ends up as the world champion but that was kind of a done deal pretty early in the season.

Yeah, I know that but don't have that much time. And the races I want to watch I generally find them on the net. Perhaps I can get the access if I can't find a race.
And yes, you should watch it. F1 is amazing and at the moment my favourite sport ( Very bold to say this in a cycling forum, I know ).
And here are some of my personal favourites from the past decade, with the bolded in my top-10 :
2010: Australia, China, Turkey, Canada, Belgium, Singapore, Korea
2011: China, Canada, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Japan
2012: Australia, Malaysia, China, Spain, Canada, Europe, Belgium, Abu Dhabi, USA, Brazil ( Honestly, almost whole 2012 is great apart from a couple races after summer break, best season ever in my opinion )
2013: Australia, Malaysia, Britain
2014: Bahrain, Canada, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, USA ( Japan was good too but I can't include it because of Bianchi's crash )
2015: Malaysia, Britain, Hungary, USA,
2016: China, Spain, Monaco, Austria, Britain, Malaysia, Brazil
2017: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Singapore
2018: China, Azerbaijan, Britain, Germany, Italy, USA
2019: Bahrain, Austria, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Brazil

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Super GT is the best motorsport to re-watch. You've got a perfect combination of sprint and endurance, multi-class racing with some incredibly fast silhouette cars that are almost as fast as Le Mans prototypes and feature some ex-F1 talent (Kovalainen, Button, Nakajima), and then there's GT300, which is just completely bat-guano crazy. They have three different ways to compete in GT300. Standard GT3 cars like you see all over the world fit in it, but then there's the "MC" cars (stands for Mother-Chassis) where you buy a bespoke chassis from Dome and then silhouette a racing version of a road car around it, and then there's the JAF GT regulations which are completely insane and lead to things like this:

In GT300 there are two cars where somebody looked at this:

...and decided, because it's still a Hybrid so it's still appropriate, to fit it with an engine from this:

...leading to this:

...jesus wept.

 

[Forever The Best]

Super GT is the best motorsport to re-watch. You've got a perfect combination of sprint and endurance, multi-class racing with some incredibly fast silhouette cars that are almost as fast as Le Mans prototypes and feature some ex-F1 talent (Kovalainen, Button, Nakajima), and then there's GT300, which is just completely bat-guano crazy. They have three different ways to compete in GT300. Standard GT3 cars like you see all over the world fit in it, but then there's the "MC" cars (stands for Mother-Chassis) where you buy a bespoke chassis from Dome and then silhouette a racing version of a road car around it, and then there's the JAF GT regulations which are completely insane and lead to things like this:

In GT300 there are two cars where somebody looked at this:

...and decided, because it's still a Hybrid so it's still appropriate, to fit it with an engine from this:

...leading to this:

...jesus wept.

Didn't Button quit SuperGT at the end of last year? Personally my favourites apart from F1 are MotoGP and Endurance racing ( World Endurance Championship, 24h of Nordschleife, Spa and Daytona and don't forget 12h of Bathurst ). But there are so many, like WRC to DTM ( Kubica will be racing there in 2020 if the season goes ahead ) and when I stumble them on television I generally watch. ( By the way, Audi is quitting DTM, how do you think it will affect the series? My guess is that it will decline more )

Just check this: ( From WEC 6h )

Or this: ( From 24h of Spa )

https://gtspirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/24-Hours-of-Spa-2016-4.jpg

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yes, he did, but there's no Super GT yet in 2020, and if you want to catch up, he's there.

Also, for years up to 2019 you have the hilariously sarcastic Nismo-TV commentary, too.

Endurance racing is my favourite motorsport, Le Mans is the one motor race that I still mark out for. DTM is definitely declining, and they're putting in all these different driver aids to try to bump up the overtaking, Super GT has loads of overtaking and chaos without the KERS and push to pass and DRS and all that - because they have open tyre war and multiple drivers to a car. I guess my thing with Super GT is that I like the endurance GT racing like the Blancpain series (or whoever's sponsoring it now Blancpain have pulled out), but that's all one class, whereas Super GT has two classes, one of which is bonkers; I love multi-class racing, but in WEC there's not enough competition in LMP1 anymore, while in Grand Am LMP2 has been killed and the GT-Daytona cars are just absolutely awful. The DPi cars are great, I like those (although they're about the same pace as Super GT's GT500s), but the GT-Daytonas are a reminder of the bad old days when Grand Am was just an embarrassment against the ALMS, with the original Daytona Prototypes, those ugly snub-nosed, bubble-faced monstrosities, and the super slow GT cars. The new Daytona Prototypes are so much better than the original Daytona Prototypes that it's like night and day, a Froome-esque improvement I say. Super GT is long enough for endurance to come into it, but also short enough for people to take risks.

Plus, like how Stock Car Brasil is slower than DTM (they're also silhouette cars, but they deliberately took the DTM template and simplified these to make them more affordable and increase the size of the grid) but is far more entertaining, Super GT has the benefit of having a bunch of drivers who have absolutely no fear - and not a great deal of common sense sometimes either.

 

[BlueRoads]

Wow, so many motorsports fans here! I totally respect your interest, but it's the last sport I would watch, so I'm truely amazed.

 

[Forever The Best]

Wow, SuperGT has tyre war? Didn't even know that, as I generally don't know much about Asian motor racing. Also why am I not surprised with the Japanese drivers having no fear? ( Kobayashi, Sato from F1 )

I agree that the LMP1 class is massively lacking in Le Mans ( though other classes are still very exciting ) and we need some bigger manufacturers to get back. I think that the quality may be going down in motorsports in general, with more and more manufacturers pulling out. We had Toyotas dominating the last 2 years in WEC for example.
PS: Sponsorship with Blancpain ended and Blancpain Endurance Series became GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.
And American Endurance Racing is good too, and we have Montoya! ( which is always a plus ) We also had Alonso and Kobayashi in 24h of Daytona in 2019, Kobayashi won it this year too.

Also, how do you even know about Stock Car Brasil? I'm more and more amazed by your knowledge lol.

 

[Koronin]

NASCAR'S coming back. Yeeeeehaaaah! Not really big in this house but sure someone's happy.

I'm happy about this as well even given that we haven't paid it much attention the last several years due to all the rule changes. Heck gave up Bristol tickets about 4 years ago. I had those tickets for 20 years.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Spent time digitalizing a HUGE bunch of VHS tapes of my two favourite hobbies for the past 35-40 years: cycling and motorsport.
Original plan 6 weeks ago was just to press 'Play' and return when digital recording was finished - but very dangerous to have your video grabber in preview-mode
This evening watched 1987 Villach World Champs and now 1985 Kyalami F1 Grand Prix. Ok better go to bed now

 

[Mayomaniac]

I've rewatched the Le grandi salite del ciclismo video series that you can find on YT.
It's a series of videos where you have Cassani and Massimo Boglia climbing iconic climbs with special guests.
Some examples, you have them climbing the Zoncolan with pre-suspension Basso (wearing a DC-jersey), who says that he doesn't expect big gaps on such a steep cimb (a bit ironic if you consider his 2010 performance)
You also have stuff like them climbing Monte Grappa with Delfino or the hard side of the Giau with the Alpine Skier Manfred Mölgg, who afterwards became a big fan of road cycling and rides a lot. If you speak Italian it's a great series of video, Ive used the Zonclan video as a recon before my actual ascents.

 

[Tricycle Rider]

I just started watching ESPN's miniseries The Last Dance about the 90's Chicago Bulls... while I didn't follow the NBA much back then it's actually pretty interesting. While understandable I wish they didn't focus so much on Michael Jordan, but at least they did give some airtime to Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. I'm only on part 3 though from a 10-part series, so hopefully some other players will get their story told as well.