[Magazines] Motorsport News

[redshoes]

This week's 50th birthday special has a very noticable difference to the usual addition, namely the quality of the paper it's printed on. This week they've gone for a glossy paper, still thin enough not to be magazine but enough to vastly improve the quality of the photographs.

I'm sure it's probably just a one-off but should this be a more permanent thing? No doubt there will be enevitable cost increase but I do think it improves the overall feel. Is this too much of a move towards a magazine format? Is getting your hands covered in ink part of the culture of MN?

Any thoughts?

[eddsc]

I don't know - I gave up buying it in April, when they failed to have a report on the LMES race at Spa, yet devoted considerable space to the F3 races at the same meeting...... which were called off because of the fog. That was the last straw.

[John Turner]

If it becomes a mag, will it not overlap even more with Autosport? In that case, since they are both owned by the same publisher, they might as well merge them and enlarge Autosport to provide the greater coverage of rallies and club reports of Motorsport News. Not sure this would be a good move since they would lose their MSN subscribers and those Autosport buyers who would be reluctant to pay the inevitable increase in price. Possibly the only people this would appeal to would be those who already buy both.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by eddsc

I don't know - I gave up buying it in April, when they failed to have a report on the LMES race at Spa

I don't want to sidetrack this into a debate about content but I can't say I'm overly surprised by that. F1 and WRC aside do MN ever give any real coverage to any International series? It claims to be the voice of British motorsport so having a report about the British F3 Championship at Spa is exactly what they should be doing, even if the race was actually cancelled. If you want International coverage you'd be better of with Autosport..

[Aysedasi]

I was surprised to get an email advertising MN last week. (I'm an Autoschueysport subscriber). The only time I ever buy MN is the week after Le Mans. Having said that, I forgot this year......

[COLIN STUBBS]

iv read it most weeks since the early seventies and biased to club racing which coverage nowadays is rubbish.but theres a helluva lot more petrolhead sport nowadays than there was..seems wrong when theres a 4 line report on a cracking race and a half page pic of some plain old escy or something.dont you think someone there has a ginetta fettish at the moment?they get more of there fair share of ink.
having said that this weeks edition was excellent and nice to see a small pic on the renault ad with mick hills 5ts.stud boutique...

[SALEEN S7R]

I still buy Motorsport News, although more out of loyalty I think now than actual news and race reports. The Newspaper IMO needs to widen its scope a little and include more series, things like GP2 and the LMES and FIA GT championship for example. If they do this then perhaps more people would buy the newspaper. I too got the 50th anniversry edition and was very impressed, personally id like to see it continue as a newspaper though rather than a magazine.

[ss_collins]

LMES, FIA GT, GP2 - not exactly British motorsport is it!!??

I think MN is by far the best weekly out of the three I read (MN, Autosport and Autosprint). Better quality editorial and less speculative than the other two. \

However if you are into your sportscar racing and you are even slightly interested in the cars themselves (or if you have ever looked at mulsannes corner) then you should try Racecar Engineering.

I like TRC too - some good cars in that.

[BertMk2]

I get MN on a regualr basis but gave up on autosport a fair while ago, MN just seems to cover the national stuff so much better. Not sure about the new shiny paper though - photo quality was obviously better but it did feel like one of those cheap n cheerful TV listings mags full of 'celebrity' gossip. (also wouldn't be as good as emergency bog roll as the old version!)

(As Sam mentions TRC is also a good read, they seem to cover a wide range of the 'lower' levels of racing and have good features on individual cars and series).

[Pete Fenelon]

T&RC is a fun read - and has introduced me to a lot of very interesting cars! I didn't like the way CCC went a bit "Max Power" towards the end of its days and was chuffed when T&RC appeared and was very much like "classic era" CCC!

[midgetman]

What I like about MN is smaller pictures and plenty of words. I never read the race reports anyway - by their very nature they're subjective. Some of the articles are excellent, and two pages is plenty on a GP - and the writing's funny, intelligent and questioning. They don't just recycle F1 press releases.

I gave up my Autosprout subscription because in a 6 page article there's be 5.5 pages of pictures and 0.5 page of words.

MN's got some good writers and I like the spread of genuine club-level writing. To AS, a club race is the British GT champs!

No, MN isn't perfect but then you can't please all the people all the time - motorsport has such a wide following.

[jamesl]

Is TRC a weekly or monthly read?
When is it out next and can you get it from WH Smiths?
This sounds like its worth a read.

[Pete Fenelon]

Track & Race Cars is monthly - I don't buy it every month but it's on sale on the high street (I normally find it in my local Border's, which has a better magazine selection than WHS).