Guy from Ohio US.

[slicktoast]

I really enjoy watching the V8 Supercars (on Speed) albeit season taped delayed. To me, it is some of the best racing that I get to watch along with the BTCC.

[philneast]

They are even better to watch, and hear, at the track.

[GTRMagic]

Who commentates on the US Version? I hope its re-edited to make it more concise.... the Aussie version of events is total junk... Unless Neil Crompton is helping

[marcus]

welcome aboard slicktoast , curious as to what you mean by season taped delayed though ??? surely I hope you are not seeing the 2001 season in 2002 ????

but anyway glad your enjoying it and feel free to join in our little rants we have going in here

[slicktoast]

I forgot about the season differential N & S hemispheres and all. I assumed that the V8 season was finished down there. When does it's calendar really run from?
The commentators are ok, a bit shrill at times though.
I love saying Dougal McDogal around the house. Excuse my spelling. Speed has a V8 race on tonight, I'm not sure which venue though.

[Lee Janotta]

To clarify about "Tape Delay", here in the US, Speed TV, a cable TV, sometimes premium pay channel, Murdoch-owned, is our source for most everything except NASCAR and IRL.

During the winter, we get to see the summer's touring car action, in the form of BTCC, ETCC, DTM, and V8s (with the occaisonal F3 race from Macau or Zandvoort thrown in for good measure).

Right now we're seeing the 2002 series. Our coverage started in late November, just before the season ended down there. We get the same coverage, only the advertisements are changed... We even get the pre-race montage with the channel identification.

[Speeddemon555]

Yep, I like the V8 Supercars and you know that in the Gran Turismo 3 game includes the Ford Falcon. I can't wait to get the Pro Race Driver game for PS2 so I can try out those supercars.

[marcus]

ok cool , thanks for the explaination on the delayed stuff.

Glad that you guys are enjoying it and I hope you get to see more of it.

as for V8 race driver on PS2 , I wasnt that impressed with it , it was a bit of fun but got boring rather quickly.

[Crash Test]

Great to hear you guys enjoying it!

Now maybe we can take TC seriously when he says that they would work anywhere in the world...

[V8 Fan]

Welcome to our mates in the U.S. Glad your enjoying our V8 Supercars. If you would like more info. regarding them have a look atwww.v8supercars.com.au , it's the official website for the series

[V8 Fan]

Sorry, I buggered that up, try the official website.

[Lee Janotta]

Well, personally, I'm loving the cars... Very, if you'll excuse the term, American in their character, being midsized, rear-drive, and powered by pushrod V8s.

I'm quite dissapointed, though, with the lack of overtaking, and, well, Mickey-Mouse street circuits... Canberra was on today for instance. Lord, that's just _far_ too narrow!

Bathurst, Phillip Island, Albert Park and Adelaide were _far_ better, from the races I've seen from there this year and last.

Lots of sponsor involvement, though... Looks like a very good and healthy series... if they could just get cars going side-by-side with each other.

[William Dale Jr]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
Well, personally, I'm loving the cars... Very, if you'll excuse the term, American in their character, being midsized, rear-drive, and powered by pushrod V8s.

Well, they did start out as big, V8-powered, American cars in the 60's; Mustangs, American Ford Falcons, big Chevy Novas, Camaros, that's more or less where all this started.

I'm quite dissapointed, though, with the lack of overtaking, and, well, Mickey-Mouse street circuits... Canberra was on today for instance. Lord, that's just _far_ too narrow!

You're not the only one...and don't worry, we aren't going back to Canberra next year

BTW Lee, who does the commentating on the series? Are they using our guys or are they re-dubbing it?

[Lee Janotta]

Your guys... Fortunatly, they're easy to understand if you've seen even one Paul Hogan movie... Which, ashamedly, nearly everyone in this country has been subjected to.

Good to hear that's it for Canberra... Far too much body damage for too little return.

I'm glad you people had the sense to hold onto those cars... We gave them up without a fight when OPEC cut us off at the balls, and the Japanese flooded us with imports which were, admittedly, a lot better than the boats Detroit was churning out in the mid 1970s... Because of emissions regulation, all the performance was choked out of the cars... But they didn't get any smaller or lighter, the engines just got even bigger in the big cars to try and drag them around... Cadillac went all the way to 8.2L!!!

The small and midsize cars, meanwhile, just stagnated, their engines getting emasculated from 400+ hp big blocks in '70 to 5.0L V8s eeking out a meager 150hp thru, usually, a single two-barrel carb, by the end of the decade. Cripes, in '82, they even dropped the manual transmission from the Corvette, which had only an even 200 advertised horsepower that year.

Only the Corvette, Camaro, Firebird and Mustang managed to survive that and become something resembling what they had been. And they just killed off the Camaro and Firebird.

Oh well, I digress.

[GTRMagic]

Australia had similarly **** cars for a long time too, indeed the Commodore and Falcon variants at the end of the 1970s were reskins of techology carried over from the early 1960s, in a prettir body shape.

The Holden Commodore for example only got EFI on its 1960's spec 202ci straight 6 in 1984.... a 4 speed auto didnt come till Holden bought the Nissan engine & transmission because they couldnt get the old 6 to pass the ULP regs, in 1986... they certainly didnt have 4 wheel disc brakes as standard till 1988.... and the V8 engines didnt get EFI till 1988, and even then it was in a low state of tune, you had to spend a bomb at HSV, the Holden performance arm, to get real power out of the engines....

So we may be better now but still had to put up with mediocre cars for a long time as well...

[Speeddemon555]

I hope they can race in the Gold Coast Street Circuit or Albert Park where the F1 cars race there.

[marcus]

yes they do speeddemon , the Surfers paradise street track was actually a round of the championship this year the first time that has ever happened , but the F1 races are just support to the Grand Prix , but they do still race there and look rather slow compared to the F1's.

as for overtaking , its been a bug bear of the series for awhile now , I dunno the answer to make it easier to overtake, but atleast when you see one these days you know the guy has earned it thats for sure

[mac]

Just wondering who has impressed you Americans from what you've seen so far.

[philneast]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
Your guys... Fortunatly, they're easy to understand if you've seen even one Paul Hogan movie... Which, ashamedly, nearly everyone in this country has been subjected to.

Good to hear that's it for Canberra... Far too much body damage for too little return.

I'm glad you people had the sense to hold onto those cars... We gave them up without a fight when OPEC cut us off at the balls, and the Japanese flooded us with imports which were, admittedly, a lot better than the boats Detroit was churning out in the mid 1970s... Because of emissions regulation, all the performance was choked out of the cars... But they didn't get any smaller or lighter, the engines just got even bigger in the big cars to try and drag them around... Cadillac went all the way to 8.2L!!!

The small and midsize cars, meanwhile, just stagnated, their engines getting emasculated from 400+ hp big blocks in '70 to 5.0L V8s eeking out a meager 150hp thru, usually, a single two-barrel carb, by the end of the decade. Cripes, in '82, they even dropped the manual transmission from the Corvette, which had only an even 200 advertised horsepower that year.

Only the Corvette, Camaro, Firebird and Mustang managed to survive that and become something resembling what they had been. And they just killed off the Camaro and Firebird.

Oh well, I digress.

Don't despair too much, we are going to send over a bunch of real cars. Front mounted V8 engine and rear wheel drive. It is the two door Monaro version of the Holden Commodore. They are going to give it a nose job and call it a Poniac GTO.

[Lee Janotta]

Haven't watched closely enough for anyone to impress me yet, mac...

Yup, I've been following GM's half-arsed importing of the Monaro... I'm afraid the from end will be a crime against humanity, given the current direction of Pontiac styling... All they need to do is swap the Holden emblem for Pontiac's arrowhead!

Sadly, though, they're going to keep right on producing the similarly-sized Pontiac Grand Prix as a front-driver... When the most sensible thing would be duplicate the Commodore tooling and set it up in the St. Therese plant where the Firebird and Camaro have been produced, then just replace the whole Grand Prix line with the Canadian-built Commodores, badged as Grand Prix, with the GTO being the top option.

But, GM's never that smart. So no sleeper Grand Prix estate wagon with the LS6 motor hidden under the hood.

Honestly, they should have done this years ago with the Oldsmobile Cutlass line... It could have saved the brand.

[Speeddemon555]

I recently saw the Monaro winning the 24 Hrs of Bathurst race on Speed. Yep, I would like to see the Monaro race in the ALMS in the GT category.

[William Dale Jr]

Shame it probably won't happen; remember how BMW was effectively run out of the series with their V8-engined M3 because it wasn't representative of road-going M3s and therefore wasn't in the spirit of the rules? Well the Monaro that won the 24 Hour followed the same design principle - build the race car then think about the road car. After all, the only other 7 litre Monaro around is the HSV427 concept car that was at the Sydney Motor Show which may or may not go into production.

[racer69]

The Monaro was built under a similiar deal with Procar as the BMW was built with IMSA/Panoz, whatever the organisation is called now.

They are allowed to race the car on the proviso that they build the required number of cars (50 or so for LM-GT/N-GT), but BMW just never built the V8 GTRs. They could have kept racing them this year, but with penalties which made them uncompetitive.

Provided HSV build enough 427 Monaro's, it should be fine for N-GT/LM-GT.

Either that or it could gain entry to races like the Spa 24 Hours or Nurburgring 24 Hours under rules which allow 'National GT' cars or invited cars to compete.

[Lee Janotta]

ALMS? No, more likely we'll see it in World Challenge or Trans-Am. It's just too big for LeMans.

[racer69]

Yeah i meant ALMS, i think the organising body these days are called IMSA? thats what i was trying to refer to.

The car is built to Nations Cup regulations, which is effectively the LM-GT/N-GT specifications, and the car is being rumoured to in the future have a crack at 24 hour races like Daytona, Spa, i suppose Nurburgring and maybe Le Mans as well in the GT class.