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Motorsport

Thoughts on when the ARG SpeedSeries highlights from Phillip Island was supposed to be on air this AM on 9Gem

by Sports Benches

I’ve tried to tune in to 9Gem this morning & watch a bit of the two-hour Round 2 ARG SpeedSeries highlights package from Phillip Island. However, I saw normal repeated programming instead, such as a quiz show named Pointless and a classic TV drama.

I don’t know what happened as to why Nine chose to remove from their schedule so late, but it’s still a lack of promise for the fans to those who don’t have the money to subscribe to Stan Sport.

Yes, it’s frustrating not to watch every ARG SpeedSeries race live like it was last season and 2019.

However, the need of $$$ to keep the series afloat amongst teams, drivers and organisers across several categories ARG runs for 6-7 events a year, has to be necessary at the end of the day, as well as benefitting an increase of genuine TV production coverage.

It’s these times we have to get used to it from now on where the good ol’ heydays of watching free-to-air motorsport non-stop are over.

Now I see two more viewing opportunities to watch the Round 2 highlights this Saturday (12.30-2.30pm) and Sunday afternoon (1.30-3.30pm) on 9Go.

But we already know the results from a week earlier by then as this isn’t a great idea to reach out to new audiences like that, especially when most of the content now is behind a paywall.

It’s better to go for a 90-minute highlights package of every other round on Tuesday night at 7.30 pm on either 9Gem or 9Go, as suggested last week.

That way, it’ll be a perfect time to help introduce a casual sports viewer to have a first look at this series, or a die-hard motorsport fan, who may not have a Stan Sport subscription, but can relive these moments from the weekend’s event.

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Motorsport

2022 ARG SpeedSeries Round 2 weekend review with the TCR Australia, Trans-Am & S5000 from Phillip Island

by Sports Benches

If the Australian Superbikes weekend at Queensland Raceway wasn’t enough to keep you excited, why not look back at four-wheel action over in Phillip Island for the ARG SpeedSeries.

We’ll start with the S5000 Open-Wheelers when James Golding enjoyed a fantastic Friday and Saturday run on-track. Not only was Golding 1st in all two practice sessions & qualifying, but he dominated Race 1 from start to finish. Although his Sunday spell wasn’t the same, at least he finished in the Top 5 all weekend long at 5th in Race 2 with four spots behind Tim Macrow & 2nd to Joey Mawson in Race 3. And 17-year-old Cooper Webster was again outstanding to stand on the podium all weekend long (3rd in Race 1 & 3). Webster was close to securing his first race win in this category earlier today on Race 2, but he’s sure he will keep his eye on the prize in a few weeks at Albert Park.

Next up is the Trans-Am muscle cars in a series of three wild races on show. We look back at this last-lap battle in Race 1 between Nathan Herne & polesitter Ben Grice for the chequered flag; when Herne benefited from these safety car restarts & overtook Grice on the inside line that sealed the winning move en route to victory lane. Meanwhile, we go into Sunday AM for Race 2 with Owen Kelly as the race winner. But it’s Herne who rebounded back on top of the podium in Race 3, which reflected his super weekend at Phillip Island in the No.1 Ford Mustang for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

And we round off with the Touring Car Australia category as this 18-year-old Jay Hanson is a bright whizkid in the No.9 Audi RS3 for Melbourne Performance Centre. He was fastest in Practice 1 and Qualifying before Hanson dominated the entire field from Pole in Race 1 against a mix of more experienced racers with the Saturday afternoon win. But Sunday is all about Fabian Coulthard in the No.24 Stan Sport Honda Civic Type R machinery for Wall Racing, where he collected back-to-back race wins through a fantastic display in Races 2 & 3. Also last but not least, well done to Ben Bargwanna with the rebound throughout Sunday in the No.71 Peugeot 308, after he finished on the podium twice (Races 2 & 3) for Burson Racing.

The S5000s will head off Albert Park in Victoria alone as part of the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix support categories on April 7-10. We will see these open-wheelers re-join the ARG group on May 27-29 at Sydney Motorsports Park. On the other hand, TCR Australia and Trans-Am will be part of the Bathurst 6 Hour International schedule on April 15-17 at Mount Panorama Circuit.

If you’re lucky enough to pay $20 a month to watch Stan Sport or if you’re a subscriber right now, go and relive the highlights from this weekend and the previous round from Symmons Plains Raceway before waiting for the next race in Bathurst in a few weeks. Otherwise, the only opportunity to catch these midweek highlights for free is Wednesday from 10 am-12 pm on 9Gem.

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Motorsport

2022 Australian Superbike Championship, Mike Jones too good to pull off with back to back race wins at Queensland Raceway

by Sports Benches

Outstanding start to begin the Sunday afternoon from Mike Jones in the No.46 Yamaha, who started from pole position after an impressive qualifying run yesterday and finished in the same 1st placed spot with ease. Wayne Maxwell came home 2nd in the No.1 Ducati where he bided his time at his starting 3rd spot over the first 9-10 laps. Although he may have been out of reach when trying to chase down Jones in the final few laps, he benefitted a spot when fellow Ducati rider in the No.67 Bryan Staring lost control on Lap 11 of 16.

Nice to see Josh Waters secure a podium spot in the BMW in 3rd place ahead of Glenn Allerton in the same BMW bike. They both fired off well & were both on top of their game before the Bryan Staring accident on Lap 11, gave them another lifeline to redeem themselves for the final podium position, and Waters held off Allerton towards the finish line. Cru Halliday caps off the Top 5 out of Race 1 in the No.65 Yamaha while Troy Herfoss did well to guide his No.17 Honda as the lone Top 10 finisher there in 6th from 9th. And special mentions to a couple of Yamahas, such as Anthony West in the No.13 from 13th to 8th, as well as the No.28 of Aiden Wagner from 12th to 9th, and the No.2 Mark Chiodo from 11th to 10th.

Moving onto Race 2 now and Mike Jones once again unstoppable all weekend long with the pole position plus two race wins now in the No.46 Yamaha. He controlled Queensland Raceway as soon as Jones kept 1st spot, where no one couldn’t find a way to chase him down. Good to see Bryan Staring bounce back in 2nd for the No. 67 ahead of his fellow Ducati rider Wayne Maxwell in 3rd, after Staring spun out into the gravel earlier in Race 1. Shoutout to Arthur Sissis at 4th in the No.61 Yamaha ahead of the BMW Pair of Josh Waters (5th) & Glenn Allerton (6th), having finished a series of Top 7-10s beforehand. And the same goes with Anthony West once again in the Top 10 through another 8th placed finish, when he benefitted from moving up spots with patience, especially after the DNFs later on of Cru Halliday (Mechanical) & Jay Metcher (crash).

It’s been a wild weekend of Australian Superbikes in Queensland, as Mike Jones leads the Riders’ Championship in the Premier Class by 86 points. We can’t wait for Round 3 when the ASBK moves to Wakefield Park in Goulburn, NSW, next month on Friday, April 22 to Sunday, April 24, 2022.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on the ARG SpeedSeries free to air highlights on Wednesday morning next week on 9Gem

by Sports Benches

I just checked the TV guide today via the Foxtel website, where the free-to-air highlights of the 2022 ARG SpeedSeries season will be on Wednesday, March 23 at 10 am-12 pm on 9Gem.

Speedcafe reported before the season began last month that the ARG SpeedSeries highlights for the remaining six rounds on 9Gem throughout the year would slot during midweek on prime time, as a way to grow the series’ fanbase, as well as increase exposure to competitors, teams and advertisers.

Unfortunately, it’s going to play on a daytime morning which means most people would have to miss out due to work, with no on-demand content to view afterwards on the free 9Now streaming service.

Perhaps, it would be best slotted for 90 minutes between 7.30 to 9 pm on a Tuesday via 9Gem; that way, it would be a perfect time to help motorsport and causal sports fans reflect the high and low moments from the usual race weekend.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on NASCAR on TV right now in Australia as the competition between paid streaming services heat up

by Sports Benches

In addition to IndyCar being aired on Free TV in Australia, NASCAR was also aired for free nearly a decade ago on Network 10’s former digital channel, One, when Australian Marcos Ambrose was around at the time.

But Fox Sports/Kayo only show highlights nowadays via subscription, while the only way to watch live and on-demand NASCAR here is the sport’s in-house paid Trackpass service.

If Stan Sport was to add NASCAR, it’s going to be a tough ask since NASCAR has a similar service here & both of them offer $20 a month unless NASCAR discontinues Trackpass for the Australian market. But it’s possible though, with Trackpass unavailable in New Zealand right now due to an exclusive streaming deal with Sky Sport to prevent direct competition.

Time will tell as Stan Sport has quickly increased their suite of motorsports content in no time against Foxtel/Kayo Sports’ offering of Formula 1, Supercars, World Superbikes & MotoGP.

P.S. Foxtel/Kayo now returned airing live NASCAR Cup Series races again predominately on Monday mornings this season, having aired selected races in 2020 & 2021 when the series was abruptly paused for a while between early March to mid-May due to COVID-19. I guess Foxtel/Kayo used the unexpected break when they got the revised agreement they wanted with NASCAR, as explained above in addition to highlights every week.

Then you look at the recent loss of IndyCar, Australian Superbikes, World Rally Championship & some Motocross rights to Stan, which opened the return of live NASCAR Cup racing for all races on Foxtel/Kayo. They just re-added them in a bid to boost competition and prevent subscribers from switching to Stan, so race fans can watch the best of motorsports on Kayo/Foxtel if they don’t want to pay more than one streaming service. There’s Formula 1, MotoGP, Supercars, World Superbikes, and AMA Supercross content there other than NASCAR Cup racing.

And regarding the Xfinity & Truck Series, there may be no plans to put them back on Foxtel/Kayo like it was in the past. However, Trackpass is still the only way to tune in to these other two national series, with both Trackpass & Foxtel/Kayo currently showing all Cup races live here in Australia.

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Motorsport

IndyCar returns on free-to-air in Australia for the first time in 15 years, but only through one-hour highlights on 9Go

by Sports Benches

It’s been a long time coming since an American motorsports series such as IndyCar were last shown on Free to Air in Australia in 2008 on the Seven Network, after these open-wheelers no longer race on the streets of Surfers Paradise in Gold Coast, Queensland.

There was also every race in Champ Car/IndyCar back then for the North American races other than the Gold Coast, having been tape-delayed on Tuesday mornings at 12 am/1 am either on Nine or Ten. Although both networks did cover the annual Indianapolis 500 race live through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Fifteen years on, the Nine Network brought it back this time as one-hour highlights of every race on Thursday 2-3 pm via their digital channel 9Go. It comes after their subscription streaming partner, Stan Sport, who recently snatched the Australian IndyCar TV rights off Fox Sports/Kayo, will air every practice, qualifying, and race, live without ads and on-demand.

And fans will not have to wait long now to subscribe and tune in to Stan Sport for tomorrow’s season-opener at a Street Circuit in St. Petersburg, Florida, 4 am AEDT.

We would’ve loved to see Nine simulcast the annual Indy 500 live with Stan Sport on 9Gem in late May, but then not many people here will stay up all night & watch it in the early hours of Monday AM. The only way Nine will air an IndyCar race live is if the IndyCars return for a weekend racing here like they did in the past, but someone local has to promote it where none of them are willing to take this step forward any time soon.

For now, it’s great to hear fellow Aussie Leigh Diffey commentating for host broadcaster NBC Sports throughout the 2022 IndyCar season, including the Indianapolis 500, both on Stan Sport and 9Go.

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Motorsport

Wayne Maxwell bounces back with the Race 2 win in the 2022 Australian Superbike Championship main class category at Phillip Island

by Sports Benches

Great to see Wayne Maxwell bounce back with the Race 2 win in the main Superbike category at Phillip Island in the No.1 Ducati, having been unlucky not to hold on while leading earlier today on Race 1. This time Maxwell has done it comfortably from start to finish in 1st place without any hassle, even though a sore finger and a spare bike didn’t bother him too much.

There’s another Ducati rider on the podium that rounds off a 1-2 finish where Race 1 winner Bryan Staring just came home 2nd in the No.67. Yes, he would’ve loved to double up 1st all day today when Maxwell was too good but he fended off a massive threat from Cru Halliday in the No.65 Yamaha, as he leads Halliday (38) by 7 points (45) in the Riders’ Championship after Round 1 of 8.

We also saw another competitive battle further down when Anthony West, Aiden Wagner & Jed Metcher were battling for 10th, in the end it’s Metcher, who pulled off that final Top 10 spot when he came from 17th on the grid, after Broc Pearson were out of form from 8th to 15th & Lachlan Epis wasn’t able to continue with a DNF.

Wow!! So much competitive superbike racing across multiple categories today in Round 1 of the 2022 Australian Superbike Championship at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria.

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Motorsport

2022 Australian Superbike Championship Sunday afternoon race review with the Junior Cup, Supersport & Supersport 300 categories

by Sports Benches

Sunday afternoon action of Australian Superbike Championship racing continues with the Oceania Junior Cup, where it was a competitive five laps despite the race ending red flag via the Lachlan Moody crash. There were so many lead changes with Levi Russo at the beginning from pole position, but it’s Marcus Hamod, who took out the Race 3 win from 12th, having worked his way into the Top 3 with two laps to go before he took the winning move & stayed 1st by the final lap.

Then we move into the Supersport category as Senna Agius just outsmarted a predominate field by Yamahas from start to finish in Race 2. He had a great early battle against Tom Edwards where he regained the lead after the first lap and pulled off very comfortably against Edwards by nearly five seconds, despite a brake scare at one point that almost saw him lose the lead. A good pre-season run by the way from Agius, who took two wins in this category on one weekend, as he will be heading overseas shortly in the Moto2 European series.

And we round off the Supersport 300 class before the 2nd Superbike race, with another competitive show on Race 3 where we’ve seen so many riders battling back and forth for the top spot. But it’s Varis Fleming who just won in such a photo finish v the two Kawasakis, James Jacobs (2nd) & Joseph Mariniello (3rd) by 0.028 & 0.059 secs respectively. He began the race from 6th spot having been patient for the whole time, before the Glenn Nelson & Johnathan Nahlous crash on Lap 6 opened the door for Fleming to enter the bidding late and steal that race win.

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Motorsport

Bryan Staring off to a great start with the win while Wayne Maxwell lost control through the gravel while leading in Race 1 of the 2022 Australian Superbike Championship, Superbike Category

by Sports Benches

Such a brilliant opening race to watch that kickstarted Sunday during Race 1 of 2 in the main Superbike Category at Phillip Island.

Comfortable start from defending champion Wayne Maxwell through the first 5-6 laps of 12, who started on pole position following a fantastic qualifying run yesterday. However, he just couldn’t hold on while leading when Maxwell lost control at Turn 8. But it’s good to hear that he’s okay now & will race again in time for Race 2 later this afternoon.

While one Ducati Maxwell rode on may unluckily be out early, there’s still another same machinery that still dominated this race & his name is Bryan Staring in No.67. He started from 5th where he fired off through to 2nd immediately before Staring had to be patient behind Maxwell by a second for a while, took advantage of Maxwell’s downfall & he took control of this race by over 5 1/2 seconds which is too easy to pull off.

The two Yamahas round out in 2nd and 3rd when Cru Halliday battled hard to keep his runner-up spot despite a poor start, which successfully fended off against fellow Yamaha rider Mike Jones. Jones did a great job earlier on where he passed Josh Waters for 3rd, now he may have struggled past Halliday but at least he takes home the final podium position.

Also great to see Glenn Hallerton stay in the Top 10 for this entire time from 9th to 6th, where he was just one spot shy of the Top 5 behind Daniel Falzon.

And a special mention to Anthony West, who may have started at the back in 15th, but he overcame an early error in Turn 4 at Honda Corner before he caught up some lost time & eventually finished 10th.

Race 2 will begin at 3.15 pm this afternoon AEDT.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Stan Sport who just expanded their motorsports content into two-wheel racing

by Sports Benches

It looks like Stan Sport is increasing their motorsports content when they’re now into the two-wheel world of motorcycle racing, in addition to a catalogue of four-wheel offerings through IndyCar, ARG SpeedSeries, Formula E, World Rally Championship and World Endurance Championship.

They will be streaming every race live, ad-free and on-demand of the Australian Superbike Championships plus two other Motorcross series, such as the brand new ProMx competition being held here domestically and the FIM Motorcross World Championship.

There’s no word yet on whether the Australian Superbike Championship will get some free-to-air treatment like the ARG SpeedSeries, with one race live and the rest being one-hour highlight shows on 9Gem.

However, SBS is expected to be the free-to-air partner of the ProMx competition in an announcement next week, where their agreement with Motorcycling Australia began last year, according to motoonline.com.au. It’s a little strange here since Nine owns Stan, when some of the Stan Sport content they own is being simulcast via their free-to-air channels either on the Nine Network or 9Gem.

It would be great if Nine can have a 1-3 pm Sunday time-filler by showing a mix of motorsport disciplines before Sunday Afternoon football of NRL, having lost the Netball rights recently to Fox Sports/Kayo. But then it’s second-tier sports content which is why the possible Stan Sport & SBS media partnership with ProMX is understandable.

Lots of motorsport competition between the networks is heating up there, as we’ll wait and see what Stan Sport/Nine and Fox Sports has to offer when it comes to the next Formula 1 TV rights renewal for the Australian market later this year.

When it will start?

  • FIM Motorcross Championship, Sunday February 20 from Matterley Basin in Winchester, England
  • Australian Superbike Championship, Friday to Sunday on February 25-27 from Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria
  • ProMX Championship, Sunday March 27 from Wonthaggi, Victoria
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