The 2024 Bathurst 6 Hour race will be aired on SBS (yes, on the main channel) during the Easter long weekend since this event has been run and sold separately by Australian Racing Group & not Motorsport Australia who looks after SpeedSeries. The last two Bathurst 6 Hour editions in 2022-23 was covered by Nine and Stan Sport where there was a bit of free-to-air access with the following week race highlights as well as live qualifying only last year. However, the race itself was only paywalled via Stan Sport before Motorsport Australia took back media rights control off ARG at the end of last season that saw the end of Nine/Stan covering SpeedSeries on what has been an underwhelming paid and free TV experiment, with Seven now back onboard again for all races being live & free throughout the year. It will basically be a full endurance race that runs for a few hours throughout Sunday from 11.30am to 6pm with qualifying on the day beforehand alongside a couple of other production car support categories into play including the Australian Formula Ford open-wheel series. Like SpeedSeries, I’m sure it will be a great event if you want to tune in for motorsport on the TV throughout the Easter weekend.
Speaking of SBS, they are back for another season of the Australian Superbike Championship where Chris Vermeulen will be replacing Kate Peck as the host/reporter while retaining every race highlights of the World Superbike Championship that will air the following weekend after the race (if you wish to watch the live races, it’s on Fox Sports via Foxtel and Kayo Sports) and of course the main Speedweek show too on Sunday afternoons.
Speaking of Bathurst, the Bathurst International may still go ahead later this November to round off the 2024 SpeedSeries season but unfortunately the best of the TCR drivers from around the world won’t be back here including the Sydney Motorsports Park round now being cancelled despite originally planning to do so. It’s a shame but the ongoing shipping delays worldwide has saw the organisers that run the TCR World Tour skip Australia just for this year. There is hope though of having Australia v the best of the World rivalry back again at our own backyard only at Mount Panorama in Bathurst for 2025.
And last but not least, Matt White has a new motorsports media job coming up and he will now be commentating the Supercars races on radio for SEN starting this weekend with the Bathurst 500 season-opening race alongside experienced Supercars driver James Moffatt as the expert/colour commentator. He has been in this business for a long time when he first started his career at Ten back in the early 90s, then moved to Seven between 2004-14, back to Ten for another few years until mid-2020, later appeared on Nine for the first time over the last two years via Stan Sport for SpeedSeries before the competition moved back to Seven & now he’s back behind the mic again this time for radio in Supercars. Don’t forget he’s done a lot of stuff with SEN since he left Ten again like hosting his own daily sports talk show during weekday mornings including rugby league and cricket commentary. So still plenty to offer, especially when he returned to commentary for a short time filling-in for Richard Craill late last year in the Australian Trans-Am Series. We wish him all the best in his new role.
