Posts Tagged ‘rally radio’

Easier than ever to follow Rally Monte Carlo

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Rally Monte Carlo, preview:
YouTube Preview Image

Last year, Rally Monte Carlo and the IRC organisers brought the definitions of rally coverage one step forward by including their superb live coverage on Eurosport. This year, they’ll do it even better (as it seems) and cover almost the whole rally live. Just one stage (SS10) will be a little bit delayed. Here are the ways of following the rally…

Television
You can follow the rally live on Eurosport. If you don’t have it in your channels, try out the excellent Eurosport Player – it’s cheap and worth it! Eurosport will cover all stages as follows (times are in CET):

Wednesday 20th of January

11:45-14:00, SS1 Burzet-Lachamp Raphael (27.50 km) + SS2 St Pierreville-Antraigues (46.00 km), Eurosport 2
14:45-16:00, SS3 Burzet-Lachamp Raphael (27.50 km), Eurosport 2
16:00-17:00, SS4 St Pierreville-Antraigues (46.00 km) Eurosport

Thursday 21st of January

10:00-11:45, SS5 Labatie D’Andaure-St Pierre sur Doux (25.30 km) + SS6 St Bonnet-St Bonnet (25.67 km), Eurosport 2
12:15-13:15, SS7 Lamastre-Gilhoc-Alboussière (21.92 km), Eurosport 2
15:15-16:00, SS8 Labatie D’Andaure-St Pierre sur Doux (25.30 km), Eurosport 2
16:00-17:00, SS8 End + SS9 St Bonnet-St Bonnet (25.67 km), Eurosport
19:30-20:00, SS10 Lamastre-Gilhoc-Alboussière (21.92 km), DELAYED,  Eurosport 2
23:45-00:15, SS10 Lamastre-Gilhoc-Alboussière (21.92 km), REPEAT,  Eurosport

Friday 22nd of January

19:00-20:45, SS12 Peira Cava-La Bollène Vésubie (18.30 km) + SS13 Lantosque-Lucéram (19.13 km), Eurosport
23:00-00:45, SS14 Peira Cava-La Bollène Vésubie (18.30 km) + SS15 Lantosque-Lucéram (19.13 km), Eurosport

Tuesday 26th of January

23:00-23:30, Review: Rally Monte Carlo, Eurosport

Rally radio

Will be present at www.rally-irc.com during the event.

Online

www.rally-irc.com – Official IRC series website
http://www.acm.mc – ACM / The organisers website
http://www.irc-results.com – The IRC results service provided by AutoSport.cz – this seems really nice!
http://www.rallybuzz.com – Good coverage of most things related to IRC and WRC.
This blog – You’re here, so you should know what it is :)

Phone

The IRC organisers have developed a nice iPhone application.
Download it here [ link will launch iTunes ]

Thanks to RallyTheBest for the video.

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Posted in IRC, Rally promotion and media coverage | 2 Comments »

Best things in Monte Carlo 2009

Saturday, January 24th, 2009
I love:
  • Good entrylist with more strong cars and good drivers
  • Skoda – a surprisingly strong debut despite Hänninens off and Kopecky staying just outside the top three
  • 6h of live TV coverage – superb!
  • Impressive performances and attitudes of Hänninen, Meeke and Ogier – three future stars!
  • Unpredictable weather with dry surface, ice and snowfall creating a totally unpredictable rally
  • Various tyre-brands – creates one other interesting factor of unpredictability and difference between different cars
  • Peugeot – three cars on the podium is really an outstanding performance

I miss:

  • Rally radio
  • A good online results service
Skoda Fabia S2000, photo: ircseries.com

Skoda Fabia S2000 - making an impressive debut in Monte Carlo, photo: ircseries.com

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Live TV rocks but more can be done – my wishlist of rally coverage

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

I watched the live coverage of Rally Monte Carlo this afternoon on Eurosport and it can be described with one word – awesome. IRC seemed to have the right ambitions regarding media coverage from the beginning, not very surprising because of the Eurosport involvement. However, TV is not my point here. Now I want the same progress done in digital media! Here is my wishlist:

  • Rally radio – I’m really missing this from the WRC. A quite cheap (I guess) way to keep distance-followers up-to-date all over the world – not only regarding results but also regarding accidents, retirements, driver comments etc.
  • An IRC results system including split times that is common to the whole championship and reachable directly on ircseries.com – not something that each organiser can/must do in different ways.
  • A “short live news” service – preferably with short, journalistic comments made by a crew member and also driver comments from the stages (maybe taken straight from the rally radio?).
  • Digital stagemaps with zoom-in/out ability and maybe – oh my god – live car tracking.

Those points are just a few, and for sure there are a lot more that can be done. But if IRC could fix this – then North One TV (the WRC rights holder) would have to speed up a lot to keep their fans. But… Is it possible? Of course it all depends on money, but in principle it should be. So, how do I know that? Well, the answer is I’ve done a lot of it myself. I’ll explain…

  • Rally radio – No, I’ve not done that. But the WRC crew have. For sure it costs some money, but it should be good value too.
  • Point two and three – Results system and short news service. When I worked at the Swedish Rally I was responsible for developing the results system used in 2007 with live updating of results integrated with live journalist comments and driver comments. I just wish we had time to integrate the live video player that streamed video from the rally into it too…
  • Point four – In 2008 when I worked with Daniel Carlsson, I was part of the development of a live system (in cooperation Swedish teleoperator NMT, Jemba, and more) where a stage map showing a live GPS position of Daniel’s were combined with live incar streaming video/sound. There are some communication issues, but the technology is quite simple.

So, rock it IRC! It’s not more complicated than producing live TV. Rally coverage online has been so neglected in the WRC that it now feels that we are a few years behind other sports. I’m so curious to see where we can be in just a few years…

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Posted in IRC, Rally promotion and media coverage | 4 Comments »