Podcast perspectives: the future of the sport

Post-Covid - if we ever really ARE post-Covid - what will motorsport actually look like? Where will it resurge from? Will there be more false starts? What will our premier series look like and how will we watch or participate? Here are three views on the future, each with a unique perspective on motorsport post-Covid 19:

Broadcaster David Turner discovered motorsport at age 6 when his Dad took him to the old Levin circuit and on to the very first race meeting held at Manfeild.

“Then we moved onto racing gas powered radio controlled cars and by 14 it was karting. Apart from karting at national levels in the Yamaha Class for many years I did try Formula Ford via the Richard Lester Motorsport school and there was some talent but maybe not enough!

“Finding out I was not a hot shot driver as such and having started work, TV became the main goal.”

Turner edited coverage of the inaugural Nissan Mobil 500 street race and worked on motorsport coverage until in 1998 he launched TV One’s motorsport programme, for many years the mainstay and often only free to air TV programme covering the sport.

Turner says his most memorable drive or ride was five laps of Fontana Speedway in the USA in a two-seater Indycar with Mario Andretti at the wheel.

“The chance to actually feel the g load and the aero changes in and out of the banking and turns really made the whole IndyCar thing take on another level. It was an instant session in how aero works that you simply can’t explain until you have felt it.”

What will be the saving of motorsport in the post-Covid era?

“People will have to think differently and while we have border control NZ has to improve its game on the domestic front. Covid’s a great chance to do this. All sports are competing for entertainment and sponsor dollars. We must do a good job to attract the market back to the sport and get back amongst the headlines for the right reasons.” Turner said mainstream media missed ‘a huge story’ in Scott Dixon’s hat trick of Indy series wins.

“We were able to get him on Racing World right after the races which is the beauty of a podcast – it’s focused, agile, digital and thanks to my co-presenters also credible.”

 

Darcy Waldegrave, radio sports presenter, got into motorsport through his father’s insistence that he watch ‘the red cars’ in Formula 1.

“Each round was two weeks old at the time, but he’d been a Ferrari fan growing up, hence the Tifosi-tinged statement. I haven’t looked back.”

He’s never been tempted to have a go himself though.

“The more time I spend being exposed to hot laps and rally shake-downs, the more I realise that I have little talent behind the wheel. Being traffic is my only contribution.”

A most memorable ride for Waldegrave came during the V8 Supercars’ time in Hamilton: “being flung around the Hamilton street circuit by Tony D’Alberto.”

He also cherishes the memory of a “rally shake down with Andrew Hawkeswood [that] was phenomenal albeit a tad frightening. He’s loose. A day at Dale Atkins’ rally school was terrific as well. The twin seat TRS ride with Mitch Evans around Hampton Downs has to up there too.”

Waldegrave says the future for motorsport in New Zealand is about “communication. A desire to think outside the square. An ability to look for the greater good, not just what directly benefits yourself and your class. The sporting landscape is rapidly evolving under the duress of Covid opening a chance to deconstruct and reconstruct. 

 

Bob McMurray, Toyota Racing Ambassador and board member of the Kiwi Driver Fund, first discovered motorsport at Brands Hatch in the UK.

“Motorbikes - Minter, Duke, Agostini. Then seeing Jim Clark and Sir John Whitmore driving the Lotus Cortinas. First setting foot in McLaren Racing in 1968. And on it went.”

He competed in rallies and driving tests in a Mini.

“After some ‘interesting’ experiences I decided I had neither the talent nor the money to make it a profession.”

His most memorable ride?

“Working in F1 I was able to be driven by some of the best. Hulme at Goodwood in a McLaren Can-Am car, Patrick Tambay around the OLD Nurburgring in a BMW 3.0CSL Batmobile style. Bernd Maylander around the old Nurburgring in a then-current DTM Mercedes. Laps in a W196 classic Merc racing car, Keke Rosberg driving me in a McLaren F1 (road car), then me driving HIM!. Colin McRae driving me around the Ford Rally proving ground / test track in the UK. Being driven by multiple F1 drivers in multiple cars on multiple tracks. Perhaps the most scary of all: being driven by Ron Dennis on the road!”

McMurray believes the de-escalation of cost is key to motorsport’s future post-Covid 19.

“International sport will continue to suffer for some time as the old story of motorsport being ‘the last one to go into a recession – and the last one to come out of recession’, is true. The cost of everything international, including and especially F1, is too high to be sustained. For domestic motorsport, that will follow a natural progression of coming back. Given a lesser number of events for a while, a lesser number of classes for a while and an attractive ‘card’ of classes at each event, club racers will find a way to self-finance and exist and I am confident that the larger ‘professional’ classes will, as long as there are not too many of them, attract sponsorship funding. Minimal at first but it will happen,” he said.

 

Championing the fastest young Kiwi racers is nice work if you can get it. Pushing race reports, banter and opinion out into the online world is a new step for the three wise men behind the new Racing World podcast: David Turner, Darcy Waldegrave and Bob McMurray.

It is the first time such a venture has been established in New Zealand and it takes local motorsport media beyond the established radio, print and static web channels.

The big difference could well be the diversity of these three blokes, who muster between them about 150 years of motorsport experience.

The weekly Racing World podcast can be found at its ‘home’ site, https://anchor.fm/david-turner43, also at https://radiopublic.com/racing-world-presented-by-race-c-G7J5kE and at https://open.spotify.com/show/6CKyao5SKwBCj14luckTen

 David Turner, Bob McMurray and Darcy Waldegrave. Pic by Shaune McMurray.