[LM24] It wasn't always easy to follow/be a fan of Le Mans...

[chernaudi]

I copied this from my Tired of Racing thread, and it's actually about improvements in being able to follow stuff like Le Mans that I've witnessed over the years.

A positive post here for once. Today, we're actually kinda spoiled for coverage of races like Le Mans and what not with the races being on networks that at least some basic cable/satellite packages have, online forums and sites like DSC and SC365, and social media.

I may be only 30 years old, but I can remember that about 20 years ago it wasn't easy for someone to follow international road racing, or even regional series, even in North America. You had to hope that the races would show up on TV, catch one of the highlights shows like Raceday on what was then TNN or RPM2Night on ESPN2, or catch results in your local news paper or racing news magazines. I only knew what happened at Le Mans from 1998-2005 because of catching highlights shows on Speedvision/Speed Channel, from Car and Driver or Motor Trend magazine, the next ALMS race that showed up on TV, or, as in 2005, I got the Le Mans results from watching the NASCAR race at Michigan that weekend.

Once I got the internet and started to be able to watch the races on satellite TV (I had to con my grandma into letting me watch the races if I couldn't watch them at my father's house on weekends), that opened things up. Granted, there's negatives, such as people trolling you just to be annoying and stuff like that, but would we rather go back into what I consider the dark ages of sometimes having to be lucky to get race results and such?

[Le Vieux]

They say that nostalgia ain't what it used to be.....

In the 1960s race coverage by the BBC in England was arguably better than it is now, in that there were regular hourly updates on The Light Programme (which sort of morphed into Radio Two in 1967). I guess that Jaguar and Aston Martin victories within the previous decade heightened British interest and expectation. I spent many a night with the radio volume tuned down low, listening in my bed .

My first race visit was in 1985. No Radio Le Mans, a summary in English once an hour on the P/A system which you couldn't hear anyway because of the noise from the track. However, there were television screens dotted around the pace which constantly showed the current positions.

[Aysedasi]

Same for me in '86. RLM didn't start until a year later. We are indeed very lucky (in many ways) that we literally have pretty much all the information we need (and a lot more) now at our fingertips (again quite literally!).

[skycafe]

In the late 1960's in the US, we got TV highlights because Ford was involved. The early 1970's also had coverage because of the Porsche/Ferrari battles and the fact that the 917s and 512s were amazing automobiles-also, I am sure there was some hanging on due to Ford's prior involvement.

After that...not much. I used to pick up Autocar magazine at the newstand for the race coverage as a supplement to Autoweek's coverage.

The local newspaper would carry brief results, since both Daytona and Sebring were in the paper's market, and they had staff that covered motorsports, so that long race over yonder in France merited at least a mention.

[KA]

Originally Posted by Le Vieux

They say that nostalgia ain't what it used to be.....

In the 1960s race coverage by the BBC in England was arguably better than it is now, in that there were regular hourly updates on The Light Programme (which sort of morphed into Radio Two in 1967). I guess that Jaguar and Aston Martin victories within the previous decade heightened British interest and expectation. I spent many a night with the radio volume tuned down low, listening in my bed

Thinking back to the 80's when I first started to take an interest in Le Mans, it was pretty much the same- hourly updates on Radio 2 (Simon Taylor as I remember?). I was at university at the time and have much the same memory of sitting up most of the night and cat-napping between the updates on the radio.

[PascaLM]

Finish of the Le Mans 24H 1965 on French TV with aerial views of the old circuit :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOprK5w23cc

[rdjones]

I can remember in the late 80's/early 90's having to get hourly update from Ceefax.

[Adam43]

That was great. Although I remember following Daytona more as I was often at Le Mans.

I remember 1992 and the point where the big Jags went out...