Hooniverse Asks- Now That Speed is Dead, What will be the Best “Car” Channel?

Robert Emslie

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Speedrip

With a heartfelt farewell from commentator Mike Joy, and then a simple fade out at 6:00 AM EST last Saturday, SPEED was no more. Replaced by yet another general sports channel – Fox Sports One – what was once an automotive oasis in the sea of TV crap became but a memory. For a lot of folks SPEED stopped being relevant a number of years ago, but it was still the only channel where you could find racing pretty much any time of the day or night. Now, Fox has red flagged the whole darn thing.

Of course what the World needs today isn’t a niche channel devoted to all things cars and racing. No, instead what we need is another all-sports channel that doesn’t just cover NASCAR and Indy, but women’s gymnastics and Canadian league football too. That’s right, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, Fox Sports West, Fox Sports East, Fox Sports Even More East aren’t enough to cover the burgeoning sporting worlds of amateur fly fishing, the curling semi finals, NCAA 4th round drafts, and 24-hour sports analysis. Oh no, there’s currently not enough room on the dial for the analysis.

So love it or lump it, our channel is gone,  at least here in the U.S.. From what I hear SPEED is still on the air in Canada, but who knows what kind of snowmobile moose hurdling they cover up there. And now that it is gone from the airwaves, something is going to have to fill the void when it comes to racing coverage. What station do you think will – or more importantly do you want to see – step up? Who do you want to see covering Daytona, and F1, and Barrett Jackson, and . . . well anything with a redline or that drips oil? What TV channel do you think will best serve the car community?

Image sources: Jalopnik,  Run Luau Run

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Robert Emslie

Robert Emslie

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32 responses to “Hooniverse Asks- Now That Speed is Dead, What will be the Best “Car” Channel?”

  1. mkep819 Avatar
    mkep819

    In my opinion, Velocity is the best car themed channel, But The NBC Sports Network has been showing some good racing lately.

    Reply
  2. LTDScott Avatar
    LTDScott

    Velocity for sure. I haven't watched anything on Speed for quite a while. I'm a little afraid of Velocity going the way of the other Discovery networks and being all faked reality drama shows loosely based around cars, but for now I like their line up.

    Reply
  3. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    The internet. Granted, I only found out about Speed's demise last night, from Car & Driver's obit. But the one thing that stood out to me was that I wasn't the only one that missed a channel of, well, virtually anything automotive related. That a dealer training video on the Corvair could segue into an old road test of a stick-shift '93 ES300, to random European big-rig racing (to say nothing of formerly decent WRC and V8 Supercars coverage).. I call that YouTube (to say nothing of plenty of original content created by a variety of sources – I almost fell down a rabbit hole of motorcycle videos also last night, after watching RideApart's lane splitting endorsement). And most importantly, there's absolutely no chance I'll accidentally watch NASCAR drivers playing poker, like I did once on Speed (the moment I knew the channel I dug was probably over).
    Also, go figure that we still get it in Canuckia. Not that it means anything to me (lacking cable at home, and even if we did, my wife is far too fascinated by TLC), but hurray?

    Reply
    1. LTDScott Avatar
      LTDScott

      That's a good point. Last weekend I found myself watching a marathon of Hot Rod's "Roadkill" series on YouTube instead of the TV.

      Reply
      1. JayP2112 Avatar
        JayP2112

        Roadkill >>>>> TopGear US.

        Reply
        1. LTDScott Avatar
          LTDScott

          Agreed, but I still watch and enjoy TGUS.

          Reply
      2. quattrovalvole Avatar
        quattrovalvole

        We get Roadkill on TV? *been living without cable for 2+ years*

        Reply
        1. BobWellington Avatar
          BobWellington

          I think he means he was watching Roadkill instead of watching something else on TV.

          Reply
    2. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
      Peter Tanshanomi

      The Interne…Hey, you stole my answer!

      Reply
    3. gessvt Avatar
      gessvt

      Indeed. We watched five straight episodes of Mighty Car Mods last night on the Tube of You. I had the house to myself on Sunday night, so I cued up Fastest (MotoGP documentary) on Netflix. Oh, and my 10 year old son is hooked on TGUK, so it's on basically every night. Love my Apple TV.

      Reply
  4. Van_Sarockin Avatar
    Van_Sarockin

    F1 on NBC is a change for the better.

    Reply
  5. racer139 Avatar
    racer139

    Im woundering why speed is still avaliable up here in Canada? The content is no different except the nascar related news show dont seem to be on anymore. The downfall of speed was when they went nascar all day everyday. Hopefully we will still get the decent shows like gearz and my classic car etc etc as there dosnt seem to be another home for them unless discovery HD(sorta like velocity but much less automotive content) adopts them.

    Reply
  6. Gooberpeaz Avatar
    Gooberpeaz

    Motors TV. Based in the UK, but it carries a number of US racing series events as well as other motorsports worldwide. We need to mount a push to get them here in the USA. http://www.motorstv.com/

    Reply
    1. engineerd Avatar
      engineerd

      Yes! Especially since they air WRC.

      Reply
  7. Irishzombieman☆ Avatar
    Irishzombieman☆

    Velocity was always better than plain old Speed anyway, on account of it, you know, also having direction.

    Reply
    1. Kogashiwa Avatar
      Kogashiwa

      <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2761/4018209396_514a2ccbc3_o.jpg&quot; width="600">

      Reply
      1. TX_Stig Avatar
        TX_Stig

        Nice. You know, that would have made interesting names for a high tech car company like Tesla. Call the sport model Vector and the luxury model Scalar.

        Reply
        1. Tiller188 Avatar
          Tiller188

          …what would that naming scheme make the Toyota Matrix?

          Reply
          1. TX_Stig Avatar
            TX_Stig

            Hmm, you might be correct. If you multiply one vector by another that is negative in quantity… Wow, I've mostly forgotten how to work with vectors, especially in matrix form. Time to brush up, as its been a while.

  8. JayP2112 Avatar
    JayP2112

    This last weekend I watched more motorsports than I have in months- Nationwide road racing, Nascar at Michigan, Continental racing and Daytona prototypes. Another Fox sports channel was carrying the Continental race.
    If you cleared out the thatch of reality shows and nascar, you'd really just have My Classic Car and Stacey David which really should be youtube shows.

    Reply
  9. 1slowvw Avatar
    1slowvw

    I guess I still get speed, since I'm up in the great white north. It does sadden me to see it go though. I remember when my parents got satalite tv when I was probably in about 9th grade. Speed was my education in those days, WRC and MotoGP showed me that racing was awesome. Victory by design showed me beautiful cars that I had not and some still that I may never see. I'll admit that even in the early days there were cheesy shows, particular some of the bike themed stuff. But I think it's sad that speed is gone from the US, I don't imagine it will be here much longer.
    As for me I'll get my steady fill of motorsports news on the web. I'll use netflix to re-watch and old episode of Top Gear and try and motivate myself to work on my own project car a little more instead of watching other people work on theirs.

    Reply
  10. Rawtoast Avatar
    Rawtoast

    As stated above, Velocity is pretty good right now, but teetering on the verge of being swamped with fake reality shows hell bent on creating drama like Discovery and History Channel. That new Whats in the Barn show has about my limit of scripted drama and prearranged situations, and a show that could be frickin awesome, Graveyard Cars, is all about the drama between coworkers and not enough about the amazing Mopars in their shop, the head guy knows his shit, stop yelling at your guys for obviously scripted drama and show us the work and tell us about the cars. I was hoping maybe Velocity would take a stab at showing some motor sports live but that doesn't seem to be what they want to do. Im hoping that maybe My Classic Car and Stacy Davids show (granted both of those shows are 10 min of show and 20 min of commercials and sponsors segments) will find their way to Velocity.

    Reply
    1. smokyburnout Avatar
      smokyburnout

      Stacy David hasn't announced where Gearz is going, but My Classic Car has already has deals with MavTV (who also snagged the WRC) and Velocity for 2014.

      Reply
  11. C³-Cool Cadillac Cat Avatar
    C³-Cool Cadillac Cat

    I'm happy to see Velocity is carrying Wheeler Dealers, honestly.
    It's much more real than any so-called reality show.

    Reply
    1. JayP2112 Avatar
      JayP2112

      I've been told…
      Wheeler Dealer is pretty popular in the torrents.
      Helpful to those who may not get the Velocity Channel.

      Reply
  12. CalculatedRisk Avatar
    CalculatedRisk

    The biggest thing I'm going to miss is Windtunnel. Its like sports center for gear heads and Dave Despain is a cool guy, even if NASCAR coverage was the predominant story line. I hope NBC sports will pickup some good sports car and moto GP races but the things I really liked such as motorcross and short course trucks arent likely to get decent coverage.

    Reply
  13. hwyengr Avatar
    hwyengr

    Speed Channel was already dead when Fox rebranded it from Speedvision.

    Reply
  14. MVEilenstein Avatar
    MVEilenstein

    The problem with NBCSN is that it's ultimately still a stick & ball network. If F1 and Indycar (and some NASCAR) don't work for them, they'll drop them when the contracts are up.
    The philosophy of SPEED as a dedicated motorsports and automotive network doesn't really exist anymore, sadly. Like others, the world wide web is now my first destination for content, whether live or recorded.

    Reply
  15. MVEilenstein Avatar
    MVEilenstein

    By the way, I would rather watch snowmobile moose hurtling than Pimp My Ride Rules any day.

    Reply
  16. guest Avatar
    guest

    Fox sucks.
    They've always been about pleasing the big-money interests while shafting the viewer/consumer/citizen.
    Now that it's crept into your car world, maybe you'll wake up.

    Reply
    1. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      [youtube n1aZcsY-O8Q&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dn1aZcsY-O8Q http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n1aZcsY-O8Q&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dn1aZcsY-O8Q youtube]
      That Rupert Murdoch is an evil asshole is news to approximately nobody. He and his cronies just aren't worth talking about here, unless they have a sweet Tatra collection or something. Wait, does someone associated with Fox have a sweet Tatra collection or something?

      Reply
  17. BlackIce_GTS Avatar
    BlackIce_GTS

    Back when the Discovery Channel first broadcast, it was a revelation (please don't tell me when this was, I'm sure it was a disconcertingly long time ago). It had the highest viewer satisfaction rating of any channel. It paved the way for a spectrum of special interest channels (Food Network, History Channel, Animal Planet). With cable packages of well over 100 channels, there was room for this kind of specialization, and people really liked it. Now it seems like many of these channels are reducing down to a single focus of shows about people doing their jobs under artificial time pressures and yelling at each other.
    Obviously this is what more people want, and that's how capitalism works, but why didn't they start out that way? It's not called the swamps and little people channel. There's more cable/satellite channels than ever now, why is there less specialization, what happened?
    Also here's season 3 of Fast N Loud on youtube. I thought it was entertaining.

    Reply