The voice of Sports Car Racing

Submitted by Kirk Pedersen on Mon, 2009-10-19 14:50

A special treat for readers of Needforspeed.com today, as we have a special blog from Andy Blackmore, who spent some time with Radio Le Mans announcer John Hindhaugh and his crew last month.

Need for Speed SHIFT partnered with RadioLeMans.com during the month of September to bring you the “September Sports Car Spectacular” with unrivalled coverage of the Silverstone 1000km and Petit Le Mans.

Radio Le Mans, as the name suggests, started life at the 24 Heures du Mans back in 1987, bringing English language commentary at the track during the famous event. A few guys and a Caravan turned up at La Sarthe and the Station was born. As sports car racing entered the 90s, Radio Newcastle disc-jockey and sports car fan John Hindhaugh joined the team. Hindhaugh would become “the Voice” of sportscar racing during the following 20 years, fronting coverage on RadioLeMans.com and The American Le Mans Series Radio Network. John’s first introduction to sports car racing was as a child when he watched Le Mans in an after-school movie club. Like most teenage boys, he was immediately attracted to the fast cars and later took part in rallying. Best known for his voice and his enthusiastic commentary style, there is far more to John than his microphone skills. As a broadcaster John has worked for both major broadcast networks in the UK and also managed reporting facilities for Reuters during the war in Iraq. ITV Sport continues to use John for their network ITV1 show Motorsport UK and he has substituted for Ben Edwards as lead commentator on the live British Touring Car Championship shows. John also did some commentary in Need for Speed ProStreet.

Further afield, audiences in Europe and North America have seen and heard John in features, commentary, and now needforspeed.com. With the dawn of Internet and broadband coverage, RadioLeMans.com extended their coverage to streaming online in 1997, making the broadcasts immediately available in millions of homes across the world and sports car fans would join trackside spectators to listen to audio coverage.

RadioLeMans.com started broadcasting “American Le Mans Series Radio Network” ten years ago and has been an integral part of every ALMS event since. “I think we would be hard pressed to find somebody who has a greater knowledge and depth of information of the American Le Mans Series than John Hindhaugh,” said Scott Atherton, CEO of the ALMS. “He could make mowing the lawn sound interesting, and I clearly believe that’s a statement of fact.” Today, SpeedTV.com carries the “RLM” broadcast during their online streaming of qualifying and when important races are not on Speed while XM and Sirius Satellite radio also take the stream at ALMS events. Radio Show Limited, the company behind Radio Le Mans, has extended their coverage into other motorsport areas including the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Le Mans Series and Britcar24. Special feature programs on Formula 1, Lola, Ginetta and Drayson Racing.

Along with Nick Daman, Tim Gray and Declan Brenan, John also presents the “Midweek Motorsport Show” online every Wednesday. The 2 hour show covers the week’s news complete with irreverent comments, anecdotes and interviews. Recent interviews have included Need for Speed Shift sponsored Tommy Milner, Paul Lord Drayson and FIA President Elect Ari Vatanen.

I joined the RadioLeMans.com team at Petit this year and it was quite an experience. As I rolled up to the track on Thursday morning, and found the “studio,” I was surprised at the small space the team was huddled in, next door to SpeedTV, whose booth was even smaller.

John has his own mixing desk in front of him, which travels to each ALMS event and controls all the feeds and mixing of interviews, pit lane reporters, clips and commentary. Two Televisions show the timing screens, while a third screen displays the TV feed. A pile of papers including timing sheets, biographies and the popular ALMS Spotter Guides are at hand for reference. John is aided by Eve Hewitt, who helps set up and arrange everything behind the scenes. Drivers, team and series personnel continue to pop in to the Studio throughout the race, ready to talk at their leisure, a sure sign that the service is popular mainstay of the ALMS. The feed goes to Sirius XM and to the on-track loudspeakers and travels back to the UK where engineer Tim Gray is based. This is routed online to shift.needforspeed.com and radiolemans.com. John is joined by a team of co-commentators of Nick Daman (above), Jeremy Shaw and Greg Creamer (below) who share their time in the studio and in pit-lane reporting, giving everyone information up to the minute. On occasion live, before the teams even know! The team was joined by Corsa Motorsport driver Johnny Mowlem, who was without a drive that weekend.

Earlier in the day, John, Nick and Declan had commentated on a Volkswagen one make series. Just using the timing screens, prior research, and peering outside the window as the cars raced by, they were able to commentate the old way without any live TV pictures. With the early Red flag during last weekend’s Petit Le Mans, John had to ad-lib for over 3 1/2 hours, effectively an elongated version of the their “Midweek Motorsport Show”. It was very impressive to see first-hand how he was able to commentate smoothly and passionately, while mad panic and confusion ensued around him. At one point, John was busy interviewing, while lying on the floor, rebooting the servers, following a power cut! No one outside the booth would ever know…until now.

Le Mans winner Allan McNish is a big fan, and says: “He has a great passion, he puts that across. He can make the most dull thing sound fantastic and interesting”. Fellow Scot Marino Franchitti, agrees. “If it’s not Hindhaugh, it’s not sports cars for me. Radio Le Mans for me is Le Mans and the ALMS.” “Without them, it doesn’t feel the same” It’s no surprise John is regarded as “The voice of sports cars.” -Andy Blackmore Images: Andy Blackmore, Rod Chong

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