Every round of the 2003 ASCAR motor racing series will be broadcast on Channel 4, with the entire 14-round championship shown across a series of dedicated 30-minute programmes, scheduled for broadcast on Thursday nights. The agreement marks the third successive year of coverage by the channel, which has seen consistently increasing audience figures for the series.
A highly successful season of Channel 4 coverage saw over 5 million UK terrestrial viewers enjoy the wheel-to-wheel action from on Britain’s 1.5-mile banked oval racing circuit at Rockingham, near Corby in Northamptonshire and at EuroSpeedway Lausitz, near Dresden in Germany. The peak viewing figure of over 320,000 was recorded for the dramatic Rockingham 500 round of the ASCAR championship involving World Rally ace and British motorsport hero, Colin McRae.
‘We’re delighted to be continuing the association with ASCAR again in 2003,’ said David Kerr, Editor, Channel 4 Sport. ‘It is Europe’s only oval-racing series on this scale and I know from last year’s feedback, just how much the CH4 audience enjoys this fast, furious and no-nonsense style of racing.’
The high-speed Days of Thunder-style series, which features races for powerful V8 American racing saloons, offers high-speed, wheel-to-wheel 180mph action within a hairsbreadth of a solid concrete wall, has also proved a pan-European hit with its satellite coverage on Motors TV.
In 2003, ASCAR will receive no less than 100 hours of television airtime on the channel, which is broadcast across Europe as Channel 416 on the Sky platform. Last season, the series consistently surprised pundits by scoring unexpectedly high levels of audience share. One example, the ASCAR Season Review, on Tuesday October 9th attracted a 2.6% of audience gaining the coveted ‘Top Score’ as the highest audience share on the satellite platform.
‘These figures are very impressive indeed, meaning we are giving both sponsors and the viewers what they want; high levels of exposure and exciting action’ said Rockingham and ASCAR CEO Ashley Pover. ‘In conjunction with our One Million Dollar prize purse, we are investing in even more exciting television coverage to give racing fans top-class oval racing entertainment and to build greater awareness of what high-speed oval racing offers as a stadium spectator sport.’
The One Million Dollar prize fund has attracted the attention of drivers from across Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic and additional ‘Rookie Testing’ is being planned to give the necessary track time for many extra drivers from road course racing to evaluate the oval race experience.
‘We have had in the last week alone, enquiries from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, as well as British and American drivers’ said Pover. ‘Our investment in the million-dollar purse, a first for any British racing championship, is combined with ensuring that the ASCAR cost-base remains constant, making the series a sensible and cost-effective option for drivers and teams alike. Our competitors are expected to be professional entertainers and therefore they need to be rewarded. In return our fans can expect some great entertainment, right from the season opener on May 11.’
For more details contact:
Stephen Slater, ASCAR media centre,
(t) +44 1536 271 553
(f) +44 1536 271 576
(e) ascar@kingpinmedia.co.uk