Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar broadcast report card

A new season brings with it a new broadcast agreement with Fox Sports and Ten, which means a shuffle of commentators, experts and hosts between the two networks.

Here’s my Clipsal 500 coverage report card.

A Grade
Neil Crompton is the best motorsport voice in Australia. Everything Crompton does, he does well, and has the brilliant ability to make sense of even the most technical issues.

His pit walk is brilliantly executed.

Pairing him with Greg Rust was a brilliant move, even though Crompton could easily have been the play-by-play guy, and work alongside an analyst, as he did alongside Mark Skaife last year. Crompton is the Gold Standard of motorsports broadcasting in Australia, and there’s no one who looks even remotely close to tipping him from that perch.

Chad Neylon is a newcomer to V8SC television with the tough job of broadcasting multiple support categories.

Switching from one series to the next isn’t easy, but Neylon does it brilliantly. Can convey the excitement of a given moment, and knows when to tone things down, too. Another thing that impressed me was his encyclopaedic motorsport memory. A rising star.

Greg Rust returns to V8 commentary after many years’ absence, and id reunited with Neil Crompton. You can tell he and Crompton are friends, and have a long broadcasting history together.

Rust deserves his gig as chief play-by-play man. He never talks over Crompton, and has that remarkable ability to be quiet and let the pictures, and the wonderful sound of a full-bore V8 engine, do the talking. He forms a nice partnership with Greg Murphy on the Dunlop Series, too.

Russell ‘the Enforcer’ Ingall has stepped out of the cockpit, onto Foxtel and has immediately impressed. Not afraid to call a spade a spade, and has a great sense of humour. He’ll be a hit. He is a nice contrast to Mark Skaife, and a guy who’s only going to get better as he gets more practice. Great hire by Foxtel.

Mark Larkham has also been top quality. Why Larko wasn’t picked up to work on race broadcasts is beyond me. Like Crompton, he can make the complicated facets of the sport seem damn simple when he explains them. Clearly, the guy loves the sport. You can hear it every time he speaks and he deserves a bigger role.

B Grade
Greg Murphy is no Mark Larkham, who he basically replaced on pit lane this year, but he has the makings of a decent broadcaster. I like the way he does some analysis of the racing, too. Given that he’s only a few months removed from driving in the endurance events, his knowledge of these new cars is something that even Crompton can’t match.

The Davison brothers showed their skills through the brilliant broadcasting of the Carrera Cup and GT races. Will and Alex both have bright futures in commentary once their driving careers are done. Very easy to listen to, and knowledgeable.

C Grade
Matt Naulty is another rising broadcaster who did a solid job calling the Stadium Super Trucks and Touring Car Masters.

Mark Webber is good, but needs to talk just a touch slower. It’s hard for him to give any huge insight into V8 racing, considering he’s never raced one in his life. He’s there as name recognition for Channel Ten.

Mark Skaife is hit and miss. Whereas his partner Ingall isn’t afraid to call a driver or the series out, Skaife seems to forget that he is paid by Foxtel not by V8 Supercars. I can’t ever recall him having a bad word to say about the series, even when one was warranted.

If he can morph into a talking head who doesn’t mind criticising the sport’s leaders when criticism is due, and can toss out some of his overused clichés, he’ll be okay.

Jess Yates hosts Foxtel’s coverage from the track. Not at all bad, but fairly unremarkable compared to Skaife and Ingall. The anchor position is a tough job, and often a thankless one, when you’re deferring to experts or other commentators. Still, a solid talent.

D Grade
I have never been a fan of Matt White. He runs the studio for Channel Ten after years calling races on Channel Seven. A walking cliché and a hyperbole machine. I never understood why networks covet him like they apparently do.

Chris Stubbs hasn’t done even the most basic of his jobs. For a guy who is apparently Foxtel’s motorsports insider, he didn’t break many stories. One thing is for certain, Stubbs, a decent broadcaster, is no Robin Miller. I guess the veteran IndyCar man is who Foxtel modelled Stubbs’ position on? If so, it wasn’t even close. Stubbs seemed to be little more than a glorified Foxtel-only pit reporter. At first glance, he’s superfluous to Foxtel’s needs.

Mark Howard is a Channel Ten stalwart, who filed some reports between races. A solid broadcaster, he isn’t given much time to shine either side of the main race coverage.

Riana Crehan is not who I would’ve chosen as the second race coverage pit reporter. I understand that the sport likes to involve females in their coverage, but should a woman be given a position ahead of a more qualified former driver like, say, Mark Larkham?

Not a knock on her talent at all, but a positioning issue here. Surely Crehan could’ve been given another job to allow Larkham and Murphy to roam pit road?

You need your experts in such a crucial place as the pits, and Crehan seems a little out of place, particularly when the talk turns very technical. Kudos for getting interviews out of drivers who clearly don’t want to talk. That’s a feat that takes persistence.

F Grade
Greg Martin, the former Australian rugby representative, seems to have been cast as the resident moron – or, the motorsport outsider, as he is apparently known – and spent his weekend roaming the spectator areas, shooting grabs at the merchandise tent, with grid girls, riding on a motorcycle course designed for kids, and generally making a fool of himself.

As far as cringe-worthy goes, Martin’s spots were way off the charts.

The sad thing is that Martin is a pretty good rugby commentator. Whoever decided that he would be best let loose on the Clipsal paddock to make himself look like a complete idiot needs to be removed from their job. It wasn’t funny – it was embarrassing. Send Marto back to the rugby. At least he’s doing something worthwhile there.

Hopefully Foxtel will soon realise they don’t need buffoons to deliver good coverage. I wonder how many cringed like I did every time Martin was shown, or, afterward, when Skaife, Ingall and Yates were forced to awkwardly laugh at his antics.