Sebring: Live coverage on Speed Channel

SPEED Channel live with 25 cameras at Sebring 12 Hours.
Live flag-to-flag coverage - effort includes multiple on-boards for American Le Mans season opener.

SPEED Channel will kick off the American Le Mans Series season with live, flag-to-flag coverage of the 51st Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, offering 13 hours of coverage from Florida's famed 3.7-mile Sebring International Raceway.

Using multi-shift production teams, SPEED Channel will deliver comprehensive coverage from Sebring with 25 cameras, including multiple on-boards and the popular Visor Cam used in SPEED Channel's coverage of The Champ Car World Series. Coverage from the track, built on a World War II military training airfield, begins at 10 a.m. ET with a half-hour pre-race program.

"SPEED Channel is proud to be able to bring our viewers one of the finest endurance races of the year," said Doug Sellars, SPEED Channel VP and Executive Producer/Remote Productions. "The American Le Mans Series will grid more than 60 cars at this year's race, making it arguably the finest field of cars and drivers this event has ever seen."

Audi drivers Emanuele Pirro, the 2001 ALMS champion and a three-time 24 Hours of LeMans winner, and former Formula One driver JJ Lehto, a 1995 winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will be outfitted with SPEED's Visor Cams.

The Visor Cam consists of a Sony camera body with a spy-camera head and some magical lens work. The result -- a control box that is ¾ of an inch in diameter and about 1½ inches long with a camera head that is less than ½ inch in diameter and a little more than 1½ inches in length. The camera head fits inside the visor behind the driver's field of vision in the helmet padding, giving the SPEED audience a true driver's eye, panoramic view of the race.

As the oldest endurance race in the United States, Sebring attracts a road-racing crowd second only to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The on-air talent, which will split into two shifts for Sebring, includes play-by-play specialists Bob Varsha and Leigh Diffey, color commentators David Hobbs and Bill Adam and pit reporters Calvin Fish, Brian Till, Andrew Marriott and Martin Haven.

In addition to its live coverage of the IMSA-sanctioned main event, SPEED Channel also will be producing, on a tape-delayed basis, the Speed Channel GT and Touring Car Championships, as well as the Star Mazda Series.

In 2003, SPEED Channel is the exclusive U.S. cable home for many of the top motor sports series in the world, including Formula One, The Champ Car World Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, USAC, World Rally, ASA, IHRA, ALMS, Grand Am, F3000 and live coverage of AMA and FIM motorcycle road racing events. Now available in more the 60 million homes in North America, SPEED Channel is the fastest growing sports cable network in the country and the home to NASCAR TV.

--www.speedtv.com--

Editor's Note: Article courtesy of ALMS