Two-Way Radio

I grew up in a time and place in which radio was a richly diverse medium. In Southern California in the 1960's and 1970's you could find radio stations playing any genre of music you can think of, plus dedicated sports stations, news stations, religious stations, talk stations etc. The DJ's were for the most part live on the air and controlled their own playlists. Since those times, radio has become a comparatively sterile pre-fabricated experience. The Internet has largely replaced radio with many richly diverse media outlets.

When I followed endurance racing as a kid in the 1960's, it was at a remove; there would be hourly reports during the Daytona 24, Sebring and Le Mans on one of the sports stations, I could read about preparations before the big events and after them in magazines like Road and Track, later there were highlights on ABC's "Wide World of Sports", but that was about it. Today I have many more ways to follow endurance racing.

In 2004 I went searching for ways to re-connect with my youthful enthusiasm for endurance racing and found Radio Le Mans (RLM, www.radiolemans.com) and simultaneously the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). With on-line timing and scoring and the commentary on RLM I had a much richer experience than I had in my youth. John Hindhaugh and his colleagues on RLM didn't just cover the race, they conveyed their knowledge, enthusiasm and humor to the listener. They are experienced fans with microphones and a gift for bringing the races to life for their listeners. In addition to race coverage, RLM has a weekly 2-hour show called "Mid-Week Motorsport" (MWM) on Wednesdays at 8:00PM London time. This "weekly window on motorsport ..." is ostensibly a news show, but it is, to say the least, informal and not like any other such show that I know of. The adjectives that come to mind that describe MWM are "informal", "quirky" and "personal". MWM comes across as a get-together of friends at a pub with a common interest in motor sport. This impression is strengthened by including real-time listener comments from RLM's on-line forum into the show.

The same richly diverse media provided by the Internet that brings me my race coverage allows RLM to become much more than news and commentary, they are interactive. Even before the RLM forum went on line, email from listeners was encouraged and sometimes read out live during race coverage and on MWM. RLM now use Twitter and Facebook along with email and their on-line forum to extend what comes to seem like a conversation with listeners to their coverage. Their audience is International, and thanks to the Internet, available wherever English is understood. We are a community, a "tribe", referred to as the "Mid-Week Motosrport Listeners Collective", or just "the collective".

Elsewhere I have described how I would rather have RLM audio commentary with live timing and scoring of entire races, than mundane commentary of race highlights on TV or video. Up until the 2011 season, RLM covered all the ALMS races live and in their entirety. That year the ALMS decided to take their coverage "in-house" and RLM was no longer permitted to cover their races. At least the ALMS and ESPN kept part of the RLM team (John Hindhaugh and Jeremy Shaw) on as commentators for the International audience, but some of the informal and interactive qualities found in RLM coverage were lost, even as quality video was added. Those qualities are still found in RLM's coverage of the WEC and other series they cover. In my opinion, the ALMS is missing the opportunity to fully connect with the RLM "tribe".

While watching "Top Gear" on BBC America, Clarkson, Hammond and May were participating in an endurance race in a BMW. When they wanted the suggestion of Le Mans conveyed to the audience, they had the Radio Le Mans theme song, the instrumental intro to "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult, on the soundtrack. RLM is strongly identified with endurance racing in general and Le Mans in particular. To me and I assume many others, RLM is part of endurance racing in a way that is hard to express.

No time to explain, get in the Llama. Drink! :-}