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Farewell to Speed and their excellent coverage of F1 in the US (10 posts)

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Michael said 6 months ago:

My young daughter and son lovingly imitate Bob Varsha every F1 weekend saying “Here come the lights! Turn up the volume for the gran prix of …”

My wife imitates Matchett and says “push, push, push” anytime the car in front of us takes too long to start at the traffic lights.

The Speed crew, Bob Varsha, Dave Hobbs, Steve Matchett, and Will Buxton have become a part of our household that we welcomed into our home every race weekend.

It was a very emotional farewell from Bob yesterday and you could see the emotion on his face as he struggled to remain professional. We could also tell Will Buxton was choking when he thanked Speed for taking a chance on him.

We know that Dave Hobbs and Steve Matchett will continue to provide commentary at NBC but I am still hoping Bob Varsha and Will Buxton will follow. The 4 of them do add another dimension to the races and make them more interesting.

Thank you to all for making the F1 moments even better!

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Fisha695 said 6 months ago:

I said this on another forum this morning and it’s really the only way I can sum up the SPEED F1 crew.

“The Speed F1 announcers talked to us whereas other racing/sports announcers talk at us. It may not seem like that big of a difference, but trust me…. It is.”

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Pelican said 6 months ago:

It’s like listening to the running commentary of a couple of old uncles watching the race with you.

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Kevin Campos said 6 months ago:

It’s hard to believe I won’t watch another race on Speed again. Really entertaining commentary. Glad to see Machett and Hobbs returning but I will miss Varsha. Will Speed continue replaying the season every Tuesday like usual during the off season?

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Journeyer said 6 months ago:

In case anyone’s interested, their final outro is here:

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Mike said 5 months, 4 weeks ago:

In terms of F1 history, that’s an end of an era. A historic video.

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US_Peter said 5 months, 4 weeks ago:

My favorite moment in that video is when Hobbs says “if she plays her cards right she could be MY girlfriend…” classic Hobbo.

I’m glad he and Matchett will be moving to NBC, with Buxton hopefully to be confirmed soon as well. It won’t be the same without Bob Varsha though. He truly is one of the greats of American sports broadcasting, like an Al Michaels or Bob Costas. Maybe once his contract runs out in a couple of years at SPEED he can rejoin the boys at NBC.

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Fisha695 said 5 months, 4 weeks ago:

Cool 360 image of the SPEED F1 wrap party, taken by Will Buxton.

http://360.io/nrbChK

Varsha looks so somber it’s almost heartbreaking.

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Michael said 5 months, 4 weeks ago:

@Fisha695
thanks for sharing – cool picture, I guess that must be the production team.

For anyone viewing the picture, it’s a panoramic 360 picture so use your mouse to move around – Varsha’s all the way to the left. I almost missed it…

It’s funny whoever owns the house has the same electrical appliances we own – except for fridge which I can’t see… But they have magnets on the side of their refrigerator just like we do;-)

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Jason said 5 months, 4 weeks ago:

I had been pretty critical of the SPEED Coverage earlier in there year, mostly about Fox Sports taking a few of the races and botching the retarded time-delayed-ness, but the commentary has always been the clearest strength of these guys. It was also a real treat to see and hear more Sam Posey. That man is a poet.

Bob will be missed, and so will Will if he doesn’t make the switch to NBC, but I do hope the end result is better than what SPEED provided. When you compare US broadcasts to what they have in the UK with Sky and BBC, the breadth and depth of the coverage is clearly lacking in the US, despite the lovable chumminess and insight of Steve, Bob, David, Sam, and the endlessly enthusiastic Will.

Would love to see them all together again on NBC with expanded coverage some day. Here’s to hoping.

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