Invicta Informant

I believe a Erith MRS club member is taking one of his layouts, Crumbling Edge, to the show.

The World Cup of Darts was won by Wales (Gerwyn Price & Jonny Clayton) who beat Scotland (Peter Wright & Gary Anderson) 10 legs to 2 in the final. The defending champions Australia lost in the quarter finals to Belgium 8-7, while the No. 1 seed England also lost in the quarter finals to Germany 8-3. The next TV tournament is the 'World Series' Poland Darts Masters in Warsaw on 7th & 8th July on ITV4. The next ranked TV major is the World Matchplay at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, running from 15th to 23rd July on Sky Sports.

This weekend there is the Safari Rally round of the WRC from Kenya, DTM from Zandvoort, IMSA from Watkins Glen, NASCAR from Nashville, Formula E from Portland, Oregon, and MotoGP from Assen.

This weekend there is IndyCar from Road America, Wisconsin, BTCC from Oulton Park, British GT from Snetterton, Australian Supercars from Darwin, and MotoGP from Sachsenring, Germany.

Quest, which is part of the Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio, did have some coverage of the race in the wee small hours, but was the same as that on Eurosport.

I could not take my eyes off Le Mans this year. Just as you thought it was calming down, something happened to one of the contenders in one of the classes. The modified NASCAR raced by Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson, and Mike Rockenfeller finished 39th. 40 out of the 62 starters finished or were classified. And is it just me, but I thought Eurosport's normally great coverage was dire this year. They kept cutting away to features/interviews during the race and cutting to ad breaks when something exciting was happening (about as bad as ITV's F1 coverage from back in the day).

It is based on the lowest combined ranking of the top two players from each nation, and many of them don't have one, let alone two, players active on the PDC Pro Tour. For example, Smith and Cross, representing England are 1st and 5th respectively in the PDC Order of Merit, while the Australian pair, Heta and Whitlock, are ranked 15th and 40th respectively.

Michael van Gerwen won the the 'World Series' US Darts Masters, beating Canadian Jeff Smith 8-0 in the final. Both will be in action for the World Cup of Darts next week. Australia (Damon Heta & Simon Whitlock) are the defending champions, but will have to start in the group stage. England (Michael Smith & Rob Cross), Netherlands (Michael van Gerwen & Danny Noppert), Wales (Gerwyn Price & Jonny Clayton), and Scotland (Peter Wright & Gary Anderson) will enter at the second round, where they will be joined by the group stage winners, and it becomes a straight knock-out tournament. Group Stage Draw: Group A: (5) Belgium, Finland, China Group B: (6) Germany, Hong Kong, Japan Group C: (7) Australia, Guyana, Gibraltar Group D: (8) Northern Ireland, France, Ukraine Group E: (9) Republic of Ireland, Thailand, Croatia Group F: (10) Austria, Denmark, USA Group G: (11) Poland, Portugal, Lithuania Group H: (12) Canada, India, Hungary Group I: (13) Czech Republic, Singapore, Philippines Group J: (14) Spain, South Africa, Iceland Group K: (15) Latvia, New Zealand, Bahrain Group L: (16) Switzerland, Italy, Sweden

Ferrari lock out the front row in qualifying. In the other classes, the No. 48 IDEC Sport took LMP2 Pole, while in LMGTE AM the sole Corvette, No. 33, took that class pole. Also MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, took a class victory in a 'Road to Le Mans' support race today (Friday), and he hopes to make his debut in the 24 hour race proper next year. Next year's WEC grid will just feature two classes, Hypercars and LMGT3s, though LMP2s may still feature at Le Mans and in the IMSA series in North America.

Aside from the Le Mans 24 Hours, this weekend there is NASCAR from Sonoma, California, and MotoGP from Mugello. There has been one nasty accident already in practice for Le Mans. Both drivers are okay and the teams are pretty hopeful of getting their entries fixed up for practice today (Thursday), though they both needed replacement chassis. The No. 13 LMP2 car must serve a three minute stop-and-go penalty within four laps of the start of the race, as the bronze-rated driver failed to slow down sufficiently before impact.

More watchable than Formula One

Eurosport have the coverage (in the UK at least) and they shall be covering not only all of the race, but free practice and qualifying on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Saturday morning warm-up. There should be more manufacturers joining next year, with Alpine, BMW, Lamborghini, Isotta Fraschini, and possibly De Tomaso. Bear in mind there is already Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, Cadillac, Glickenhaus, and Vanwall. Top level sportscar racing looks in a much healthy state than it did a few years ago with the demise of LMP1. Talking of celebrity, the official starter of this year's Le Mans is NBA star LeBron James. No idea why (his team, the LA Lakers, are not in the NBA Finals). He does not have any connection to motorsport as far as I know. Previous official starters have included Brad Pitt, Rafael Nadal, Georges Pompidou, and Steve McQueen. It should really go to someone like Tom Kristensen or Jacky Ickx.

This weekend there is WRC from Sardinia, Italy, IndyCar from Detroit, BTCC from Thruxton, NASCAR from St. Louis, and Formula E from Jakarta. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is next weekend, but Scrutineering starts tomorrow (Friday 2nd) in the town itself. There are two Free Practice sessions and Qualifying on Wednesday 7th, and two more Free Practice session and Hyperpole on Thursday 8th.

That is what I first feared might have happened. I know of accidents in the past in both IndyCar and NASCAR where cars have got airborne and crashed into the catch-fencing or debris from an accident ending up the grandstands, resulting in spectators being injured or even killed.

Having watched the Indy 500, thank goodness that nobody was the hurt, and the only damage done by that tyre that cleared the grandstands was cosmetic to someone's car in a parking lot. Kyle Kirkwood sustained a 80g impact and later thanked both the safety crew and medical team.

The Premier League finally concluded on the 25th May. Though Gerwyn Price topped the regular season table, he was defeated in the Play-Off Final by 3rd place Michael van Gerwen 11-5. The next tournament is the 'World Series' US Darts Masters at Madison Square Gardens on 2nd & 3rd June, coverage on ITV4. After that there is the expanded World Cup of Darts, a pairs tournament, in Frankfurt on 15th-18th June, coverage on Sky Sports. 40 nations will now be participating - Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Ukraine, USA, and Wales.

This weekend there is British GT from Donington Park, NASCAR from Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Indy 500.

This weekend there is BTCC from Snetterton, Australian Supercars from Symmons Plains, Tasmania, and the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

This weekend there is WRC from Portugal, IndyCar from Indianapolis (Road Course), IMSA from Laguna Seca, NASCAR from Darlington, South Carolina, and MotoGP from Le Mans (Bugatti Circuit).

Absolutely. Even though Toyota dominated the race overall, it was not a foregone conclusion. There is a problem in the WEC with the ban on tyre warmers, which I thought would pose a safety hazard, and it caused a number of incidents and accidents during the weekend, with drivers losing control on cold tyres. The biggest accident of the weekend appears to be down to driver error. Thankfully Renger van der Zande walked away.

This weekend there is Formula E from Monaco, NASCAR from Kansas, BTCC from Brands Hatch, and British GT from Silverstone.

Previous comments refer to the different ITV regions, before the whole network became homologised under Granada and Carlton in the 1990s onwards. Here is something I found on YouTube that gives you an idea of what coverage certain franchises had over a particular region.

This weekend there is IndyCar from Barber Motorsport Park, Alabama, the WEC from Spa-Francorchamps, Australian Supercars from Wanneroo Raceway, Western Australia, NASCAR from Dover, Delaware, MotoGP from Jerez, and the inaugural round of the TCR World Tour (the spiritual successor to World Touring Car Cup, which in itself was the successor to the World Touring Car Championship) from Portimão.

This weekend there is the WRC from Croatia, Formula E from Berlin, NASCAR from Talladega, and the BTCC kicks-off their season at Donington Park. The driver line-ups in this BTCC season are: Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai: Tom Ingram, Tom Chilton, Ronan Pearson, Nick Halstead. West Surrey Racing BMW: Colin Turkington, Stephen Jelley, Adam Morgan, Jake Hill. Speedworks Motorsport Toyota: Rory Butcher, Ricky Collard, George Gamble. Motorbase Performance Ford: Dan Cammish, Daniel Rowbottom, Sam Osborne, Ashley Sutton. Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall: Andrew Watson, Árón Taylor-Smith, Mikey Doble. One Motorsport (formerly known as BTC Racing) Honda: Aiden Moffat, Josh Cook, Will Powell. Tony Gilham Racing Cupra: Dexter Patterson, Jade Edwards, Bobby Thompson, Dan Lloyd, Nicolas Hamilton, Jack Butel.

This weekend there is both IndyCar and IMSA at Long Beach, California, MotoGP from Austin, Texas, NASCAR from Martinsville, Virginia, WEC from Portimão (on Eurosport), and the Le Mans 24 Hours for motorbikes (24 Heures Motos), which races on the Bugatti Circuit and is part of the FIM Endurance World Championship (also on Eurosport). Also, there is the Goodwood Members' Meeting with some coverage on ITV1 and ITV4.