Reports

Sportscar Scene on The Tour Podcast

© TheTour.org.uk

Planetlemans.com and The Tour Podcast have a shared passion, a love for Sportscar Racing! Our friends from The Tour have just kicked off the 2008 season with the latest podcast hosted at www.thetour.org.uk but it has been a long journey to get to this point.

Creator and regular guest editor on Planetlemans, Simon Melluish, tells us of how it all began. “To be honest I really don’t know how we got ourselves into this mess!” he says with a smile.

The Tour was born in 2001 after Simon decided that a fans group for Motorsport was needed in the UK due to low attendances at race meetings across the country. After running a website and regular events for 5 years he decided to move The Tour onto a new level by creating The Tour Podcast in 2006. “The whole creation of The Tour was meant as a bit of fun and was simply fuelled by our passion for the sport. We created the Podcast and again it was all just a bit of fun at first but then last season we found ourselves travelling the world covering events whilst getting exclusive interviews with some of the best drivers and teams around the world” notes Melluish. Download figures from iTunes have continued to grow and the Podcast now has thousands of listeners across the globe as their slogan of creating a show “For the Fans, by the Fans” seems to have struck a cord.

The podcast has continued to evolve and their love of Sportscar racing now dominates the production. Their outlook on endurance racing is similar to that of us here at Planetlemans and we have all become close friends over the last few seasons. That partnership looks set to develop further during 2008 as Simon continues to contribute to our site whilst you can look out for some of us starring on the Podcast!

David Cooke is co-host on The Tour Podcast and the camaraderie between the two often reaches humorous levels as they both continue to have a laugh on the show but it is their serious side that they are both most proud of. “The teams and drivers within the Sportscar community have welcomed us with open arms. I think they like our approach as we are fans in the first place and we are providing a different outlook to others. To have the likes of Allan McNish, Henri Pescarolo, Jaime Melo, Stephane Ortelli, Tom Kristensen, Marino Franchitti, Mika Salo, etc, etc, on the show last season was fantastic and we are set to go even further behind the scenes of Sportscar Racing this year!” said Cooke.

The boys are knowledgeable about the sport but they both maintain an informal approach and recognise that listeners are as much interested in a bit of fun as they are in hearing the latest news, “You can often hear DC (Dave Cooke) breaking down in fits of laughter on the show but we have some of our best feedback surrounding these moments. Of course we provide a serious aspect but we like to mix it up a bit and the download figures seem to suggest that is exactly what the listener wants as well. One minute we could be interviewing Dr Wolfgang Ullrich and the next we are drinking with everyone else in the campsites around La Sarthe!” said Melluish.

Si said in closing, “Our show has developed hugely but unfortunately so have the costs! We have attended so many events that we really need to concentrate on the commercial side too this year. We need to make companies realise just how beneficial it can be to be hosted on a global production on the world’s largest media site, iTunes. We have produced all of this with our own money up to this point but we simply cannot continue to travel the world without some help. I dragged my wife around last year and tried to tell her it was a holiday but I don’t think she will fall for that again!”

So the growth of The Tour Podcast looks set to continue in 2008 so be sure to hear our friends on the latest show at www.thetour.org.uk or if you have any commercial enquiries regarding the podcast contact Simon Melluish on studio@thetour.org.uk