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Category: Bench Racing

Speed Streaming is a new, monthly column where I will review some of the great motorsport content available on the many different streaming services available.

Because I care deeply about our readers and their valuable time, I have decided to sacrifice one day a month lying in bed watching motorsport documentaries so you will be able to find the best of the best, without suffering through some of the dregs. Remember, I’m doing this for you.

Watch for this column on, or about, the first day of every month, depending on how crazy or frantic we are, some other things may take priority from time to time.

I won’t be looking at the popular series such as Drive to Survive or The Crew on Netflix, since everybody is already talking about those, or Dinner With Racers on Amazon Prime, because, sadly, we don’t get that here in Canada. We’re going to be looking for the hidden gems that we think racing fans will truly enjoy, or give you a heads up on the dregs you shouldn’t waste your time with.

The streaming services we will be looking at will be subscription services like Amazon Prime and F1TV as well as free services YouTube and Tubi.

This month we are looking at 4 videos:

1) Tubi - Riding Balls of Fire - Group B The Wildest Years Of Rallying
2) YouTube - A History of Motor Racing
3) F1TV.com - Gilles Villeneuve - At Full Speed
4) Amazon Prime - Faster

For those who may not know, Tubi is a free streaming service, just like Amazon Prime or Netflix, complete with movies, documentaries and TV shows, with a user interface that anyone who uses Netflix or Prime will be familiar with. The difference is Tubi is completely free with commercials in the programming instead of a subscription fee. In fact you don’t even need to sign in to watch anything on the site, although doing so will allow to you track what you have watched and create watch lists.

And to be honest, the commercials are not particularly intrusive. The last 90+ minute movie I watched on Tubi I had to sit through just 2 30 second commercials. The only drawback being, the commercials are simply inserted at a set time, with no thought given to where in the program it goes, much like watching IMSA races on Velocity, only with way fewer breaks.

One new thing on Tubi, it now asks for a date of birth before using the site. I hate putting in too much private info, so when it came up on my phone, I simply punched in today’s date, which then only allowed me to access Tubi for Kids content. I uninstalled the app, reinstalled it and entered a more realistic date that allowed me to access the whole site.

1) Tubi - Riding Balls Of Fire - Group B The Wildest Years Of Rallying (1hr 44min)

Rating -

This first Speed Streaming article is pretty easy, since I’m just picking my favourites from each streaming service, and this is definitely one of my favourites, on any service.

Those that didn’t live it at the time may be surprised to find out that Group B rallying in the mid-80’s, at the height of the Piquet-Mansell-Prost-Senna battle, was considered as, or more, popular than Formula One. It was simply massive.

The new Group B, launched for 1983, saw small, Honda Civic sized (well, mid-80’s Honda Civic sized) 4 wheel drive rocket ships weighing under 1000kg and producing 500 HP or more.

The racing was very fast, and very dangerous which ultimately led to it's demise after just 4 seasons.

Riding Balls of Fire gives a great overview of those heady times in World Rallying, highlighting some of the most legendary drivers in the history of the sport, including Walter Röhrl, Stig Blomqvist, Timo Salonen, Ari Vatanen, Juha Kankkunen and Hannu Mikkola.

Group B saw the most powerful rally cars ever built, with the Martini liveried Lancia 037, one of the most beautiful race cars ever built in my opinion, and it’s successor the Delta S4, the Audi Quattro, the most successful car of Group B the Peugeot 205 T16 and perhaps my favourite car of the era, the Ford RS200.

Unfortunately driver and spectator deaths were all too frequent in the Group B era, so much so that, while the popularity of the sport soared through the roof, it was simply unsustainable. The inability of rally organizers to control the massive crowds and the spectator deaths and injuries that followed made it's demise inevitable. This is truly a look into another era of racing that simply doesn’t exist any more, and kind of makes you wonder how racing survived and made it into the 21st century.

2) YouTube - A History of Motor Racing (2hr 38min across 5 episodes)

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For those around my age, or perhaps older, you may remember the #3 Rothmans Porsche (I think) being driven around Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 1984, or Mosport Park in those days, coming in to the pits every 20 minutes. The car was driven by Nick Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd, who was also a massive car guy and, as it turns out, a race car driver, and he was having the film in his on-board camera reloaded.

It turns out Nick didn’t come by his love of cars by accident, his father was an amateur racer and professional film maker, specializing in auto racing documentaries. A History of Motor Racing was one of those projects he produced for the Shell Oil Company in the early 60’s. The earliest of his motorsports productions, according to IMDB, were documentaries titled Le Mans in 1952 and Mille Miglia in 1953. His most recent production was a multi-part documentary called Racing Mercedes in 2001, just a year before he passed away in 2002.

This is one of the best, and sadly one of the only, documentaries on the early days of auto racing, using a lot of turn of the century video footage to tell the now forgotten tales of the early hero’s of racing.

It begins at the turn of the century (the last century of course, not the most recent one) and looks at the great city-to-city races, followed by the Gordon Bennett Cup races, then into the Grand Prix era, starting in France in 1906.

The series wa reated between 1960 and 1965

3) F1TV.com - Gilles Villeneuve - At Full Speed (52min)

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I’m really shocked there aren’t more Gilles Villeneuve documentaries or even a movie. The life and death of Gilles Villeneuve is such a compelling story but sadly, it is all but ignored in Canada, or to be more precise, in English speaking Canada. It’s probably needless to say that this documentary was made in Quebec, and is available in French or an English version with subtitles.

Villeneuve’s career was brief, and not particularly successful by modern standards. Across just 4 complete seasons and parts of 2 more, Gilles made 67 starts with 6 wins, 13 podiums, 2 poles and 8 fastest laps. That’s 1 season for Michael Schumacher, Sebastien Vettel or Lewis Hamilton.

But Villeneuve is still one of the most popular F1 drivers ever.

In fact, in 2014, motorsport.com ranked Villeneuve as the #1 driver in Ferrari history, ahead of world championships such as Michael Schumacher, Niki Lauda and team mate Jody Scheckter.

In 2017 F1 Racing Magazine readers voted Villeneuve 3rd greatest Ferrari driver of all time, behind Schumacher and somehow Kimi Raikkonen. I like Kimi, but ahead of Gilles, or Lauda or Alonso, I don’t think so.

This documentary looks briefly at his early career in snowmobiles and Formula Atlantic, then into his F1 career through the eyes of friends, team mates and competitors of his in Europe. If you are a fan of Gilles, you may not get any new information, but there are some very interesting insights from people close to him throughout his life, including that fateful weekend in Imola and a fortnight later at Zolder.

If you are a Villenuve fan, this is a must watch documentary.

4) Amazon Prime - Faster (1hr 42min)

Rating -   _1/2

Faster is maybe the best motorsports documentary I’ve seen, at least for the first hour or so. It’s a look at the last season of the 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix class, and the first season of the new MotoGP class. It also happens to capture the early rise of perhaps the greatest 2-wheel racer ever, Valentino Rossi.

The documentary looks at the sport through a great collection of then-current racers, significant past racers including Barry Sheene, Mick Doohan and Kenny Roberts, as well as team members, journalists and photographers. It’s an outstanding concept that works really well. Perhaps the best take away from the past riders is, when this was made in 2003, Barry Sheene and Kenny Roberts still didn’t really like each other.

The second half, as mentioned, falls short of the first half, though in all fairness, likely more so in retrospect. It takes off from the premise stated by Wayne Rainey that it’s going to take a rider not involved in the series yet in order to beat Valentino Rossi, and leads into the story of a young John Hopkins, and his journey into MotoGP.

At the time this was made, Hopkins was a young kid who had a ton of upside, and it's only in retrospect that we know that his MotoGP career didn't pan out the way it might have.

There are a few follow ups to Faster, notably Faster and Faster from 2004 and Fastest from 2011. The same group has also produced The Doctor, the Tornado and the Kentucky Kid in 2006, which I assume will be another good one, maybe I’ll give it a watch for next months column and let you know.

That's it for this month's reviews, we'll be back again next month with more great motorsport documentary suggestions.