[Barrister]

All the waiting is over. The time for pre-season smack talk has come to an end. The cars are in the garage. The track is cleared and ready.

IT'S TIME FOR FORMULA 1 RACING!

Below is some information and guidelines for following the 2009 F1 season here on Team Speed. Please try to stay within these few simple guidelines so that we can have a unified and fun experience.

The Official Team Speed F1 Fantasy League!

For those of you who joined the Official Team Speed F1 Fantasy League, this should be a particularly awesome season. Bragging rights will be won, dreams will be dashed and prizes will be earned. Good luck to the over 40 participants that have signed up already. If you still want to sign up, you have until March 27, 2009 at 10:00 am PST (5:00 pm GMT) to do so. Please follow this link for information on signing up:

http://www.teamspeed.com/forums/pit-...ng-league.html

The deadline for setting your race-day driver lineups is the Friday before the race at 10:00 am PST.

I will be functioning as the league Commissioner this season and have asked like.no.other and Alzilla to be my Assistant Commissioners. As Commissioner, I will be managing the league site and will be here to answer any questions you may have about the league. I may not always know the answer, but I will definitely do my best to find it out for you. If I am unavialable for some reason, please contact like.no.other or Alzilla with questions. Also, as Commissioner, I will be writing a weekly fantasy F1 recap for each race this season. At times, I may invite other participants via PM to write the recap. Please do your best to help me out with this if invited to do so. Of course, if you have too much going on and can't get to it, just let me know and I will invite someone else to do it.

Let's try to keep all of our discussions, questions, rants and any other topics about the TS F1 Fantasy League in this thread:

http://www.teamspeed.com/forums/pit-...-spoilers.html

Finally, I need to match up your team names on the Fantasy Racers website with your usernames here on Team Speed. If each of you who signed up with a team name that is different from your username here on the forum, please follow this link to help me match you up.

http://www.teamspeed.com/forums/pit-...tml#post273698

If for some reason you are signed up for the Fantasy League but are not a TS member, I strongly encourage you to sign up with us - the world's premier luxury forum!

Thanks to everyone who is participating in the Official Team Speed F1 Fantasy League! Good luck to all participants!

You can follow the league here: http://www.fantasyracers.com/

F1 Television and Internet Coverage

Here is where to find TV listings for F1 in the U.S.

PROGRAMS - FORMULA-ONE-ON-SPEED - Formula 1 - Grand Prix Racing News, Headlines, Results - SPEEDtv.com

For those without television coverage, try these Internet streaming sources. One is free while the other is a pay service ($20). The pay service looks to be pretty good.

Pay site: Watch Live F1 On Your Pc. Formula 1 Live Tv Feeds.

Free sites: SopCast - Free P2P internet TV | live football, NBA, cricket or http://www.justin.tv/atomic_napalm

I will also post the TV and any new Internet options in the weekly GP Banter thread.

Enjoy!!

Race Weekend Banter Threads

For each race weekend we will be hosting a Banter Thread here in the Pit Stop Forum. It will be made a sticky for that week, so look for it at the top of the sub-forum.

For uniformity, please allow me to start the Banter Thread each week. This is so that we can avoid having multiple Banter Threads for each race weekend and we can all enjoy the give-and-take in one place. I will always post it up before the first day of practice for each GP. I have asked like.no.other - our fantastic Pit-Stop forum moderator - to assist me with this if I cannot post for some reason. But please, observe this guideline and allow either myself or like.no.other to start up the weekly Banter thread. Any Banter Threads started by anyone other than myself or like.no.other will be deleted.

IMPORTANT: Please do not put any spoilers in your thread titles and always mark threads that include spoilers as such. If we keep all of our discussions in the Official threads (all made stickies in the Pit-Stop forum) this won't be a problem.

Smack Talk is Welcome - But Always Respect Each Other

I don't think I even need to mention this to TS members but for the sake of being thorough I will. Smack talk is always welcome and encouraged. But we absolutely must respect each other. Please, no personal attacks, profanity or other inappropriate behavior. We have never had any problems with this in the past and I do not expect to have any this year either. Forum infractions and bans will be handed out to those who break this simple rule.

Also, let's be sure to keep the Banter threads WORK SAFE. We want the Banter threads to be freely accessible for anyone who is working, at school or in another public setting. Posts that do not meet this guideline will be deleted.

Final Thoughts

Since last season - when only a handful of us participated in F1 discussion threads - we have built a pretty nice community here of F1 fans. I am very proud and excited about that. Let's make it even better as the 2009 season progresses. Get your friends to sign up with TS and join the discussion. Be sure to join the weekly GP Banter Threads. Even if you are not a participant in the Fantasy League you are welcome to join the Banter. Most of all, let's root for our favotite teams and drivers and show that passion that only F1 can deliver.

Be sure to check back in with the Pit-Stop forum regularly for updates. These threads don't stay in the New Posts area for long, so be sure to come here and check out what's new. Also, feel free to post any questions, comments or suggestions in this thread.

It is an honor to share the 2009 F1 season with you here on TS.

Now let's get it on - "Right now boys - RIGHT NOW!"

[strebo]

Good job!

[Bonita]

Excellent effort Barrister/ like.no.other/Alzilla.
very much appreciated.
i am excited to watch this year season with you guys

I will be available to put every McLaren supporter in his place

[Alzilla]

Thanks Dana! Great post and I'm looking forward to another fantastic F1 season!

[TommyBahama]

i do not have speed at my apt, will the free site have the practice on later tonight?

[Barrister]

It should.

Try these as well.

Justin.tv - Dimoni Racing: sports auto deportes motor

http://www.justin.tv/mauro_conde

You must log on a couple of hours early to reserve a spot. The servers fill up in a hurry and you can't log on when they are full.

[Barrister]

This looks VERY promising:

Justin.tv - Live Streaming Video

[TommyBahama]

thanks

[Barrister]

[EDIT: DISREGARD THIS MESSAGE - SEE FOLLOWING POST FOR CLARIFICATION]

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Some of the online streaming feeds are live whereas SPEED channel coverage is not live. For example, the first practice session in Australia starts in about 1 hour but the SPEED channel coverage does not start until 10:00 pm tonight PST. I believe that qualifying and the race will be live on SPEED though.

Because most of us will be watching on SPEED, Please do not discuss anything about any stage of the race weekend until the SPEED channel coverage has aired.

Thanks!

[Barrister]

IMPORTANT UPDATE 2:

I figured it out guys.

Everything on SPEED is live. Today they are just not showing Practice Session 1. They are only showing Practice Session #2. You can see Practice Session #1 online in an hour but not on SPEED.

So we shouldn't have any issues with the online stuff being out of sync with SPEED after all.

Sorry for the fire drill.