EuroNASCAR media team members and partners talks through their battle against unexpected power cuts in American SpeedFest’s OPEN race at Brands Hatch.
Sudden blackout is a risk that’s always present when the weather becomes really, really bad. This is because extreme weather creates the possibility of events that can affect a power grid, such as wind knocking out power lines or water/fire causing a fatal component shut down.
However, what happens if a blackout happens in the middle of a world class level sporting event?
NASCAR Euro Series had to find this out the hard way when extreme rainfall caused the electricity at Brands Hatch to cut out unexpectedly during EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1 at American SpeedFest 12.
The blackout happens minutes after rain hit Brands Hatch in the formation lap. EuroNASCAR had anticipated the rain’s arrival from the weather radar by extending the formation lap number from two to four, but they were still caught out by the immense rain intensity.
“Frankly, I knew we were in some measure of trouble when I saw the sky,” said Adam Weller, EuroNASCAR’s lead commentator.
“I spent so many days at Brands Hatch as a young fan, and it was quite clear to me that rain was imminent as the cars arrived for the pre-grid. That said, I was surprised by the rate at which the rain fell. We went from slick tire conditions to a reservoir in about ten minutes!”
Weller was commentating the race from his home, but his colleague André Wiegold was broadcasting his commentary live from Brands Hatch.
Wiegold had seen the rain radars before the race started. He also was informed by Weller about the rain’s impending arrival. Therefore, he was waiting for the rain to come when he started his commentary duties in the media tower.
Both commentators were also aware that heavy rainfall hit Thruxton Circuit earlier that day. Thruxton – located 100 miles southwest from Brands Hatch – was hosting the fourth round of the 2025 British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season on the 7-8 June weekend.
“It was a crazy situation of course!” said André Wiegold, reminiscing about the day that he experienced. “We looked at the rain radars before the race.”
“We knew already that there was rain coming because Adam was at home, one and a half hours away. Other racetracks in the UK [Thruxton] were already affected by the rain, so we were just waiting for it to come.”
Rain’s arrival caused a mess on the track, with all but five cars pitting under formation lap. The situation was hectic due to one big factor: A lack of live pit stop equipment.
Live pit stops have only ever been needed once – at Autodrom Most in 2021. As such, teams are not prepared to quickly make the swap from slicks to wet tires.
Only half of the teams made it out of the pits in time for the green flag at the end of the fourth formation lap. It was taken by 14th place qualifier Dominique Schaak, one of the five drivers who started on wets.
Andres Beers quickly gained the lead in the opening lap, but then he spun at Surtees corner. Just as the Belgian’s No. 1 Icefactory Europe Ford went sideways, the live broadcast footage stopped.
Fans were left confused at what happened. It was only when the stream went offline a few minutes later that they found out that the broadcast was cut off unexpectedly, the result of heavy rain cutting off the local power grid.
“After the green flags, thee was no electricity, so no internet connection anymore,” recounts Wiegold. “We’ve heard that even households in the track were affected. Of course in the live streaming, in the broadcast, the internet died and we weren’t able to broadcast it.”
For Weller at his home, the broadcast shutdown created additional concern.
“To be honest, it scared me!” recounts Weller. “I moved apartments between Vallelunga and Brands Hatch, and my internet connection was only activated early in the week leading up to American Speedfest.”
“Therefore, as the picture froze on a spinning Andres Beers, my first thought was that something had gone wrong on my end.”
With no electricity, heavy rain and cars spinning all over the road, race control had no choice but to stop the race.
EuroNASCAR soon scrambled to find a way to not only get their live broadcast back up, but also to record any footage that took place during the broadcast shut down.
Brands Hatch’s local power grid was reactivated during the red flag period. However, internet connection remains unstable, making it difficult for EuroNASCAR to get their broadcast online again.
Fortunately, EuroNASCAR’s chosen broadcast partner GP1 had contingency plans in place for footage recording.
“A complete power and internet outage occurred at the Brands Hatch circuit several times due to heavy storms,” said GP1’s CEO Davorin Stetner. “Our GP1 OB van remained fully operational, powered by its own UPS system and by our backup generator.”
“However, loss of the main internet link from the track stopped all signal delivery. Our backup connection was not able to sustain all streams and remote commentary feeds, so temporary loss of the signal occurred.”
Back on the media tower, Wiegold had an idea to get the fans updated as much as possible.
“I was able to overlook all the racetrack from there,” said Wiegold. “When the internet connection died, my only idea was to go live with my phone.”
“So I went live on EuroNASCAR’s official Instagram account during the red flags. Even Liam Hezemans joined me in this livestream.
“You were able to add people there and Liam reached me and said “Hey, put me in the live!”. Everytime we had those issues, I went live on Instagram.”
After numerous failed attempts, EuroNASCAR and GP1 were able to get their live broadcast rolling again with ten laps to go.
Minutes later, long time race leader Matthew Ellis went off course at Paddock Hill Bend. This set up a thrilling end that was won by Team Bleekemolen’s Melvin de Groot – the Dutchman’s maiden EuroNASCAR victory.
“Much of the race from that point, I either had no pictures at all or a very limited feed,” recounts Weller. “However, it stabilised with about ten laps to go. Given how exciting the conclusion of the race was, I’m extremely thankful for that!”
“I decided for the last couple of laps to stay live on Instagram just in case something happened with the broadcast again,” said Wiegold.
“Of course it wasn’t that professional to be filming it from the tower with the camera phone. However, at least we were able to show the people what happened.”
The show that the drivers put out was praised by David Willey, Event Manager for American SpeedFest’s organizers MotorSport Vision (MSV).
Willey also praised the fans who hung around for EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1, promising fans that the conditions will be better for Sunday’s running.
“The drivers did everyone proud there!” said David Willey in his immediate post-race interview with Wiegold. “What an amazing race and what a way to finish. With the unique Indy Circuit here at Brands Hatch, that was one for the race fans.”
“I was in race control, so I was with the race director. I was in the dry at the time, but you know, hats off to all the fans that are still here for the last NASCAR Euro Series race.”
“All being well, tomorrow the weather should be a lot better, dry and sunny. So, we look forward to seeing everyone again tomorrow.”
The weather was indeed better on Sunday, with both EuroNASCAR races held in sunny conditions. For EuroNASCAR though, Sunday was more than just hosting their scheduled races.
EuroNASCAR and GP1 gathered all recorded footage and worked out ways to stitch together one full race broadcast replay for EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1 while Sunday’s activities were underway.
“Of course in the live streaming, the internet died and we weren’t able to broadcast it,” said Wiegold. “But, what we did for the fans and everybody out there, we uploaded the full race because the cameras and the TV crew recorded the race.”
“Our team did all to minimise affection to the broadcast and successfully recovered TV feed in minimum time,” adds Stetner. “I can congratulate them on the effort.”
The full race replay was published by EuroNASCAR on 9 June. It is available on demand on EuroNASCAR’s YouTube channel.
At the end of the day, the situation showed that EuroNASCAR have worked their best to provide fans with all of the action when extreme weather prevents the possibility of a live broadcast.
Of course, there will be work to prepare more contingencies in case a situation like this repeats again.
However, what is in place at present time proved to be enough to make sure that viewers don’t miss out a single beat of action – even if the majority of the footage was only available at a later date.
“It was a crazy situation for us, but I think we managed well to at least get something out there,” concludes Wiegold.
“This was a force majeure situation where you can’t really do much. It’s not in your power to have the internet connection and even backup solutions wouldn’t work with the difficult weather situation like this. It was what it is, but I think we tried everything to keep the action rolling.”
“Of course, technical dramas like this can happen,” concludes Weller. “A site-wide blackout is quite rare at a race circuit, but certainly not unprecedented.”
“All in all, I think we were quite lucky to have gotten a more or less full race for the OPEN division, because of both the electrical issues and the weather!”
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.