What to watch this weekend (June 24th - June 26th)

• Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Europe; from Valencia Spain. Practice. Friday @ 8am - 9:30am (SPEED/SPEEDHD) live
• Motorweek. 2012 Mazda5 and 2012 Honda Civic. Friday @ 8pm - 9pm (Discovery's HD Theater) replays
• Chasing Classic Cars. Friday @ 9pm - 11pm (Discovery's HD Theater) replays
• Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Europe; from Valencia Spain. Qualifying. Saturday @ 8am - 9:30am (SPEED/SPEEDHD) live
• 24 Hours of Nurburgring. Saturday @ 10am through Sunday @ 10am (AudiTV webcast) live
• Rolex Sports Car Series. Road America 250. Live from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Sunday @ 12:00pm - 2:30pm (SPEED/SPEEDHD) live
• Formula 1 - Grand Prix of Europe; from Valencia Spain. Race. Sunday @ 12pm - 2pm (FOX/FOXHD) same day delayed broadcast
• Top Gear (UK). Season 16 Christmas Special. Jezza, Hamster and Captain Slow travel through the Middle East, emulating the path of the three wise men. Monday @ 9pm - 10:20pm (BBC America/BBC America HD) great fukin replay

You know what pisses me off? Not one (1) of my hundreds of cable channels is covering the 2011 24 Hours of Nurburgring. While the Le Mans 24 Hours is the benchmark for endurance races, as I stated not too long ago, the Nurburgring is the benchmark of facilities, in the world, for developing automobile suspensions and driving dynamics. It's where countless world dominating sports cars are battle tested and proven on an annual basis. It's where supercars throw down the gauntlet for lap-time supremacy. But the annual endurance race held there isn't important enough to be televised in this country, because US-based manufacturers can't (or won't choose to) make money off it. The point of this rant is that US Auto manufacturers are wrong by igging the (road) racing fans of this country and they're effing it up for everyone of our ilk. This years 24hrs of Nurburgring will have a Lexus LFA competing, a factory race-spec VW Golf competing, the Ferrari/Paninfarina P4/5C competing, the second iteration of the GT3 R Hybrid competing as well as many other great story lines. For missing out on this action live I say fck you Speed TV, FOX Sports and CBS Sports. You heard me. Thankfully after scouring the net I found that Audi TV will be streaming this great endurance race live. Oh yea, there's a F1 race this Sunday too...with shtty, abridged, FOX coverage. Ugh.

Photo courtesy of Porschebahn.wordpress.com