Thousands of motorsport fans in rural Australia will now be able to watch live coverage from the biggest and best motorsport categories in the world with subscription TV provider AUSTAR announcing the channels SPEED and SPEED HD will be broadcast from Friday, 25 March.

SPEED and SPEED HD will be added to AUSTAR’s sports option at no extra cost and will show live footage of World Superbike, British Elite Speedway, NASCAR, IndyCar, Rolex Sports Cars and the GT1 World Championship.

Replays of the locally run V8 Supercars and Australian Superbikes as well as overseas categories such as the DTM Series, British Rally Championship, Formula Drift and various special motor racing events from around the world are part of the 24-hour channel’s line-up.

AUSTAR’s Group director, Corporate Development, Deanne Weir said that she was very pleased to be able to provide the many motorsport followers in AUSTAR regions access to the best racing on the planet.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer our very dedicated motorsports fans the channel they’ve been waiting for,” she said. “SPEED expands dramatically on the previous motorsports segments that were shown on the FOX SPORTS channels by showcasing them on a channel devoted entirely to the genre.

“While our negotiations with Premier Media Group (PMG) for the channel took longer than we had hoped, neither PMG nor AUSTAR ever gave up on our joint goal of providing regional Australians with access to this channel.

“Our commitment to providing sports fans with the highest quality broadcasts will continue with key events shown live, uninterrupted and in high definition on SPEED.

“Customers who love motorsports will be highly rewarded with the great content on this channel.”

AUSTAR customers have missed much of the motorsport content that was formerly shared with FOXTEL on FOX SPORTS since SPEED was launched late last year.