1:8 Nitro On-Road Worlds Coverage Update

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By Brandon Rohde
LiveRC.com

Hello race fans,

On behalf of LiveRC, I wanted to give everyone a quick update of what the coverage plans are for the 1:8 IC Track World Championships that are currently taking place in Brazil.  We had fully intended on sending a crew of five to this event for the past two years.  Flights were booked, the crew was set, and we were excited to go.  Unfortunately, the one thing that we absolutely need to do live coverage is obviously good Internet.  We had been in communication with the event promoters, and they were diligently working to get a reliable Internet connection installed at the track.  They had worked with multiple vendors to get Internet installed, but all had failed to get a solid connection.  Meanwhile, our flights and hotel were all booked and ready to go. The only thing we did not do was apply for travel visas, because the cost for business visas totaled nearly $2000 for our entire crew, and that is a non-refundable cost. We honestly did not think that there would be Internet installed at the track in time for the event.

On October 29, the event promoters were able to secure an Internet connection for the track. At that time, we immediately began the process of getting visas.  The turnaround time for a travel visa is 10 business days, as stated by the Brazilian consulate of Chicago. They do not offer an express service, and there are absolutely no exceptions.  We have been trying and calling the consulate frequently, and we still have no visa.  The consulate claims the wait time is increased to 15-20 working days (4-5 weeks) due to the tourism season picking up.  Because of that, we do not have a visa to get into the country.  The only other option we had was to fly our whole crew to the Houston consulate which had a shorter wait time and pay an expediting fee to a travel agency and then wait in Houston for the visas, but the cost in that was over $4000 and was simply not financially doable.

In the meantime, one of the ROAR representatives who is at the event was gracious enough to bring some equipment to setup at least a basic stream so people could see the facility and event in progress.  Although this is not the normal broadcast that people have come to expect from LiveRC, it is the best option we had without being able to get visas from the Brazilian government on the timeframe we were given.  We sincerely apologize to everyone that we could not be there, but we certainly hope you understand the circumstances and know that we had full intentions of covering this event with a top notch broadcast.