Radio Le Mans has covered the 24 Hours of Le Mans continuously since 1987, but the station almost didn't survive to see its own 20th anniversary. When its owner walked away from the race's broadcast rights in 2005 and a replacement backer pulled out at the last minute, the station's future came down to one commentator deciding he wasn't willing to let it disappear.
Built for a Race With No Music, Just Sport
The station first went to air at the 1987 24 Hours of Le Mans, led by sports car and radio enthusiast Harry Turner and backed by Jim Tanner and Chris Crewe-Smith of TTC Radio, with sponsorship from Silk Cut Jaguar, according to the station's own history. Its earliest broadcasts were rudimentary by design, no pit reports, just a music loop running overnight, but the format found an immediate audience among the tens of thousands of English-speaking fans at the circuit who had never had commentary built specifically for them.
The Voice That Became as Famous as the Race
John Hindhaugh joined the team in 1989 to host the "Mad Friday Campsite Tour," and his North-Eastern accent and irreverent delivery made him almost as recognizable to fans as the drivers themselves, according to Porsche Newsroom's profile of him. Today the station brands itself with the tagline "the original motorsport radio, 24/7, no music, just sport," a mission statement that has held since those first rough overnight broadcasts.
Saved by a House Sale
The station's ownership nearly collapsed after the 2005 race, when Haymarket Media, the previous owner, could not reach a new licence agreement with the ACO, the race's organizing body. A new backer briefly stepped in, then withdrew at the last minute, leaving the broadcast without an owner just as the following year's race approached. Hindhaugh and his wife, Eve Hewitt, bought the station outright by January 2006, funded in part by proceeds from the sale of their own house. Radio Le Mans has been the race's official English-language broadcast partner ever since, run by the person who was, until that point, simply one of its commentators.
Why RS3 Exists
RS3 is not the station's original channel. In 2017, parent company Radio Show Limited restructured its broadcasts into three distinct feeds: RS1 carrying the core Radio Le Mans coverage, RS2 dedicated to IMSA racing, and RS3 created from what had previously been an overflow stream called RSL Extra, only switched on when three live motorsport events overlapped and needed separate commentary at once. RS3 has since grown into a full channel in its own right, covering Formula 1, MotoGP and other series alongside its original overflow role.
A Team of Twenty, Twenty-Eight Hours Straight
The current commentary roster, including Hindhaugh, longtime analyst Paul Truswell, Joe Bradley, Bruce Jones and Jonny Palmer, runs broadcasts that stretch roughly 28 hours across the race weekend once pre- and post-race coverage is included. Fans at the circuit have historically bought inexpensive portable radios just to follow the coverage, since the size of the crowd overwhelms mobile networks and drains phones long before the race is over. That shared, radio-in-every-campsite experience is as much a part of Le Mans tradition as the race itself.
Still Commentator-Owned
Radio Le Mans RS3 is, in the end, a niche broadcast overflow channel that grew into something bigger, run by a company whose founders once had to sell a house to keep the whole operation alive. Almost forty years after Harry Turner first put a rudimentary overnight loop on air, the station that grew out of it is still owned and run by the people calling the races themselves.