Kangaroo TV bounces onto the Club Arnage scene …

We have been keeping an eye on this innovative little gismo over the last couple of years but we were far too mean to actually hire one! So this year we got hold of one to give it a thorough ‘road test’.. particularly since the ACO no longer feel it necessary to supply us with TVs at each desk. Those of you who may not be familiar with kangaroos it is basically a hand held portable TV .. but it is rather more than that. The screen does indeed give you crisp TV picture, if only on a smallish screen. But fear not it also has other little buttons.. the ‘video’ button gives you a choice of five live channels, namely main TV feed, and four in car cameras in car #1 #9 #7 #8..plus occasionally a pit lane camera. Next button is ‘Stats’ .. This is a really useful source of info at Le Mans 24hrs next gives you the full race leader board.. and positions in LMP1, LMP2, LMGT1 and LMGT2. We found this immensely helpful. The next button is ‘audio’ which seems to be useless, because it does not have commentary just rather confusing ambient sound effects that go with the pics.. Finally there is the ‘home’ button has eight more options ‘Schedule’ .. ‘Team Info’.. ‘Track info’, ‘History’ and ‘winner statistics’, a description of how the classes are structured and finally ‘help’ and ‘settings’. On day one all was not well and the TV bit really wasn’t running at all well for technical reasons … but the Kangaroo guys got it sorted and from then on it didn’t miss a beat. The range is limited .

So, the good news is that it is a very effective and handy bit of kit .. bad news? Not much.. maybe battery life of about six hours is a bit short for a 24hr race.. maybe the screen could be bit bigger and that is about all. At €55 money well spent we reckon. They are also at The British GP..

Our thanks to Kangaroo TV for the loan of the Skippy the ‘Roo! Take a look at http://www.kangaroo.tv/kangaroo-sports/lemans.php