South Africa’s voice of motorsport has it made

Live motorsport commentary, whether addressing racetrack spectators or a television audience, sounds deceptively easy.

You simply have to tell people what is happening in front of you, right? Of course, but the devil is in the detail. At a typical South African circuit racing event, there would be some 130 entries, spread over nine separate motorsport disciplines, on four wheels and two. Almost every category is divided into separate classes, and your average commentator can be stretched to identify the front runners in every class, with blistering fast, non-stop action making it difficult to also refer to a lap monitor.

Greg Moloney is not your average commentator. He is South African motorsport’s voice of choice. The 45-year old has, over the last 28 years, commentated live on 29 local, and 16 international motorsport categories. The international events include five MotoGPs at Phakisa, seven World Superbike Championship rounds at Kyalami, two World Motocross rounds, respectively at Sun City and Nelspruit, three World Rallycross rounds and a Continental Super Truck round at Killarney, plus an A1 Grand Prix, a F1X2 Grand Prix, and a Grand Prix Masters round at Kyalami.

There were also three Top Gear shows at Kyalami and one at the Durban street circuit, plus a real bucket list outing in 2018, when he did live Facebook coverage and represented the Manx Radio Station at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. Locally, Moloney has commentated on national and club racing events encompassing a multitude of circuit categories, karting, rallies, motocross, endurance racing, Super moto, off road racing, the Simola Hill Climb, the Emerald Casino Speed Fest and Historic car racing.

“Strangely, I was not particularly taken with motorsport as a child. I was into mountain biking in a big way, winning some trophies and learning how to not fall while charging over rough downhill surfaces at high speeds,” Moloney says.

Then WesBank decided to start sponsoring the South African V8 Supercar racing category, with the bank’s marketing manager Peter Moloney – Greg’s father, heading up the enterprise. Greg ended up going to many circuit racing events, the bug bit, and he wanted to get involved.

“There was no way we could afford for me to go racing and in 1997 my dad suggested I join veteran commentator Roger McCleery in the booth, because he would have the best spectator vantage points at any circuit. That is where I started paying close attention while watching motorsport. In those days there were no electronic lap monitors – we would lap score by scribbling on pieces of paper, while trying to string together reasonably intelligent versions of what was happening.

“I also learnt how to tell competitors apart from one another – generally speaking, not by their race numbers but via things that stood out about them – colour schemes with saloon cars, and crash helmets in the case of motorcyclists and single seater drivers.”

It became Moloney’s habit to walk through the pits on the Fridays before race meetings, soaking up information during the practice and qualifying sessions.

“I would chat to drivers, riders and pit crews. Once you know competitors as friends, you remember facts about them.  When the racing is maybe a little processional and you need to fill in dead time, it helps a lot if you know the leading rider celebrated his birthday two days before, or what a team learned about their car in a test session the week before.”

It also helps that Greg has a virtual photographic memory. “Don’t ask me why – as a kid I could remember the words of just about every song I heard, and that transferred itself to commentating. Once I have located a particular competitor’s stand-out feature, it is kind of burnt into my memory.”

To this day, Moloney amazes fellow commentators by picking up mid-field dices in the middle of races, and identifying the involved commentators after a brief glance.

“I am very privileged to do what I do for a living, and getting to share it with other enthusiasts – after having lunch with Valentino Rossi at Phakisa way back, I felt I could tell a large number of friends about the experience on the public address system.”

Moloney has, over the years, also gotten to race a wide variety of vehicles, on four wheels and two, ranging from club saloon cars to sports cars, historic cars, Production Cars, V8 Supercars, Endurance racing cars, Superbikes, Super Moto machines, Enduro bikes, dragsters, historic motorcycles and single seaters.

With motorsport on hold at the moment, Greg runs a programme called Keeping Motorsport Alive on Facebook every Monday at 5 pm. There is a corporate guest from the motorsport arena every time, with an estimated audience of between 1 500 and 2 000 people. To access it, go to Voice of Choice or iLEB.

“I, and everybody else in local motorsport, never knew how lucky we were to have it. It is going to be a very emotional moment, when I get to walk through the gates of a race circuit again, and none of us will take the blessings of the adrenaline game for granted again,” Moloney says.

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