Leigh Diffey

Leigh Diffey (born on March 3, 1971 in Brisbane) is an Australian auto racing commentator with the SPEED Channel in the United States. He has also worked in Britain and in his homeland of Australia, where he commentated on Champ Car and V8 Supercars for Network Ten in Australia. Jokingly referred to as "Stiffey" by fans and fellow commentators.

Pre Television

Prior to his Commentary and TV career, Leigh was a PE Teacher at Ipswich Grammar School, leaving in 1995/6 to pursue his love of Motor Sports and Television.

BBC career

Prior to his 2002 move to the United States, Diffey commentated on the Superbike World Championship and presented coverage of the World Rally Championship for the BBC in the United Kingdom. He worked alongside Steve Parrish who along with Diffey, shared a mutual friend - the late Barry Sheene. Sheene was instrumental in joining Diffey and the BBC together.

SPEED career

In 2001 Diffey filled in for Jeremy Shaw covering the Champ Car series for ESPN International at the Rockingham 500 and the American Memorial 500 at Lausitzring alongside Ben Edwards.

In 2003, Diffey was hired by SPEED. At SPEED, Diffey was the play-by-play announcer for the network's coverage of the SPEED World Challenge, the American Le Mans Series, the Rolex Sports Car Series, the Rolex Grand-Am Cup, the SCCA Trans-Am Series, and an occasional "SPEEDNews" anchor and Formula One host. He also did occasional lap-by-lap coverage of the NASCAR Busch North Series.

Diffey, Bob Varsha and Krista Voda are now the mainstays of "The SPEED Report" - the network's popular Sunday evening wrap of the week's news and results. Leigh has also commentated slected rounds of the AMA Superbike and AMA Motocross Championships.

Network Ten career

At the end of 2004, to the shock and dismay of SPEED viewers, Diffey left the network for family reasons. He returned to his native Australia, where he covered V8 Supercars and Formula One for Network Ten. He did, though, return to SPEED on occasion to call the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans. Diffey was a regular host for Network Ten's nightly sports wrap, "Sports Tonight". His last Sports Tonight broadcast was Sunday 3rd, December 2006. He announced that he was returning to the United States, where he rejoined SPEED starting with the 2007 Rolex 24 Hour race at Daytona.

Bibliography

*Casamento, Jo (1999). "Moving for Mel." "The Sunday Telegraph". February 21.
*Corby, Stephen (2006). "F1 Royalty Gather For Grand Prix." "The Sunday Mail". April 2.
*Waddell, B. (1998). "Bikes or Boats--What's the Diff?" "Sunday Mail" (Queensland). March 1.