Category: track days

Categories
personal photos track days

Photo in SCCA SportsCar magazine

My first magazine photo

One of the photos I took of my dust covered Elise has been used in an SCCA RallyCross ad in the July Issue of SportsCar magazine. And no I do not RallyCross my Elise – the dirt was a result of my Reno-Fernley spin. It was taken with a Nokia N95 and looks remarkably good in a full page print advert (proof image here).

This happened a few weeks ago but I only just got around to blogging it 🙂

[tags]scca, ad, lotus, elise, dirt, rallycross, advertisement, sportscar, magazine, nokia, n95[/tags]… Read the rest

Categories
cars track days videos

One lap of Reno-Fernley Raceway (N95 video)

Lap of Reno-Fernley Raceway (Nokia N95) from rnair on Vimeo

I finally got around to editing and uploading some of the video* I recorded during my last trackday. This was the first time I was using the Nokia N95 and I had high expectations from the high-rez camera. As you can see over here the video quality is dramatically better than my past recordings from the N73. I have been planning on getting a ChaseCam PDR setup for a while but now that I can get such excellent video from the phone I think I will stick to my homebrew cellphone setup.… Read the rest

Categories
cars track days

Spinning out at 95 mph

Reno-Fernley course map

I was at the NCRC trackday at Reno-Fernley Raceway last weekend when I got some first hand experience of what happens in a high speed spin. I was coming down the front straight at well over 100 mph and slowed slightly to take the esses that make up turn 1. Now on the track map they may look like fairly severe turns but in actual fact you just lift a little bit to settle the car at the end of the straight before flooring it though S bends. On this particular lap I came in a little hotter than on my previous runs and just after i made it though turn 1 (but before 1A) the back end came around and I flew off the track at 95 mph.… Read the rest

Categories
autocross cars mobile review track days videos

Recording in-car video for free

I am a great fan of in-car video during HPDEs. It is a great tool to analyze your performance and see how different lines have affected you laptimes – works even better when you have a DL1 or some other data logger. In-car video is also a great way to give people an idea of what its like to track a car and maybe even understand you keep grinning from ear to ear after each event.

However when I see the average setup (for an Elise) at an HPDE it looks to go one of two ways

1) The full on treatment: This is a full on video system that gives you the best quality video and audio and will usually record several hours without any issues.… Read the rest

Categories
track days

Track day safety

As I mentioned in my last post I was at Thunderhill with T.E.A.M this weekend for a track day that was organized at the last minute. We unfortunately had a pretty bad accident when a Viper lost it coming out of turn 13 and was absolutely totaled when it hit the barriers (the concrete block literally cracked on impact). We did have some anxious moments as we waited for the safety crew to get there (they were on the scene in under a minute) it turned out that both the driver and passenger were fine.

When I tell people about an incident like this they usually ask me why I do this and I respond that its tracking is a relatively safe activity with very few incidents if you follow some simple guidelines.… Read the rest