How much on-board footage do you need? You might say that a lap is enough from any specific race, but if you’re a race nerd like me than you probably can’t get enough different angles and shots from the various cars competing – especially in the multi-class knife fight that’s an endurance race. Some people put on music in the background when they’re working: I like the sound of racing cars…
Pretty much all cars carry cameras on board nowadays, whether specifically for TV or for the teams’ own uses, which means that you can literally live through the first-person driver experience from almost any racecar you choose. I’ve picked out a selection of on-boards here for you to browse though, and highlighted some particular moments that are worth fast forwarding to if, for some bizarre reason, you don’t have several days to watch all the clips in their entirety. Let’s start with a clip that literally puts us in the shoes of Corvette’s Tommy Milner: he had a helmet cam set-up, which shows a whole stint from walking out of the garage, checking in with engineers and watching pitstop practice even before getting in the car and taking to the track for night practice. It’s a very cool insight into race preparation through the eyes of a driver.
We always push ourselves to bring you the best possible coverage and photography at every event we attend, and I am a big believer in showing you Speedhunters out there what goes on behind the scenes. This time I’ve tried to do something a little different: I wanted to show you guys what I did on [...]
…and the beginning of another. The 2013 running of the 12 Hours Of Sebring endurance race might have heralded the final time the classic event would run under the banner of the American Le Mans Series (after a 15 year run), but the 61st edition signalled anything but the end. The big LMP1 cars would [...]
The opening round of the swansong season of the American Le Mans Series is already upon us: the teams have gathered at the legendary Sebring circuit in Florida ahead of this weekend’s 12 Hours – the last of the LMP1 era. There’s a mighty battle ahead: Audi may have rocked up with a pair of R18 E-Tron Quattros, but the surprise is that Audi have only topped one of the four test sessions so far. They may be sandbagging, but Rebellion, Muscle Milk and Dyson will all be aiming squarely at the R18s, looking to take this last opportunity to take a four-ringed scalp.
It’s in GT where the heat will really be turned up: BMW have rejoined the fray with their brand new Z4 in the GTE-Pro class, where they’ll be facing off against the cream of manufacturer opposition from Corvette, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin and Viper. The Rahal-Letterman-Lannigan team will be fielding two Z4s, and have been out testing ahead of the race: the unique deep growl of the Z4 makes it easy to pick out in the GT field. This video has some great footage of the car in action, and talks to the team’s six drivers about their new mount.
Our own Larry Chen will be embedded with the RLL team throughout the race weekend, so stay tuned for updates from him as he finds out from the inside just what it’s like to tackle the toughest race on the calendar.
Testing continues today, with practice and qualifying over Thursday and Friday. The great race kicks off at 10.45am Eastern on Saturday March 16th. Turn one has been radically changed with the extension to the pitlane required to house such a big field of cars: a solid wall now runs down the outside of the braking zone where before there were just cones, so what was already a difficult corner has just been pumped up a level. Make sure you’re somewhere where you can watch the rolling start if at all possible!
BMW have undertaken a major change of platform for their 2013 North American sportscar campaign – the latest chapter in an illustrious history on the continent that stretches back over 40 years. Ahead of the introduction of the E80 next year, the outgoing E92 M3 model has been honourably retired after four seasons on point [...]
While the rest of the Speedhunters crew freezed their behinds off covering the Tokyo Auto Salon, my face was getting sun-burned and sandblasted as I was covering the Dunlop 24 Hours Of Dubai at the Dubai Autodrome in the United Arab Emirates. I arrived in Dubai tired as ever after a 15-hour trek from Los Angeles, [...]
Super GT is a series I had almost forgotten about, put on the side if you will, as I got on with my job of featuring and covering the bread & butter of the Japanese car culture. You see way before I became part of the Speedhunters project, before SH actually even exited, I used [...]
I cannot think of a motorsport event more fascinating than a twenty four hour race stuffed to the brim with GT cars. While spec racing can be entertaining, particularly for the drivers, I find it far more fun to see your favorite marques battling it out for hours. At the Total 24 hours of Spa [...]
Silverstone’s UK round of the Blancpain Endurance Series provided quite a different challenge for the GT3 cars compared to the last outing at Monza in Italy, weather aside. There, straight-line speed won: strip the wings to sprint down the straights, then deal with the downforce deficit in the few corners there were to worry about. [...]
Leading never seems to be a good idea at the Nürburgring 24 Hours: it’s almost a dead-cert for fate to deal you a bum card. Of the leaders from early on in the race, only the two Heico Hankook Mercedes SLS, the #3 Phoenix and #26 Mamerow Audi R8 LMS Ultras haven’t suffered any major [...]
George A. Romero references aside, the earth has finally turned just enough on its axis to allow the sun to shine on the Eifel region once more. For the sleep deprived, the darkness seemed to last an eternity. At 05:38AM the ball of fire poked its head about the horizon but with it came another [...]
Time slows to a crawl at night during endurance races. For a period that takes up well over a third of the race, the darkness does more than make it extra difficult for drivers to pick their way round the pitch-black track – it also shrouds the race itself. With the race’s TV coverage put [...]
Six hours of track time were dedicated on Thursday and Friday to setting the majority of positions for the 2012 edition of the 2012 Nürburgring 24 Hours, the 40th anniversary of the race. Thursday had seen a long, four-hour session starting at 7.30pm and running into the dark. This was seen as being the main [...]
Coming up this weekend is the big one: the 2012 edition of the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Around 600 drivers will tackle a whole day of racing around the full 25km combination of the Nürburgring Nordschleife ‘Green Hell’ and Grand Prix track at the most gruelling 24-hour event out there. The 2012 running is the 40th [...]
In part one we introduced some of the principle terms involved in setting up a race car, and then in part two Edward Sandstrom, Team Need For Speed driver in the FIA European GT3 Championship, explained how he goes about finding the optimum set-up and copes with the ever-changing nature of a race car out [...]
