MR2 donington videos from sunday - and my first podium(s)..

[UH-Matt]

Hi All

I had an EPIC weekend of racing just gone at Donington in the Toyota MR2 championship.

I decided to enter the "SuperGT" on the saturday which is a faster category of MR2 racing, and use that as a warm up for sundays normal class of racing. 12 other normal class cars did the SuperGT and I finished 2nd in class on both races - I felt fast and was looking forward to Sunday.

Sunday came and qualifying was WET but drying. Having finished I had the hump as I felt slow, didn't feel like I got a chance to do some good laps at the end when there was a dry line, and generally felt down. Times came out and it had stuck myself 3rd on grid for race 1, and 8th on grid for race 2 - my best ever quali and I was suddenly on a high again

Race 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_BueongDeQ

Started 3rd, slipped back to 7th, then got it back and bought the car home in 3rd for my first ever podium finish.

Race 2:

Started 8th, again felt quick and bought the car home for my second podium of the weekend (and ever).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8mDlOAg6VE

All in all an epic weekend for me, very enjoyable racing and a cracking result. Below is a link to my fastest lap which was 2nd fastest ever set at Donington for MR2 championship:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzMfVHxHBI

Anglesey is up next month, have never driven there so will have to get onto the pace very quickly and hope to try and keep up this performance, no pressure then!

[carl_w]

Nice, I sprinted in an MR2 for a couple of years. What camera and mount are you using? It looks great compared to mine which shake all over the place.

[UH-Matt]

I use GoPro HD's

In Race 1 its the best example of quality, race 2 I had managed to snap the mount so it has a lot of wabble.

GoPro HD definitely the way to go for incar

[carl_w]

I've used a proper HD camcorder, but it's heavy enough that it bounces around a bit. Plus I've also used a cheap micro-camera mounted on the front number plate.

Various vids at http://www.youtube.com/team220racing -- everything up to this year has been in an MR2, but now competing in a Saxo.

[UH-Matt]

Yep, you definitely either need a much more solid mount or a smaller cam.

GoPro's go down to £130 every now and then on Amazon, so keep an eye out - best thing you'll ever buy

[carl_w]

I'm not convinced that more solid is the answer. If it was rigidly bolted to the chassis it would bounce up and down like a good'un. i think the GoPro suction mount effectively provides a degree of damping.

[UH-Matt]

The GoPro is on a solid mount to the roll bar, not a suction mount. Must be stabalisation technology in the cam that does the magic.

[carl_w]

UH-Matt said:

The GoPro is on a solid mount to the roll bar, not a suction mount. Must be stabalisation technology in the cam that does the magic.

Smooth tracks as well -- my camcorder has stabilization (as does iMovie) but neither can cope with the bumps at North Weald.

[taffyracer]

Re the Go Pro, how do you get the rear camera to sync, wiht the front, i'm asuming you run 2 Go pro's?

[UH-Matt]

Basically do that manually in my software (PowerDirector) by getting to the frame at the beginning where the lights go out and the car first moves, easy to sync that point then roll back 5 seconds or so to get the whole start in...

[Glyn84]

For syncing videos, I've found Race Render (http://www.racerender.com/RR2/Features.html) and Dashware (http://www.dashware.net/) to be pretty handy. You find a common point in both videos and it will sync them there and allow you to output your video with picture in picture. You can also put a graphic overlay on if you have a logger too. I use a smart phone app which works well enough for that.