johnfelstead

Now that i have all the laps i wanted up on the server and available for download, I thought i would pop these in the General Forum for the masses.

The first four are from my last trip to the ring 3 weeks ago.
The Helmetcam (camera at eye level strapped onto my helmet) and RearViewCam are from the same lap using two cameras.
The FrontBumperCam is taken from the left lower corner of the radiator feed in the front bumper.
The RoofCam is taken from the top of the roof vent.
Onboard1 and Onboard2 are taken from a tripod mount inside the car from the trip prior to me installing my Leda Suspension.


RearViewCam
HelmetCam
FrontBumperCam
RoofCam
Onboard1
Onboard2

These videos are all 80Mb in size!

Hope you enjoy them.

Cheers
John

frisby

Quality footage John, well impressed with the helmet cam and the front bumper cam.

Was at Croft on Sat but didn't have time to have a chat about your set up but it looked mighty fine.

This is a useful link if anyone else wanted to get some interesting shots like John, with there standard camcorder.

http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/helmet_cameras.htm

What set up is you footage taken with John.


laters

stu


[Edited by frisby - 10/10/2002 11:52:01 AM]

johnfelstead

For inside the car i use a JVC MiniDV camcorder mounted on a suction mount or tripod.

The bullet cam shots are using a Sony MiniDV walkman unit with large LCD screen. This links up to an audio preamp and remote micraphone for sound. The Video input comes from a tiny 6mm diameter, 30mm long camera linked into a camera control unit. I need to play around with the CCU to get a more balanced colour definition, the proper video i will be producing with the help of diesel will have the picture properly colour balanced. It's quite an expensive bullet camera setup, the lens is £400 and the camera is £700, the Sony deck is close to £1000, not sure about the rest. Good job i didnt pay for it, i loaned it from Jon Reeves.

frisby

You don't happen to have the front splitter footage from Croft do you John??

regards

Stu

johnfelstead

Not on the net. Why?

frisby

Just interested in viewing it is all.

My mate is bringing his camera to the office tomorrow so I'll see what footage is on it of you......maybe sliding round the complex.

I'll post it up, if only to fuel the cossie v scooby debate

laters

stu

Imran

John,

Either you're amazingly fast, or everyone else out there was *****-footing it!

Bloody good footage though.

Thanks

johnfelstead

Ah, i see stu, thought you may have wanted some footage of yourself or something. Love to see some outside shots from Croft!

I am not Walter Rohle fast at the ring but i can go at a pretty fast pace these days, It's very rare that i am overtaken by anything, bike or car.

A good fast pace is anything sub 10 minutes, once you get below 9 minutes you are really going at a fair old rate. I am lapping in sub 8:30 now on every lap unless i pass a crash scene where i would slow right down, even with that any longer than 8:45 is rare.

The ring is not an easy track to learn because of its length and the nature of the corners, which are quite often blind with lots of camber changes and late tightening. Newbies shouldnt push it there if they want to go home in one piece.

scoobynutta555

whats with all the grafitti on the track, and that narrow section, why have that on a track, seems a buit close either side, something to do with pits?

uxg

John. Any ideas what the lap record is for the ring just as a reference point?

Mossman

Imran, yes he is bloody fast!!!!!
Mossman

PS Fiver in the post pls John!

Andrew Timmins

Just watched all of them, how did I manage before broadband?

The rear view footage is just fantastic. It really highlights the elevation changes of the track, more so than driving round I feel.

Are there any more laps for us to see?

johnfelstead

I am not up on the lap record, i think it's about 6:30 in a full blown GroupC car!

The grafiti is from the 24hr race, it's traditional for the spectators to write on the track before the race. Must make it hell in the wet when it's fresh as its a nasty wet track at the best of times!

I wont be putting anymore footage up on the net as its asking a lot of the server bandwidth as it is! What i am doing is putting a properly edited video together that i will probably put in the scoobyshop which should be pretty good stuff, as diesel who is a pro TV producer is doing the production for me. Not sure how long this will take as i have a lot of work to do before i give the footage to diesel.

There is also the added problem of getting future footage as the Nurburgring have just banned the use of Cameras on the circuit, so it looks like i wont be able to tape anymore of my laps, which is a damn shame as i always learn from them.

johnfelstead

oh, the narrow section near the start is not always there. In the last two video laps i use the normal track layout. When the main GP track is in use, they close off T13 and run that narrow bypass to make sure nobody ends up on the GP track if they hit the barriers, as both tracks join together at that point. The weekend i was there with the bullet cam the DTM was racing on the GP track.

ripmaze

I remember reading on another thread (where you posted one of these videos) that the occasional scraping noise was the tyre hitting the inside of the wheel arch. I thought most suspension set-ups caused the tyre to slide when under a lot stress rather than travelling enough to let the tyre hit the bodywork. Is this happening because suspension isn't hard enough to take full advantage of the tyre?

Does the Leda suspension sort this out?

johnfelstead

The rideheight was too low for such a bumpy track. I had just installed the new suspension thursday and left for the ring friday morning so i had no real setup time. I found at croft it was fine but the ring has some very bumpy and high G corners and it was compressing too much.

You dont want very stiff suspension on the ring as it's more like a fast B road than a traditional race track so i went for the standard Leda setup rather than the stiff tarmac track setup. Plus this is my daily driver so i dont want to be uncomfortable whilst driving it on the road.

Since going there i have raised the car another 15mm and that has made it much better on the bumpier roads, so its sitting probably 5mm lower than standard now.

harvey

iTrader: (48)

NUTTER!!!
John: Put me down for the first video when available m8. Thanks.
When are you going to the Ring next and do you want to give me lessons. Would like to talk through my suspension options with you as I am still standard and as this is an every day car it is important to retain asmooth ride.

johnfelstead

I am due at the ring early november but i am not 100% certain of that now. Be happy to show you around, just dont try and go quickly at first because the ring bites hard!

XRS

John,

Did you by any chance come across a Brit in a 550 Maranello in September?

A mate took his over for a few laps of the ring and to see what it would do on the autobahn.

johnfelstead

I have seen the odd 550 there, but i didnt speak to anyone with them. 360 modena's, Maranello's, 355's are pretty common there but they are always driven slowly to the point of being emabarasing.

The only Ferrari i have seen driven properly there is Gareth Lloyd in his F40. Then again, Garath has won his class in the 24hr race so knows the track like the back of his hand, plus he is an incredible driver!

Fuzz

What was that camper van all about !! bike rack and everything LOL.

looked like it got a little out of shape coming up to one of the corners but hell you expect to have to fight it occasionally when pushing hard.

good driving, nice to see you pass everybody

Andy

ripmaze

I saw a GT2 there which sounded stunning when he floored it (only in a straight line) but he'd go round corners very gently indeed. Always entertaining to see some 10-yr-old Golf/Beemer being hammered round by a 'ring local quicker than an 80 grand super car.

CrisPDuk

John/uxg, I seem to recall that the lap record is in the mid 6's it was set by Derek Bell in a GpC Porsche 956 in the mid eighties.
IIRC He wasn't racing at the time, he had a video camera in the passenger seat remember how big/heavy they were back then) and was filming a Porsche publicity movie, I believe he also did the running commentary whilst driving, rather than dubbing it on afterwards.

Derek Bell- Driving God or Nutter, or both?

uxg

6.30 WOW . That is fast. Anyone know the record for a production car?

Mossman

Production car is around 7.30mins I think ?? Caterham R500? The other "records" which are not officially production cars are the Blitz Supra, and now the Techart Porsche GT3 and the Gemballa Porsche?! They were featured in EVO a while back and they looked absolutely AWESOME!!!!

scooby nutter

56k modem!!

Bugger

ripmaze

According to http://www.nurburgring.de/?rubrik=rekorde&lang=eng the fastest lap was by Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956 (group C as mentioned above) in 6min 11sec 130 (average speed 202.073 km/h ) - way back in 1983. I don't think anyone's gone quicker as modern racing cars run too low and it's too long to marshall safely.

I think a GT2 is one of the fastest cars which is definitely a production car - things get a bit grey with Gemballa and Ruf "modified" 911s I reckon.

Worth a read: http://www.oppositelock.freeserve.co.uk/wr.html about a lap with Walter Röhrl in a GT2

johnfelstead

great piece of writing. It was a GT3 by the way!

Fuzz

Scooby nutter,
I had to leave my pc on all night chuntering away just to download the helmet cam vid. I think I'd better pass on the others, **** to this 56k lark.

Andy

ripmaze

Oh yeah! I always get the two confused - especially when deciding which one to drive to work in