Right after the Mid Ohio ITFest, I decided to run the opposite way and do a weekend in Daytona. While I was at Mid Ohio we were talking about competition, and one of my friends said “you’re at the point where you’re going to have to search out competition to get better instead of just being complacent”. Made sense for me to go to Daytona and fight with some of the best that the SE had to offer

Daytona was awesome. I have a whole another level of respect for the NASCAR boys now. There are bumps on the banking. These make the car bounce up and down at 130mph and sort of feel odd. I couldn’t imagine this at 200 while side by side. Them boys have some brass balls. I’ve never been there before, and after missing the test day on Friday, I had to learn the track in my first qualifying session. Like in Mid Ohio, I picked up time every session, and ended up running very fast on Sunday, being the fastest in ITA.

I had a great time and a great race with Kip VanSteenburg. In the end, Daytona is a power track, and the ITS cars are much faster then we are in the straights. Unfortunately, they are slower in the turns. I got really f-ed by a couple of RX-7s during the races, to where they just parked it in front of me in the turns and I lost all my momentum. Once that happens at Daytona, the cars in front of you are GONE. Ended up losing to Kip on Saturday about a few seconds, and then on Sunday by 0.3 after a GREAT race. The 2 part race video from Sunday is below, enjoy!

Part 1
You can view the full HD footage by clicking here or just play the smaller embedded version below


Part 2
You can view the full HD footage by clicking here or just play the smaller embedded version below

I ran the IT Fest in Mid Ohio this year. The IT Fest is the mid year big Improved Touring race. Its a little more centrally located then the ARRC so its a little easier for the NE and the MidWest guys to make it here, rather then Road Atlanta. With the best of the best in Improved Touring, coupled with the fact that I’ve never driven at Mid Ohio, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy weekend. The ITFest is a 3 race weekend, with a qualifying session Saturday morning, and then a Saturday afternoon race, Sunday morning race, and a Sunday afternoon “feature” race.

I tested well, qualified ok, and ran pretty decent. I improved every session out, and finally got the hang of Mid Ohio, but I didn’t have enough to really “get it done”. Ended up finishing 5th in the 3 races, and 5th overall. The Sunday feature race though, was the most fun I’ve had in a race car so far. It was an absolute barn burner, and a battle for 40 minutes with two cars and great drivers from the Northeast. I learned a lot of racecraft and a lot about Mid Ohio during this race as well. I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Here are two videos of the Sunday Feature race. I tried to edit the footage down by removing all the times where I wasn’t passing someone or being passed, and it was still 20 minutes of video

Part 1
You can view the full HD footage by clicking here or just play the smaller embedded version below


Part 2
You can view the full HD footage by clicking here or just play the smaller embedded version below

Here is my 10 minute cut of the race.

Start on Pole and run the first lap. FFW through the 8 laps where Chris would bump draft me instead of going around me when I tried to let him by

Then he finally went around and let me follow for a few laps. The plan to pass with 1 to go worked perfectly, and then everything kinda turned into FAIL when Chris got brake and brain fade into 14 and smashed into me. Still went on to win the race though.

You can view the full HD footage by clicking here or just play the smaller embedded version below

I’ve been posting my youtube HD videos on some car forums and have gotten lots of positive comments regarding the video quality. Seems that most videos I come across are pretty poor, and mine have turned out quite well

I’ve tried multiple things with in-car video, and finally found something that worked well. I originally started out wanting HD and tried an Aiptek HD cam. While the video was ok, the exposure and sound sucked. Next I bought a super pimpy Canon HV-10 HD DV camera. 2 mounts, and 2 of those cameras later, I realized, my car just does NOT appreciate DV. Something about sounds/vibrations and the tape make for horrid video.

I then purchased on a wim, the Samsung SC-HMX10 HD Camera (refurbished). This camera does 720p 60fps video and is very light, which works well in the car. This is an older model, and there is the HMX20 that is out now, which has slightly better picture and more features, but is over 2x the price. Currently the HMX10 is still less then $300, while the HMX20 is close to $600, and after seeing my videos, its not like I need better picture quality

I’m currently using an IO Port mount on the down bars of the cage. In my first videos, I used a VS mount on the harness bar, but found the FOV too narrow. The VS mount is steadier then the IO Port though, so next time I might try the VS mount but with a wide angle adapter lens.

I also want some “rear view”, so I purchased a GoPro Motorsports Hero Wide camera. This will be used mounted on the trunk, pointing out the back. I screwed up and left the camera at home for VIR, but for the next event, I’ll have that footage. I’ll update this post once I’ve got that up and running.

Lastly, the overlay. I’ve been wanting to overlay my DL1 data on my videos, but there wasn’t a reasonable solution until now. ChaseCam came out with new software called DashWare. This software lets you take ANY data aq and overlay on top of your videos. You can use whatever video and whatever data aq you want. This software will allow you to sync, add their gauges, make your own gauges, whatever, and put out beautiful video ready for YouTube or higher quality if you want to edit further. You can download a free trial on their site to play with it.

For editing, for qualifying laps, I just use DashWare to cut out the excess on the front and back, synch with my data, and put out a 6MB/s 1280×720 h.264 video that I straight upload to YouTube. Probably 5-10 minutes worth of work, now that I made my own gauge template. For the race, I use the DashWare to sync the whole race, put out the same 6MB/s video, but then use Sony Vegas to cut out the boring parts, save it out same quality, and then throw on YouTube. That takes about 15 minutes or so. Of course the encoding on each of those takes an hour or so, but its not like I’m sitting at the computer during that time.

So in summary, what you see in this video here.

• Camera – Samsung SC-HMX10 (refurbished) – $250
• Mount – IO Port on roll cage down bars – $100
• Software – DashWare by ChaseCam – $150
• Editing – Sony Vegas – $80

You’d be hard pressed to beat my videos for $550 including the software. If you don’t have data aq or don’t want that overlay, its only $400 for HD quality in-car.