IndyCar 2007 Video

The finished Indy Car video is now on Youtube.

I played it much looser with this video, just throwing shots against the wall and seeing which ones got soaked up by the music and which ones didn’t seem to fit. The ending happens a bit quickly, but that’s okay I’m happy with the final routcome. I’ll post some frames from the HD version later.

NASCAR 2007 Video

I bought my Canon digital camcorder for many reasons, but the NASCAR race at Infineon was high on the list of stuff that I wanted to film. So when this year’s Toyota/Savemart 350 came around, I didn’t pull any punches. I visited the racetrack ahead of time to look at the preparations, camped out near my old apartment to film the arrival of the team trucks, hung out at the Speed stage for quite a while and aimed my lense at the garage area for such a long time that I had to sit out the next day because of a really bad sunburn. All in all, I filmed over 5 hours of video, and I had fun doing it.

Because of Lair crunch time and other projects it took me a while to edit all that footage into a movie, but it’s finally done (enough) to show to the world. So I proudly present my first Youtube video! NASCAR at Infineon Raceway – Matt’s documentary montage. I hope you enjoy it

As it naturally is with Youtube, the quality of the clip is very crappy. The source video is 1920×1080, but I had to render out a 320×240 version (which Youtube then compressed the hell out of). I’d post the full video, but can’t really do that for bandwidth reasons. To give you an idea of the quality difference, here’s two still frames of the “real” movie:

I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. Some of the shots are too shaky (and I didn’t bother stabilizing them in post), but I feel that the edit (and how it plays with the music) is professional quality. The camera just happened to be consumer I might do another video at a later point – with 5 hours of raw footage, I wasn’t able to put close to all the shots in this one video that I wanted to use.

Drag Racing!

We went to the FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals in Sonoma today and shot some video. Most of the actual runs didn’t come out too well because the ground was shaking too much as the cars were running by But the burnouts worked out nicely. These cars create 7000(!) horsepower and cover a 1/4 mile distance (400 meters) in less than 5 seconds! That means accelerating to over 330mph (over 500 kilometers) and then braking back down per chute in less than 10 seconds. That’s pretty incredible once you really wrap your head around it.

Download video 1 (20mb) Right-click and “Save Target As”.
Download video 2 (10mb) Right-click and “Save Target As”.

Both videos are 1920×1080 resolution in WMV format. Beware, the videos are louder than your typical TV coverage! I watched the TV version afterwards and it was nice and all, but their sound never quite matches up to the real thing.

Toyota/Savemart 350

Of course Victoria, Michael (her dad) and I went to the NASCAR race this year. In fact, I recorded 5 hours(!) of video from that entire week, waiting to be edited into a mini documentary of the race and what it does to the Sonoma area.

I just haven’t found time yet to really dig into the video – but hey, here is one frame! I’m trying to get back to blogging regularly, there should be more on the race later.

AMA Superbike Race

Victoria and I went to the AMA Superbike race at Sears Point on Sunday. We spent a good 5 hours walking the track, sitting in the sun, and watching the races. Here’s some pictures from the winner’s circle!

I hadn’t followed the AMA circuit before going to the race, so I had to make sense first of who was who and why this or that matchup were intruiging. Spies? Mladin? Didn’t really ring a bell until I watched the SPEED coverage afterwards. But that’s what I love about living close to the racetrack: we get four major national events each year (AMA, NASCAR, NHRA and Indy), and it’s so easy to say “You know what? I bet that riding this track at over 100MPH – on motorcycles! – must be quite a sight to see. Let’s go, it’s not that expensive.” So we did. And we had a great time. And now I know a little bit more about the Superbike competition

I also recorded over 50 minutes of video on my camera. You can download a clip of Sunday’s Superbike start. It’s 18MB, DiVX encoded. The video is 1920×1080 resolution and pretty damn cool, but unfortunately the bikes ghost quite a bit. Too bad, but such are the restrictions of the HDV format.

Open Wheel Racing

The IRL is returning to Infineon Raceway in 2007, and Michael Schuhmacher ends his career today. Oh, and I’m watching the NASCAR race, so it’s time to update with some racing stuff! At this year’s IRL race, there was an exhibition of classic Formula 1 cars with some cool entries. Here’s the Ferrari 312 T-2, the car in which Niki Lauda raced to the chanpionship in 1976/77. There’s also an exhibit description for the car, and Wikipedia has a picture of Niki driving the car.

I don’t remember the cars above (I was born in 76), but I sure remember the Formula 1 races of the early 80s. Niki Lauda, Alain Prost in their red-white Malboro McLarens. The second image shows one of the early versions, the McLaren M-30 that Alain Prost was driving in 1980. Doesn’t look like he had much success back then, but of course that would change in 1984-87.

Where’s the bodyguards?

Poor Brian Vickers. He gets his first win, something that every NASCAR driver dreams of, and then the dream turns into a nightmare. He can’t even catch a break on Inside Nextel Cup (which was entertaining to say the least, though). Victoria might disagree, but come on – it’s racing and things happen. Get off your rabid Dale Jr. soapbox. End of story.

Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

Because it was so much fun for the NASCAR race, here’s my panorama shot of the Indy Car lineup this weekend. Once again beware, the full image is 14000×1420 pixels big and might take a second to load

More on the race later!

The Evil Pit Light

I just don’t get it. Everybody agrees that Kurt Busch got shafted by the pit light abruptly changing to red on Sunday. Not everybody might agree on whether he should have been given some leeway in the ruling or not, but what’s this discussion about how to fix the problem? “You shouldn’t be penalized when you’re committed to pitting! But wait, how do we decide when you’re committed?” – Put a second light further away from the pit entrance! That might work!” – “Etc. pp.

Am I missing something here? Just add a fricking yellow light phase and don’t abruptly go from green to red. Problem solved! Apparently the idea is so successful that they’ll start using it on all the major highways in the country soon. You know, so that you don’t run down 37 at 65mph and get shafted by the traffic light jumping to red when you’re ten feet away. “I’m sorry officer, but what was I supposed to do at that point? You gave me no warning!” I dunno, maybe I’m missing something…

Montoya And NASCAR

Well, this will be interesting. I grew up on Formula 1, and I grew tired of Formula 1 before Montoya even entered the circus. It just became so painfully obvious that in F1, races are never decided on the track – they’re decided in qualifying and on the pits. Nothing against a little pit strategy, but it’s almost like there’s “No Passing!” signs posted along the entire track. Oh, and as soon as two cars touch they fall apart and the drivers are out. Not all that much fun to watch, no?

So to see Montoya get into fulltime stock car racing (and NASCAR in particular) should be fun. Passing aplenty, bumping aplenty. Not enough road courses for my liking, but it sure will be interesting to see how that goes. In the meantime, I will watch the World Cup Final