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Showing posts with label Motorsport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motorsport. Show all posts

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Over the Other Side

Last night I had the opportunity to take my partner, Lori, and my daughter, Mikah, to the Perth Motorplex for the rescheduled Silver Cup and Demo Derby meeting, initially set to be run on Easter Sunday, the meeting was rescheduled after heavy rains prevented any chance of running the event on the original date. While I was there to watch and enjoy the racing, I couldn't resist the temptation to throw some long glass and a converter on the 1D-X, bump the ISO way way up and see what I could do, so here are a few of those photos.


Canon EOS-1D X - 1/250 @ f/8, 560 mm (ISO 20000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D X - 1/250 @ f/8, 510 mm (ISO 20000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D X - 1/250 @ f/8, 475 mm (ISO 20000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D X - 1/250 @ f/8, 500 mm (ISO 16000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia

Thursday, March 31, 2016

2016 Good Friday Burnouts

I'm sorting through the photos from the 2016 Good Friday Burnout King at Perth Motorplex this week, so here are a few teaser shots. This years event was an opportunity for entrants to secure invites to both the Red Centre Nats and the Masters at Summernats, which tempted several east coast cars to come and play.













Saturday, November 30, 2013

2013 Nitro and Fire at Perth Motorplex

We're now 3 meetings in to the Perth Motorplex's 2013/2014 season, and we have our first taste of Nitro Funny Car for the season this weekend. Mark Sheehan and Anthony Begley are match racing in their fuel floppers, with Andy Beauchimen and Pieter De Witt supporting them in their Jet Dragsters and a full field of Group 2 and 3 racing.


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1250 @ f/6.3, 285 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1000 @ f/5.6, 340 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/2000 @ f/5.6, 400 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/1000 @ f/5.6, 250 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/800 @ f/5.6, 300 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/400 @ f/5.6, 340 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/640 @ f/5.6, 285 mm (ISO 1600)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/400 @ f/5.6, 250 mm (ISO 2000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/250 @ f/5.6, 285 mm (ISO 2000)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia


Canon EOS-1D Mark III - 1/100 @ f/5.6, 400 mm (ISO 2500)
Approximate location: Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach, Western Australia

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

More ReplayXD Videos

Over the last couple of weeks, I've done a bit more experimentation with the ReplayXD 1080 and the Camzilla mount. I've put it on a few mates cars while they've been out having some fun, and I've set it up as a fixed camera and made a time lapse video as well.


This first video was the first time I fitted the camera to the outside of a car competing in a motorsport event. This is Franz Esterbauer's Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 MR, and he's competing in the first round of the McRae Motorsports Twilight Rallysprint Series, held at the Perth Motorplex. Franz has always done pretty well at these events, and this run was no exception, Franz's quickest run of the night, it was also good enough to help him win the event. The experimentation side of things, saw me running the camera with an exposed microphone opening, which I have since realised was not such a good idea, and as a result, I've had to overdub this video with some music to hide the deathly silence left behind after I muted the sound from the ReplayXD the instant Franz leaves the start line. If you want an idea of how bad the wind noise was, watch the video to the very end, as I left the original audio intact as Franz drives off from the stop control.


The next video we have today is from Gerrin Good's 'TYAFRYA' burnout car. TYAFRYA is a methanol fueled Ford XE Falcon, and Gerrin's certainly not afraid to swing the big ol' girl around on the burnout pad. For this video, I had covered the microphone opening with a small sticker, supplied by ReplayXD with the camera for that purpose, I also turned down the microphone gain to 25db to see if that helped. As you will pick up while watching the video, there are still some noise issues with this setup, either wind noise or the sticker vibrating.


For the next attempt, I replaced the flimsy sticker with some good old race tape and fixed the ReplayXD 1080 to the side of Nathan Hollis' "TANK" burnout Sigma. This is where I'd wanted to put the camera on Gerrin's car too, as you get a good view of the drivers hands during the burnout (and while that looked good on Franz's car, it works even better on a burnout car), however, TYAFRYA has stickers on the rear windows, and that causes some issues with the suction cups on the Camzilla clamp. As you will notice in the video, there's still some wind noise or vibration issues, but they seem to be getting a bit better.


The final clip for this blog post, is a time lapse video that I shot with the ReplayXD 1080 and Camzilla rig at the Perth Motorplex's December 2011 round of the Australian Top Fuel Championship. I mounted the camera to the glass inside race control, and set the ReplayXD to shoot 1 shot every 3 seconds. The camera managed to fill it's 4 gigabyte card in around 2.5 hours, and I resized, cropped and compiled the results into the video above.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Pre Season Test'n'Tune Season

Over the last couple of weeks, I've had the privilege of attending 3 private track hires at the Perth Motorplex. These are events for a very small number of cars (usually 10 - 15 cars at the most), all ANDRA licensed cars and also usually full of very keen racers, as the cost of hiring the track for one of these days is around $6000.



The first of these events I attended this season was organised by Maurice Brennan, a local Top Comp competitor, set on a path that will take him to Top Doorslammer competition when the time is right. Maurice had hired the track to test his Holden Commodore based Doorslammer, and to help keep the costs of the day down, he'd invited along a few other racers, including John Napier, in a new alcohol burning Funny Car, Rob Pilkington and Russell Ladbrook, also in Funny Cars, Rob Youngs, licensing a new altered and former Speedway racer Pino Priolo licensing his new Doorslammer, which will be running in Top Comp this season. While Maurice's day probably could have gone a little better, blowing the doors off his own race car on his second pass of the day, the rest of the day ran very well and all the racers present showed a lot of promise for the upcoming season.



The following weekend, Kevin Hort had hired the track to test his Holden Monaro Super Sedan and also to give son Ethan some time behind the wheel of Kevin's previous drive, the Holden ute he'd previously campaigned in Super Sedan. Unfortunately, mechanical issues kept Kevin off the track on the day, but Ethan certainly made sure he had all the fun his dad was missing out on, running a best time of 10.23 seconds on his last pass of the day. The ute will now be backed down a little, in order to run Super Street legal times, and Ethan is planning on running a full season in Super Street this season. Other drivers present on the day included Paige Gavin, who was making progress towards her A/JD license, Steve Yozzi in his Supercharged Outlaw BMW, George Separovich in John Faraone's wild Charger, George Kontarinis in his turbocharged Camaro and Gail Rowles and Lisa Powell both making licensing passes in cars usually driven by their partners.



Today's track hire was organised by Street Torque, from Maddington, who had hired the track on behalf of some of their customers. Spicing up the mix a little, were a number of regular National Open competitors including Dan Mitchell, Phil Purser, Adam Croker, Marty Dack and Matt Treasure. In an unfortunate twist, shortly after Phil Purser had completed his first pass after a roll over late last season, Dan Mitchell made contact with the right hand track wall, turned left and put the car on it's roof, before contacting the left side track wall and sliding most of the way to the finish line.

Dan Mitchell sliding down the trackAfter that rather unfortunate start to the day, things could only really pick up, and they certainly did that, with Matt Treasure taking to the track in Allan and Cheryl Greene's Greene Machine Nitro Funny Car. Matt has previous driving experience in blown alcohol Top Comp cars, including an angry altered and a very quick funny car, and took to the Nitro Funny Car experience like he'd been doing it all his career. After proving himself in the burnout and over the shorter distances as required by ANDRA, Matt was given the opportunity to make a full pass at the close of the test session, and he didn't disappoint with a 5.55 second pass setting him on his way to completing his licensing requirements tomorrow. ANDRA requires that Nitro Funny Car drivers complete their licensing on two separate days, in order to prove their abilities with changing weather and track conditions, and the Greene Machine team have taken the opportunity to start their licensing at today's private hire and will attempt to complete their obligations at tomorrows public Test'n'Tune, again at the Perth Motorplex.



Over 120 teams have nominated for the official pre-season test and tune, with several more expected to nominate tomorrow at the track. Entry is only $25 per adult, and the cars and bikes will be on track from 11am to 5pm.

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