What does it feel like to drive Mount Panorama?

Sadly, I can't tell you from personal experience but there is nothing like a properly mounted helmet camera to put you in the driver's seat.

You are riding with Christopher Mies in and Audi R8 LMS during the 2016 Liquid Moly Bathurst 12 Hour week end.  Turn up the volume.



The ideal placement for a POV camera is as close to eye level and as centered as possible but, unfortunately, there are no perfect mounting solutions out there at the moment.   There are accessories for other positions but, mounting the camera on the side of the helmet doesn't look right, on top is too high and on the chin bar,  too low.

The best spot for a POV camera is on top of the visor in the middle.    Marshall Pruett came up with this placement and method, aided by abundant gaffer's tape to produce the great POV videos that occasionally appear on Racer's web site.

Incredibly, nobody has yet stepped up with a proper mount for this location without having a big contraption sticking out from your helmet.  
I've used a modified version of Marshall's mounting technique involving 3M Dual Lock tape and the GoPro upside down to line up the lens  even more.   Obviously this is particular setup is adapter for a closed car where you might keep your visor open and not ideal if you need to close it.

Perhaps someone out there knows of a better way or might like to step up and design something that will work better because this IS the sweet spot for in car POV shots.

DTM's Day of Thunder.

The head of Audi Motorsport, Wolfgang Ullrich,  has been ordered to appear before the DMSB,   the the German Motorsport sanctioning body, to answer for his outburst heard on live TV during the last  DTM race at the Red Bull Ring:

"Schieb ihn raus!"

Push him out!...

Ulrich was apparently not too happy his driver Timo Scheider had just been tag teamed by Mercedes  teammates Pascal Wehrlein and Robert Wickens on the final lap.

Scheider obliges with Teutonic efficiency, he leans on the back of Wickens who bumps into Wehrlein, both Mercedes drivers ending up in the gravel trap.



Scheider was disqualified from the first race, with the results of the second race of the week end still provisional.

“I didn’t hear any instruction" Scheider is quoted after the race. " Robert braked so hard that I ran into him. That was racing on the edge, something like that can happen.”

For his part,  Herr Ullrich justified himself by claiming he was not aware his driver was hearing him at the time,  a notion anyone with even a minor knowledge of radio systems will find amusing:

“After the move by Mercedes, I was so upset and cried: ‘Push him off’. That was out of emotion and I want to apologize to Mercedes for this. I wasn’t aware that the radio was on at that time.”

The head of Mercedes DTM, Ulrich Fritz, shot back:

“It always takes two to tango. One who gives the instruction, that was clear for everyone to hear, and one who follows it. The whole thing had nothing to do with fair racing. We don’t want to see something like that in the DTM. The overtaking move prior to that was hard, but fair.”

Audi dirty tricks?  Say it ain't so,  it's not like they got disqualified before for being "clever", say like when Mathias Ekström while in Parc Ferme,  had his father pour a bottle of water into the pocket of his race suit  to help him  make weight....

And let's be honest,  this controversy is probably not hurting a series once know for muscular fender rubbing, door banging action.

Nice catch Dion!

We haven't posted a good onboard for some times now so  let's ride along with Dion Von Moltke in his Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 GTD during a dry practice for the Sahlen Six Hours of the Glen.  

Von Moltke with co drivers Christopher Haase and Bryce Miller placed third in class for the very wet race.

Check out the slide at the off camber turn 9.

Bathurst 12 Hour: Ferrari too fast, gets penalized for it.

The Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 had its best time taken away and 50 kilos of ballast added after setting a time faster than minimum time benchmark while qualifying for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour. Perhaps someone Australian can explain to us how that works and why a delta time system is used rather than  straight fastest time.

Postcard from the Nürburgring.

Earlier this month Markus Winkelhock drove the Audi R8 e-tron to a new electric vehicle lap record aroung the Nürburgring: 8 minutes and 9 seconds about the speed of a mid nineties Porsche GT2.

Audi crash at Le Mans

Audi R18 Ultra, Romain Dumas too impatient and pays the price. After ripping the whole front of the car with his bare hands, he made it back to the pits and Audi managed to fix the car in 27 minutes!

Anthony Davidson also crashed his Toyota, much like McNish last year, on the back of a Ferrari.

Ride in the Audi R18 e-tron at night.

Tom Kristensen, Audi R18 e-tron in third night qualifying for the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Want more? check out a night lap in the Corvette C6 ZR1 after the jump

Rings over the 'Ring.

Audi scored a 1-2 finish in an accident filled 40th edition of the ADAC 24H Rennen at the Nürburgring.

The guys at Radio LeMans made an excellent point sometime during their commentary: Endurance racing used to be something of a turtle vs hare deal, now all the cars a hares and hares that don't break down. 

What that means is that to win you have to drive 11/10th all the time and nobody can afford that little extra margin that traditionally was the characteristic of the endurance racer.  When you drive 11/10th, crashes will happen, especially when drivers are looking for any small hole through slower traffic.
Even the very experienced like Klaus Ludwig can get caught up



There were many accidents that were just plain stupid,  the most outrageous happened at the finish line on the last lap when a Renault Clio slammed into the back of the Manthay Porsche limping across the line. There was also a Cayman driver who completely missed the yellow flags for Bleekemolen's crash on the long straight and managed to spin himself into the aarmco right in front of all the safety workers.

Our friend Sergio Negroni's car was involved in a couple of shunts and he himself said it was the scariest 24 he has done so far.  Looking forward to hearing more about it.

In the mean time, hop after the jump for your super sized, desktop...heck, poster sized galley of R8 LMS awesomeness courtesy of Audi.

Audi dominates the dojo at Spa

Much like Kramer dominated the dojo in that Seinfeld episode, it was all about Audi....again...at the 2012 Six Hours of Spa. 

The only interest was the intramural fight between the "conventional" R18 Ultra and the R18 e-TRON hybrid 4wd. Hybrid lost. OK next.

In GT, an upset for Porsche who beat a whole squadron of Ferrari 458 on the strength of its performance in the wet part of the race.

Hybrid War will be postponed

The 2012 World Endurance Championship will be at Spa- Fracochamps Saturday but sadly it will likely be another Audi steamroll,  the Toyota TS030 having crashed testing a Paul Ricard and not ready to fight this week end in the Ardennes.

Challenging the Audi who will occupy the front two rows at the start will be the Lotus branded Lola Toyotas of Rebellion Racing.  You can cheer them on and watch a LIVE STREAM of the race HERE

As usual, I recommend Audio from Radiolemans

The Down Shift.

Somehow Motor Trend's YouTube channel had totally escaped me. My bad because this one, 2011 Best Driver's car, is a lot of fun.

Loved the part where they stand next to different corners at Laguna Seca though I wish they had delivered on video their promise to see how the different cars behaved. Liked the insight into the thought process involved and having Justin Bell's pro driver perspective vs Jonny Lieberman's pro journalist one.

I think you can all figure out ahead of time who the winner turned out to be but still, well worth your time if like me you had missed it.

A thought about the big Audi crash at Le Mans

Manufacturers have an opportunity to make a point relating to their consumer safety products. Blind spot detection system are now pretty standard, why not mandate an implementation of those systems for LMS GT cars. It could be as simple as two LED or , perhaps integrate a screen as a extra rear view mirror, like on the Ferrari FXX. In fact it could even have enhanced night vision... Just a thought.


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Audi surprise TT8 RS

Full gallery after the jump....

Nastyness seen in Milano this afternoon. Not positive what the Italian equivalent of ricer might be though I'm sure it involves risotto...

Perkele! Audi fail tosses Heikki in the wall as an Ühr rolls

a suspension failure on the Auri R8 LMS tosses Heikki Kovalainen into the barrier injuring his passenger and almost into Seb Loeb at today's Race of Champions in Dusseldorf. (Perkele? check here)



Speaking of Audi fails, ROC founder Michelle Mouton got behind the wheel of a priceless original Uhr Quattro and rolled it. Tough car, window did not even crack. Finally some excitement at the ROC!



More ROC videos after the jump.

The Champ vs the Gramps



The surprise winner was Felipe Albuquerque...who? I guess just like a few years ago, Heikki who?

Audi Fly By

I'm sure that got Jim's attention... good thing no Hippie liveried Interseries Caymans were harmed in the making of this video!



end of post

Hooning a Phantom

Given enough snow anything will go sideways, even a Rolls Royce Phantom...kinda.



But I think Axis had more fun last winter at the Monticello Motorsport Club... Check it out HERE and HERE



Home

When Men were Men and Sheep were Scared

What do you think it is that makes classic DTM so irresistible? After all, it's always pretty much the same footage, someone out there cuts it together in a new way and yet we cannot help but be mesmerized.

Is it the cars? The wild abandon with which they were driven? Or is it just good editing? Whatever the reason, we never tire looking at more and AFTER THE JUMP don't miss yet another great clip, complete with appropriate Deutsche Rock soundtrack, Axis Justin found for us.

Help us figure out what makes Classic DTM so impossible to ignore.




(clip by DTMenthusiast)

When the Stig went rallying

The real Stig that is... Blomqvist. Look at that beast, the car that changed rallying forever looks like it was designed by a steampunk Spongebob Squarepants. Water cooled brakes? that's pure truck technology right there.

And here is the rest of it.

Somewhere on I-95, July 11. By AC




And here is the rest of it.

More Nürburgring 24 hr Rennen clips

Sit beck relax and enjoy, you can never have too much of this!

Here are the first 10 minutes. more after the jump.




( the cheesy music was likely on the original broadcast...)