MLRC Forum - Print Page

MLRC Forum
https://www.mlrc.ca/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl
General >> Rally >> Black Bear in-car from Car 4
https://www.mlrc.ca/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1342474797

Message started by RyanHuber on 07/16/12 at 16:39:57

Title: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/16/12 at 16:39:57

Here's our video from stage 1 at Black Bear. We went hard on this stage, not wanting to lose too much time to Chris and Alan. This stage starts out super fast for 4km before turning onto a much tighter section of road.

We'd made the decision before the rally to attack over the rough stuff, using the theory that at higher speed the tires just skip across the tops of the rocks which actually worked out quite well, thanks to our amazing RS&SP suspension! At no time did I feel I needed to slow down for rough sections of road, and the suspension compliance combined with my car's high ground clearance really served us well.

At 1:00 we had our first surprise as what we'd noted as a "flat crest" turned out to in fact be a "massive jump!" At 6:49 we drove over part of a strut, which turned out to be off car 3, stopped at 7:10.

This stage is a personal highlight for me, as when we arrived at the start of stage 2 and compared times with the other teams, we discovered we'd won the stage by a significant margin, and none of our competitors had suffered serious mishaps. The notes flowed really well, the car handled amazingly, it all just clicked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrCFG9zSuMQ

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/16/12 at 17:08:30

At the start of stage 2, we knew that Chris and Alan would be upping their game to try to make back time on us. Again our plan was to keep the pace up over the rougher sections and let the suspension do its job.

At 0:31 I made a small mistake and ran wide on a deceptive left over crest, and then at 0:54 made the same mistake both John and I make every single time on this stage as drivers, brake WAY too early for the left junction onto Cross Rd. I was cursing myself there! At 2:50 there's a rocky uphill that on recce I didn't see a clean line. The only way was to just pound right up the middle! Again, I'm amazed what those RS&SP can take! At 3:05 I scared John a little, as I took the crest a little more to the right than I'd intended... At 3:20 it was bumpy enough that, for the first time ever, the car popped out of gear on its own. At 4:13 we passed Alan and Chris on the side of the road. At first we didn't know what had happened, until we saw their car on the left at 4:18...

After that, we made the decision to knock the pace and risk back by a notch or two. Shortly after we started to get into dust from Ian and Doug, who had stopped to assist car 1 for a couple minutes. At 5:22 we turn out onto the main Egan Creek road, at what is the start of the Tall Pines Peanut stage. From there on it's again super fast and flowing.

This stage was the turning point for our rally, and it became more about conserving our lead than trying to push at maximum pace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcOMnub4OLI

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by TomH on 07/17/12 at 17:05:35

Ryan, do you have your camera set on the default "center weight" or on spot?

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/17/12 at 17:12:28

Hi Tom, my Drift HD camera doesn't have an option for that, it just uses a centre weighted method, though it does have an option to stop the exposure down. I typically stop it down -2 stops for this, otherwise it blows out the exterior.

Edit: There's a new firmware for my camera out today that apparently speeds the transitions from light to dark areas, this may improve things inside the car, not sure.

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by TomH on 07/17/12 at 17:25:01

The reason I was asking is the detail on your dashboard is really good and I thought you had a Go Pro which recommends the spot setting for in car footage

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/17/12 at 17:44:00

Yeah, if the camera was centered out the windshield a spot setting would be best for sure. I really like the "feel" of the helmet cam, the view of the wheel and shifting etc, I just wish my head was a little lower and the camera wasn't up amongst the cage bars quite so much ;)

I'm working on a way to integrate the intercom audio from my other camera into these videos, I don't really like the idea of a cable attached to my head to record it directly to this cam. Sadly I only got the first two stages on the other camera.

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/17/12 at 18:35:54

Stage 3, the reverse of stage 1. We had two "moments" in this stage, the first at 2:41 where I suspect I misheard the note and the corner came up much faster and tighter than I was planning for, and we went wide in the left hander. The note worked for the second pass so I think it was me.

At 11:45 we had an interesting note, "keep right out over crest" as the inside line over this crest hides a nasty rock that blew and bent our right front strut at Tall Pines in 2010, forcing us to retire. I didn't want to be anywhere near it, but still had to keep right over the crest.

Our second moment was at 12:18. I need to point out that from the turn at 11:24 to the flying finish at 12:57, we cover 3.65km, for an average speed of 141km/h. Just before 12:18 I put the car in 6th gear. We're going FAST! And flat out into what I have noted as a "jump" and should have noted as a "super massive jump!". The car took it amazingly, no bounce despite bottoming all 4 corners at once! We won this stage by 40 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSqW19ngzcY

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/17/12 at 18:46:09

Stage 4, the repeat of stage 1. At this point we knew we had a decent lead over Ian, even though we expected him to get 2-3 minutes back with an inquiry for stopping in stage 2 to check on Chris and Alan. It wasn't enough of a lead to cover a flat tire, however.

At service we had noticed a gash in the sidewall of our right rear tire that worried us a little, so for this stage I was actively trying not to slide left hand corners if there were any rocks about. We didn't want to take too much risk of a flat, so our pace was off our stage 1 time by 23 seconds, but still won the stage by a comfortable 45 seconds. We also backed off over the big jump early, much to the chagrin I suspect of the photographers who had moved there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI1x9fMm6Yg

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/20/12 at 22:57:24

Stage 5, our second pass of the Peanut. Once again we were in conservation mode for this stage, and it caused some issues for me. When you think about it, it doesn't sound that hard to go slower, but in reality by backing off you risk loss of concentration, and it happened in this stage to me for sure.

At 2:12 there's what we noted as a 4R into turn 3L just past a cottage on the right. Going into this corner I over-rotated the car on the right hander and couldn't get it back for the left. Rather than try to save it, I locked it up and let the car half spin. Unfortunately in my haste to get going again I had a lot of trouble getting the car into reverse. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but it took going into first and then reverse to get it into gear. 15 seconds seems like an eternity when you're sitting in a cloud of your own dust!

At 6:54 a slight lapse in concentration meant I was slightly too hot into a fast left hander, passing Stangl Rd, and drifted out into the loose stuff. A little bit of pucker there, you can hear me apologize to John into the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQiByOk4y6g

Title: Re: Black Bear in-car from Car 4
Post by RyanHuber on 07/21/12 at 09:22:50

Stage 6, final stage of the rally, and we found out before the start that Ian had blown up his diff in the prior stage. We now had a very sizable lead. This stage was pure no-risk, no launch on the start, braking for everything, etc.

The video's very uneventful, at least until we turn back onto the main road near the end. John egged me on to go hard through this part again, to see how fast we could get up to across the finish. Despite slowing way down over the massive jump, we were 3 seconds faster from the turn to the FF (146km/h average), and John had a look over at the speedo as we crossed the line and it was buried past the 180 that it reads up to! Ross also thinks it may be the fastest anyone's gone past a flying finish where he was, and apparently we nearly killed the timing tripod...

We were over a minute slower overall on the stage than our previous pass, but it got us the result we wanted!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txJadM4wFr8