VIC MSCA Haunted Hills Hillclimb at Morwell

Some more PICS

Yeah looks a track that would make you shit your pants in places..

It was fun seeing all the mix of cars attack the track. And well done to Pete and Pete for their times and effort on the day..

 

Great shots Mark, nice work panning with the moving cars.

Thanks for posting them.

 

Nice videos Pete. It might be worth having a go wrapping some packing foam or the like around the mic on your camera to dampen out some of the high pitch noise.

Great catch on the slip at the end too, seeing it there and on Mikeys video from outside the car youhad it well under control pretty quickly, it was worrying for a moment there watching it from the opposite hill though.

For those wondering why we keep going on about how terrifying it was, look at around 27 seconds in the last video. The point where you can't see any track at all has nothing to do with the camera position in Petes car, you really can't see the track at all.


Something I forgot to mention earlier too, huge thanks to Mikey and Jack who volunteered to marshall at a corner at the end of the day when the other marshalls had called it quits, if not for the Lotus going off it would have got us all one more run.

 

I need more practice.....

yeah this was the first time that I tried panning.... some shots came out good, some were still a little blury..... i think i have my shutter speeds and aperture ok but I need practice with my panning technique..

 

Once you get a bit more practice a slightly longer shutter speed will make them a bit more dramatic but it seems you have it pretty much under control.

The technique is pretty simple, pre-focus on the area you want to shoot if your camera will let you, follow the car through the lens, gently squeeze the stutter rather than pressing it (this prevents 'bouncey' looking blur) when the car is just about to reach the spot you want to shoot it and keep the smooth movement going until the shutter has closed again. Simple and easy are not the same though.

Looking at your shots it seems you are doing everything right, after that it is all just practice, you will start getting more and more than work out and also be able to use longer shutter speeds.

 

ok...

yeah i have experimented with pre-focusing on a part of the track, and then taking a single shot.... or putting the camera into high drive mode where it shoots many shots at high speeds.... that way I get more than one photo, and one of them is bound to be good...

the only trouble with my camera is that it cant zoom very far... its a Canon S50 powershot (5 megapixel) from a few years back... its essentially a slim version of the Canon G3, with a lot of features and total manual control (not just a point and shoot)..... but it has a small lense and hence I'm limited to 3x optical zoom....

Cheers

 

As long as you are not printing images your 5Mp image should be huge for displaying on a screen so you can get the same effect as a longer lens by keeping the subject in the centre if the frame and cropping in afterwards. It does mean you are looking at a pretty small part of the image in the view finder which can be a little tricky.

 

Beautiful pics Mark!!!

Nice motion shots, Ill have to give them a go since everyone else is doing them (Krausy)

Good range of interesting cars on the day, would have been a great event to watch.

Cheers!

Craig

 

It was great to watch. The boys did a really great job, and it really got me revved up for Sandown. :biggrin: Hoping the gtr is raring to go by then!

 

Well done, Peter... 2 seconds quicker each time you went out - huge improvements. But I have a question for you: Did you find the standard 3-point lap-sash belt provided sufficient body stability for you, or would you now consider fitting a racing (4-point) harness? Race seats?

 

The standard seat and seat belt was fine for this track, Sandown was a bit harder work but not too bad still, the tyres were going to lose grip long before it got too hard holding my position in the seat. Still, you are definitely putting in a bit of work to hold your position in the seat so a 4 point harness and wrap around racing seats would help but I don't think they would make a huge difference in normal driving unless you had grippier tyres, semi-slick or some such.

If you hit something on the other hand, it would probably make a huge difference.

 

Results are in!

 

Video is here!

As I've been on holidays, and just got back from a week in Port Douglas (you FNQ guys have a ripper place up there!) I finally found time to fix up this quick 5min video. I apologise in advance for my skills as it was my first time using a newly purchased video camera, and the output software I used on the computer seems to have wrecked the output ratio thus making everything look a bit squished.

Also be warned:
1/ It is a shade under 90Mb in size
2/ It is hosted at megaupload and I believe only 1 person can download it at a time. From what I believe this file will be hosted there for 90 days so it should be plenty of time to get it down.

Anyway, here is the link - CLICKY!!!

 

how do they organise the cars into the respective classes?

is it based on power/weight? how do modifications come into it?

 

From what I understand it is related to engine capacity & whether it is force fed (ie turbo) or not. Wykked / Peete Black / RZM are better qualified to comment further.

 

Engine capacity then multipliers for turbo/supercharging/rotary and other than that it is pretty much a free for all on modifications except forced induction on a car that doesn't have it from the factory moves you from marque to non-marque, engine swaps might be the same I think and there are some rules about tyre types, maybe.

http://www.camsmanual.com.au/

It's all in there somewhere.