Lotus Elise - One of the best experiences of my life!

Maxx · Post by **Maxx** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 5:07 pm

I rarely (read never) upload stuff to YouTube but I had to upload something for a couple of buddies which I then posted on a forum. I thought it was a bit naf but some folks liked it so I posted a few more. They are not exactly Big Power but thought i'd share them with you guys anyway.

This first one is a video I took Friday when I was asked to do a couple of passenger laps at Rockingham for some business people who had been over for a meeting. (I work as an instructor at Rockingham)

It was all last minute but decided, as I had my mobibox and bulletcam in the car I'd strap the bulletcam to my helmet and see how it came out. I did a couple of sighting laps which turned out OK on video but by the time the guests got in the camera battery pack was running low so picture gets all screwy gives like an excessive Gamma, almost negative like image.

The circuit is Rockingham National, the previous 2 days the track had been used by Suzuki for bikes and there was a LOT of bike rubber down in odd places (Bikes use different lines), also it was raining so the track was very slippy.

To understand the title of this thread you really need to watch all the video to the end, it's only 4:30.

YOUTUBE LINK

Essentially this next one is a short (2m39s) compilation from the next 2 guests passenger. I used the "Invert" effect in Enhance Movie and the exterior now looks reasonable (grass looks green). Added a bit of music for continuity.

YOUTUBE LINK

The bulletcam was working ok on my sighting lap before taking the guests out so i've added a little G

Post by **Stuart** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:34 pm

The quality of the last video with the overlay of data was great. The first flying lap looked very quick.
Looks like a good bullet cam set up too, apart from the gamma-esque issues, but the comments from your lady passenger on the first video were priceless.

Nice to see you back on here as well Malcolm

Post by **Ben** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:58 pm

Is the steering input working in reverse ? ... great vids of a great drive.

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:38 pm

Looks very slippery in the first vid - mixture of chronic understeer and oversteer in one - dont you just love cold and wet tyres

Maxx · Post by **Maxx** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:04 am

Stuart,

stuartstaples wrote:The quality of the last video with the overlay of data was great. The first flying lap looked very quick.
Looks like a good bullet cam set up too, apart from the gamma-esque issues, but the comments from your lady passenger on the first video were priceless.

The gamma-esque issues were just that the battery pack for the bulletcam were low, i've had it before. THe really annoying thing was I had another pack I could have used but as the sighting lap vid came out OK I thought i'd be OK.

Yes, the first vid was the one I originally posted (in a Lotus forum), mainly just for that comment. I also loved the accent.

Nice to see you back on here as well Malcolm

I read the forums quite regularly but haven't posted for a while, has been quite a busy period for me. I like the community here and I shall have to try and get along to a trackday or meet sometime. I might pop along to the Time Attack event at Donington. I've spent some time working with Nadine in the 700bhp Viper, not on track driving, more on the drifting side, it's a hellishly difficult car to drift, or was in it's 2006 spec.

Malcolm

Maxx · Post by **Maxx** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:08 am

Ben,

murano3 wrote:Is the steering input working in reverse ? ... great vids of a great drive.

Thanks. It was actually quite nice driving in the wet as it makes the Lotus feel almost powerful

When you say steering working in reverse, do you mean the G-Force reading? It is the right way round BUT the DL1 actually stores it the wrong way round and I have to tweak the Trackvision config file to reverse it.
There are quite a lot of vids on the Trackvision site here : http://www.trackvision.net/gallery.php you'll see the DL1 ones are all reversed whereas the others are all correct.

Malcolm[/code]

Maxx · Post by **Maxx** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:17 am

Duncan,

dynamix wrote:Looks very slippery in the first vid - mixture of chronic understeer and oversteer in one - dont you just love cold and wet tyres

Yes, Rockingham is quite slippy in the wet anyway but what made it more tricky was that Suzuki (Bikes) had been there for the previous 2-3 days doing a lot of tack work and they had laid a lot of rubber down (you can actually see this really well on the early "negative" vids. Not only does it make things extra slippy but the bike lines are very different to car lines and driving the car lines produced vastly variable levels of grip in the corners.

The S2 Elise is very understeery anyway (see last vid) which is even worse in the wet. You either have to use the <cough> power or a scandi flick (didn't work in the v.slippy conditions) or there are a few points where you can get good lift off oversteer (Gracelands, the long left-hander).

The really nice thing about the National Circuit (for those of you that have driven the usual Int Long layout) is that it is much kinder on brakes, you don't get the 2 big braking zones onto and off the oval. Also, you get that extra very long right-hander which is a superb corner.

Malcolm