Sebring Video

[mohaughn]

Here is a video of me chasing a friend of mine around sebring. He is in a spec miata. It was his first day in his car on some worn out RA-1's, and I'm on some worn out Dirrezza star specs that were way to tall(245x45) for my car. Both of these cars run about 4-5 seconds faster on fresh r-comps, and no mistakes..

It was still a pretty decent lap until he surprised me by braking so early going into turn 15. I had a run on him coming out of turn 13 and was going to pass him in that upcoming section but was not expecting to have to avoid rear-ending him in that turn. I safely made the pass, but in paying attention to making sure I safely passed him, I forgot to downshift.

My camera doesn't really take well to vibrations so I had to run this through some video processing software to try and remove the shakiness, that is why there is some weird borders and "zooming" in the video.



I'm going through some of my other videos to find other good ones that I can de-shake. Probably post up some videos from PBIR and RRR.

[Will'sBimmer]

Cool man. That looks like fun. Nice track too. Nice pass by the way in that turn.

[cooljess76]

Damn those Miatas! J/K, I love spec Miata, those things are freakin awesome. Nice vid, I wasn't even counting the turns and when I saw him brake I was like "Whoa!!!" Nice save on your part and at least he let you pass on the inside. Looks like a lot of fun man. My old boss used to run in spec Miata and my neighbor has one that I wouldn't mind taking off his hands

BTW Sebring looks like a really nice track, nice and flat. We have Laguna Seca and Willow Springs out here, both are pretty hilly.

[1996 328ti]

The one and only time I drove Sebring was in 98 in my 4 cylinder.
Let me tell you, that track ain't fun with 138hp in a pack of BMWs.
And flat!

[mohaughn]

The previous lap a 2008 m-coupe with stage 2.5HPF turbo blew past us probably doing over 140mph..

The straightaways are long enough that no amount of high speed cornering or late braking will make up for a car with 140hp. I've got other video with high powered p-cars losing ground to me through turns 1 and 3, just to take off between turn 5 and 7, which is a short straight for Sebring. If you have the power, you can go slow through the corners, and still have a decent lap time.

I can take down less experienced drivers in high horsepower cars, but an experienced driver with 200hp+, in a car that isn't a boat, and they will take me out quick.. lap record in a spec miata is like 2:39 or 2:40. I'm still a good ways from that. A full blown SM should be a few hundred pounds lighter and 15-20HP more. You can see that his car out accelerates mine, but I was killing him on the braking. I don't think his motor is built out to the max of the rules.

This was my car with full AC system, and with the catalytic converter still on the car. I've probably dropped another 50 pounds since this video was taken, got rid of the cat, switched to an AFE drop in filter, and started running r888's. I clocked a 2:49 flat a few weeks ago without trying to hard.

[tiFreak]

wow, if that was less shaky than before I'd hate to see the original

looked pretty good other than that, kinda wish there were some tracks around where I live like that

[1996 328ti]

Originally Posted by tiFreak

wow, if that was less shaky than before I'd hate to see the original

looked pretty good other than that, kinda wish there were some tracks around where I live like that

NHIS?
Mosport?
Mont Tremblant?

[tiFreak]

too far to drive

[spidertri]

Awesome video and driving.

I always watch the ALMS 12 hours in January and the announcers always talk about how Sebring is a great shake down for the cars due to how bumpy the track is, now I can see why, lol.

Thanks for the vid, it's cool to see it from the driver's perspective.

[mohaughn]

This was taken back in February at PBIR. A track much more suited to my car. That porsche probably has 100hp+ over me. He gives me a point by at one point, and then drag races me, the next time around he gives me the point and lets me around him. Had it been a group that allows passing in corners I would have gone around him in one of the corners before the long straight.

[wolferj-RIP]

Very nice driving and great job cleaning the video...

I so need to organize a track day at Sears Point (Infineon)...

[XRSMat]

Good to see a Ti pass a porsche, You definitely had the advantage on him in turn's.

Drag race are for fast car's and circuit are for fast driver's !

[mohaughn]

Some more Porsche and Spec Miata fun at Sebring. Just taken over the weekend.




and this is one of the fastest laps I have in my car on video-

I timed this at 2:47.2 and thought it seemed a little fast. So I did a frame count from start to finish and it comes out to a 2:46.9. I'm starting to move into competitive spec miata territory. My friends car is down on power as he was struggling to get into the 2:48.9 range. On Saturday he was racing an ITA miata which should be a little faster than a spec miata and that cars fast lap was in the 2:44 range. So I will have some ground to make up once he gets his motor refreshed.

[mgbman69]

mohaughn, nice videos. Thanks for sharing!

[mohaughn]

No problem. I'm going to be getting an Aiptek GVS camera, so hopefully I will have much better video once that happens. I'm also going to be playing with some of the autofocus features on my current camera to see if I can get it to behave better. If you watch the raw video frame by frame you can tell that the camera is constantly adjusting focus to try and keep up with the bouncing in the car. I've watched other in-car footage and it will be bouncy, but if the focus stays fixed, it isn't as jittery as my video.

The post processing I'm doing to the video takes care of all of the bounciness, but what you end up with is video that is constantly going in and out of focus.

The one video you can see how quick the car can be in the corners, those p-cars pull a good distance on me, and between turn 1 and turn 3 I'm right back on his bumper. He is also way off line, so I'm not sure what they were doing as everybody in that group is very experienced.