91 replies to this topic

[Richard T]

What's the story with that Opel Manta? Is it an original spec or was it modified to modern standards?

It's been doing this race since Jesus was a lad. However I don't think that much of the car is in its original shape anymore 

[V8 Fireworks]

Thanks for the links OP! 

[KTownDevil]

Half track wet, the other bone dry 

 

Best race of the year 

[Andy35]

The SCG 003c is quite low.  Will be interesting to see how it does. They are wanting $2.5m for the road car version so it has to do well against the SP9 GT3 guys.

 

Andy

[Richard T]

If anyone missed it, here is the stream with RLM on top  

 

[TimRTC]

Free, live stream, available worldwide and able to pause and rewind at will. Why can't more racing series do it like this?

[Jeeves]

Vodafone stream (up to 1080p): https://www.youtube....h?v=0gea-66qvh0

[TimRTC]

Wow 20 minute break in actual race coverage. And people complain about start replays in F1!

[Andy35]

Oh no, the H yundai Veloster has crashed.

 

Not many race series can you say that sort of thing.

 

I hope the yummy mummy driving it, and her 3 children will still get to school on time.  

 

Now about 3 other cars have crashed.

 

Not even dark yet.

 

Andy

Edited by Andy35, 16 May 2015 - 19:10.

[Kerch]

Radar says there might be some rain in 80 minutes time. Only light though. 

[Jeeves]

Seems like light, sporadic showers are what we're going to get in terms of rain this year. Good chance of some mist during the early morning though, with the kind of chilly temperatures (3-4 C) predicted for the night.

 

Here's hoping Nick Daman will team up with 'The Haven' for the night shift. If this happens and if last year's Spa 24 is of any indication what's to follow, expect some proper comedy gold. 

Edited by Jeeves, 16 May 2015 - 19:33.

[TimRTC]

I love the really old school style of commentary in that the commentators get only a small amount of information and have to work out what is going on from lap charts and TV coverage that seems to miss a lot of important things in favour for shots of bonfires.

[Andy35]

I love the really old school style of commentary in that the commentators get only a small amount of information and have to work out what is going on from lap charts and TV coverage that seems to miss a lot of important things in favour for shots of bonfires.

 

Yes they do a very good job, it cannot be easy for all that time.

 

I'd loved to hear Murray Walker do a full 24 hours commentary when he was younger . Would be classic.       Guest commentators would be Tiff Needell  and Chris Evans. 

 

Andy

[Andy35]

oh dear, the Audi TT has gone pop.  

[Andy35]

One of the drivers of that Audi  is called Rod Salmon.  If his wife was called Annette that would be classic.  Fishing wise.

 

Rod and Annette Salmon....    

[Jeeves]

Loving the driver monitoring graphs. There's a person driving the #75 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, in the traffic, in the dark, can barely see a thing, heart rate ~140 bpm, brain function 0-7%. Comes to a scene of a crash with a bunch of recovery vehicles on track, bpm stays the same, brain function % rises to just over 20. 

 

Slightly off calibration or some proper racing driver material?

[Andy35]

Loving the driver monitoring graphs. There's a person driving the #75 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, in the traffic, in the dark, can barely see a thing, heart rate ~140 bpm, brain function 0-7%. Comes to a scene of a crash with a bunch of recovery vehicles on track, bpm stays the same, brain function % rises to just over 20. 

 

Slightly off calibration or some proper racing driver material?

 

Sounds like bollocks to me to be honest.  What does it tell you? Before it was less than 10% and during 20%  .. so 80% of the time he was still being a zombie...

 

I can understand how they measure bpm what actually is "brain function" ?

 

Pah

[Jeeves]

Sounds like bollocks to me to be honest.  What does it tell you? Before it was less than 10% and during 20%  .. so 80% of the time he was still being a zombie...

 

I can understand how they measure bpm what actually is "brain function" ?

 

Pah

 

Maybe it's not all that serious.

[ikarus280]

A driver just said on German TV that the entire stretch from Fuchsröhre to Hohe Acht (http://upload.wikime...rgring-2013.svg) is full of debris. 

[TimRTC]

There has certainly been a dramatic crash or two - pity the race bafflingly doesn't have any proper TV coverage over night. Hopefully giving the increasing interest in watching and following the race online, they will cover it more thoroughly throughout next year.

 

Thank goodness for social media - https://twitter.com/...693935322214400

[August]

#1 Audi crashed from lead at Pflanzgarten. Mamerow taken to hospital, talked to the crew, OK according to @Audi__Sport.

[Exb]

Grrr, I really should be sleeping but instead I'm watching a stream of a dark track and the occasional glimpse of a car. Why can't I switch the race off

[Jeeves]

How are they doing the speed limit?  Is it automatically triggered or a push button in the cockpit? 

 

According to Guy Smith, Bentley uses a pit speed limiter button for the speed limit zones. They don't use a flick switch, so it's required to keep the button pressed during the entire zone. 

[silense]

There has certainly been a dramatic crash or two - pity the race bafflingly doesn't have any proper TV coverage over night. Hopefully giving the increasing interest in watching and following the race online, they will cover it more thoroughly throughout next year.

 

Thank goodness for social media - https://twitter.com/...693935322214400

 

Problem is that Helicopters aren't allowed to fly during the night (because of residents, noise..) and therefore can't provide more coverage of the track. Furthermore the helicopters are used to transmit signal of other trackside cameras. That's why they only show the start/finish straight at night. Increased interest sadly won't change that, I'm afraid.

[Gyno]

Problem is that Helicopters aren't allowed to fly during the night (because of residents, noise..) and therefore can't provide more coverage of the track. Furthermore the helicopters are used to transmit signal of other trackside cameras. That's why they only show the start/finish straight at night. Increased interest sadly won't change that, I'm afraid.

 

 

 

 

Vodafone have 4 antennas around the track and they can broadcast incar footage live.

Sadly they only have 4 cars fitted with their incar cameras and 2 of them are out.

 

But they showed incar footage all through the night and they could probably broadcast footage from track side cameras through their antennas in the future.

[OvDrone]

Congratulations to WRT on that fine win. Great damn job.

 

Also big thumbs up for MarcVDS and Falken Motorsport. Entertaining first 24 Hours of Nurburgring for me. Will surely tune in again next year and with way more attention and hype.

 

My moment of the race was the misgivings of that three wheeled Mercedes.

 

And again, my god, what a circuit.

 

Btw: for anyone of interest there is an hour and a half to go over at the ELMS 3 hours of Imola race if you want one last endurance racing fix for this Sunday.

[Gyno]

New reccord on closest race finish.

 

Last year missed the first 4 hours but watched the last 20 hours, great stuff.

This year managed only 15 hours, Alot more interesting to watch then the boring F1 races.

Time just flies by, atleast the last 5 hours went faster then a F1 race for me.

 

The Vodafone stream with the 3 british blokes were great.

[Gilles4Ever]

To be unpopular.

 

To me there was something very wrong with the whole concept, the speed of the GT3 cars vs the slowness of some of the cars, the speed limits on a race track it is all just wrong. The GT3 cars don't belong in this field, in this race, at this track.

 

Don't get me wrong, GT3 is currently one of, if not the, most exciting categories in motorsport for me but if doesn't fit with the rest of the field at this event. I love the class, I love the track (minus the speed limits), I love this event, but all 3 together just doesn't work for me.

[Gyno]

They should maybe remove the slowest class and get more GT3 cars in it.

Same thing with the Le Mans 24hr, more LMP1 cars and get rid of the slowest group of cars.

[Gilles4Ever]

The slowest class is probably what this race is/was all about, the race probably means the most to those competitors and has been that way for years.

[balmybaldwin]

Problem is that Helicopters aren't allowed to fly during the night (because of residents, noise..) and therefore can't provide more coverage of the track. Furthermore the helicopters are used to transmit signal of other trackside cameras. That's why they only show the start/finish straight at night. Increased interest sadly won't change that, I'm afraid.

 

Drones could be used instead in the very near future.  Much quieter than a proper choper, but would only be able to be used to retransmit trackside cameras as they couldn't keep up with the cars

[Gyno]

Drones could be used instead in the very near future.  Much quieter than a proper choper, but would only be able to be used to retransmit trackside cameras as they couldn't keep up with the cars

Well there is no need for helicopters if they use antennas like Vodafone did.

 

4 big antennas that broadcast live incar footage from around the track, they can broadcast trackside cameras through them aswell, and probably will do so in the future.

 

Drones will only stay up in the air for a good 10 min at a charge.

[Gyno]

The slowest class is probably what this race is/was all about, the race probably means the most to those competitors and has been that way for years.

 

Yeah you are probably right.

That Opel Manta was the car of the race and would love to see more of them in there.

[ikarus280]

When the race was in a crisis and revived by allowing more types of cars, this is what actually raced:

 

 

[TimRTC]

To be unpopular.

 

To me there was something very wrong with the whole concept, the speed of the GT3 cars vs the slowness of some of the cars, the speed limits on a race track it is all just wrong. The GT3 cars don't belong in this field, in this race, at this track.

 

Don't get me wrong, GT3 is currently one of, if not the, most exciting categories in motorsport for me but if doesn't fit with the rest of the field at this event. I love the class, I love the track (minus the speed limits), I love this event, but all 3 together just doesn't work for me.

 

 

The slowest class is probably what this race is/was all about, the race probably means the most to those competitors and has been that way for years.

 

While the slower classes is where the bulk of the competitors are, the live TV and good media coverage comes from the inclusion of the faster factory GT3 cars - remove the slower ones and you lose the spirit of the race, remove the modern Audis and BMWs and you lose a lot of the publicity.

 

I didn't see anything wrong with the race as it was - no different to LMP vs. GT-Am in the WEC with the large speed differences.

 

The speed limits were obviously there for legal reasons, but they didn't overly affect the race given the fastest laps were faster than last year. Had they not mentioned it, I wouldn't even have noticed the speed limits. No worse than Macau having a permanent yellow flag zone IMHO.

 

[Myrvold]

But the fact that there used to be up to 250 cars racing, and now down to 160, and falling for each year, is to be a sign that the GT3-cars comes at a great cost.

[TimRTC]

But the fact that there used to be up to 250 cars racing, and now down to 160, and falling for each year, is to be a sign that the GT3-cars comes at a great cost.

Do we know that these are related, or is the financial cruch in Middle Europe hitting people hard?

If anything having more high profile cars in a series can often attract more entries.

[Myrvold]

Do we know that these are related, or is the financial cruch in Middle Europe hitting people hard?

If anything having more high profile cars in a series can often attract more entries.

What I got told from a good friend who built a car for the whole VLN championship, the classes with the slower cars, are gone, due to the extreme speed difference involved. At the same time, with the factory GT3 efforts, the costs have become higher. Those combined makes it hard for the guys who does it for fun, to both move up to a class still being used, and find the money to drive.

We (me, my friend, a couple of others) had a plan to enter the VLN-champ two years ago, we had found a class where our car could run, we were in talks with a school, to use the mechanic-students to build the car, and go along with us to some of the races. To give them some experience for the future. But that didn't work out. Who knows. The costs might've gotten just as high without the GT3-boom. But I don't think so.

What I found charming with the event before, was that we could be a group of friends from Norway, having a school build a car, and work with us, go down, and have some fun - while at the same time not be a bunch of "weirdos" while racing in the same race as Pedro Lamy.

[OSX]

Nurburgring 24 Hours: Audi Defeats BMW by 40 Seconds for Win
17 May 2015

 

 

Audi's R8 LMS won on its 24-hour race debut as Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Laurens Vanthoor and Nico Muller took victory by 40.729s after an incident-packed Nurburgring 24 Hours.

 

BMWs entered by Marc VDS and Team Schubert dominated qualifying and set the early pace but fell victim to accidents both on track and in the pits.

 

Martin Tomczyk went from the second row to lead the opening stint in his Team Schubert Z4, but that car was an early casualty when Claudia Hurtgen crashed it during the first of many showers of rain. Dirk Werner hit the barriers in the sister car shortly before midnight.

 

Full Report: Autosport.com/news/report.php/id/119021
 

[TF110]

Really good in the beginning, but then lead challengers crashed out and it was a snooze. During the night there was little following of the action, and with the front runners dropping like flies, the morning was sparse. I think factory cars should be dropped. They can provide support, but its always nice to see the little guys be able to win.

[BellisEndis]

Well there is no need for helicopters if they use antennas like Vodafone did.

 

4 big antennas that broadcast live incar footage from around the track, they can broadcast trackside cameras through them aswell, and probably will do so in the future.

 

Drones will only stay up in the air for a good 10 min at a charge.

 

 

Wasn't vodaphones incars done via 4g, doubt it would be cost effective for the a lot of cars to run unless you have a telecomunications company cover the bill

 

http://featured-n24h.de/

 

 

For this world premiere our technicians have equipped a drone and four race cars with up to eight SIM cards that will broadcast live video directly from the track. The networked vehicles include a Porsche 911, a Mercedes Benz SLS, a Lexus IS - F and a VW Scirocco driven by Fanta four- legend Smudo.

[Gyno]

Wasn't vodaphones incars done via 4g, doubt it would be cost effective for the a lot of cars to run unless you have a telecomunications company cover the bill

 

http://featured-n24h.de/

Yeah they had 4g network covering the entire track.

 

I guess next year they will be in most of the cars, as for cost effective, how much does it cost to have helicopters up in the air just to broadcast a signal?

With this technology there is no need for annoying helicopters flying all over the place and ruin the atmosphere.

 

All that is needed to have a device attached to the camera that is connected to the 4g network.

Shouldn't really cost that much more as the thing that send that signal to the helicopters costs probably alot more.

Also they save tons of fuel when there is no need to have helicopters up in the air.