27 replies to this topic

[tony]

I never thought I would say this....but here goes.

One of the most delightful and exciting things about attending a grand prix in person is hearing the engines. However, when in Montreal I recall seeing the local news and the residents who are not interested in F1 were seriously complaining about the noise. Many motorsports venues are locating in the sticks. In such locations sound is not a problem. But for some venues, Montreal, Monaco, Indy, etc...The noise is a problem for many residents. In fact I imagine the circuits must get special persmission from local politicians and police for violating noise polution laws. I started to thinking about sound control and perhaps it could be interesting. On certain circuits the cars would have to be inspected and not exceed a certain decibel rating. This could be just one more of the important tech innovations in F1. Imainge, the scenarios....'McLaren just developed a new active sound cancelling system....giving them a 20 horsepower advantage...much better than the Williams "supermuffler"....This could be interesting. Teams actively trying to reduce noise while not restricting engine performance.

[Clatter]

The sound those cars make is amazing and boy does it travel.

A few years ago I was circling Silverstone in a glider watching the testing and I could still hear the cars when I was nearly 6000 feet up.

[Dudley]

Brands Hatch's F1 plans were partly scuppered by the local residents. Brands has a very strict curfew. At the BTCC in april they had to cut a GT race to just 3 laps to fit it in.

[No27]

Here in the Netherlands, Zandvoort had allways much troubles with noise polution. At one stage in history, the gouvrenment forbid racing with open exhausts. This meant effectively that Formula 1 was not longer allowed at Zandvoort.

Well, even the most leftwing environment concious agreed this was just one step too far and they implemented the following solution. On annual basis five days can be picked on which the noise restriction doesn't count for a couple of hours a day. The days cannot be picked in the season the birds sit on their egs. The amount of hours is exactly what is needed for a couple of practices, a warming up and a race. The other two days it's purpose are for tyretesting.

The Netherlands are a fairly crowded country with, Monaco aside, the largest population per square kilometer in Europe. Even so, the Dutch are mostly a bunch of assertive people, you can't even put an extra window in your house without consulting the neighbourhood. So even in this climate Formula 1 racing is possible without noise restriction!

[logic]

I think one good solution for Max to reduse speed is to set desibel limits

[BARnone]

Originally posted by tony
However, when in Montreal I recall seeing the local news and the residents who are not interested in F1 were seriously complaining about the noise.

These are the same locals who don't mind the millions of tourist dollars pouring into to the city that week? The noise is not exactly a 24/7 thing either. The F1 cars are out on the track for a total of about 8 hours for the whole weekend.

BARnone.

[Locai]

I used to live about 10 miles from Atlanta Motor Speedway. On occasion I could (barely) hear cars doing testing there when I was outside. It had to be otherwise quiet to hear it, but I could make it out sometimes. I usually wasn't home much on race weekends (best to get out of town), but I would imagine that it would be much louder then.

I've noticed before that in some cases sound can travel a fairly long distance under the right circumstances. Growing up, we could sometimes hear the P.A. system from the neighboring town's high school football stadium. That had to be at least 10 miles away!

I have an uncle that lives in Speedway, Indiana. The just drag the TV outside on raceday and watch the race while they hear it. Sounds like a great idea to me!

Overall, I would think that most normal, rational people wouldn't have a problem the noise from an autorace for one or two weekends a year. As long as it wasn't rattling the windows or cracking the plaster on the walls. Most people would realize the novelty of it and also realize that it's also the sound of money coming into their community. Of course, there's always some extremists who don't want to be disturbed at all...ever (usually the ones who are already "disturbed").

[zak]

Pretty much every year, in Toronto, when the Indy comes to town there is a section of the city that complains bitterly about the noise.

Yes, the cars are loud (and not nearly as sweet sounding as an F1 car), but get over it. Its 3 or 4 days out of an entire year.

[orange]

Please .. don't take away the lovely f1-engine-sound ...
anything but those beasts doing at 18k+ rpm

[chrisuofc]

I think in most race cities, the promoter of the event has pretty good political connections to avoid these problems. I think if a city said that they could only race if they reduced noise, Bernie would just say "screw off, we're going to Bahrain!"

[Viss1]

BOOOO!!! No noise restrictions! If you don't like the noise, don't live near the track!

Sorry, this hits a little close to home for me. Noise complaints have helped to shut down some of the world's great tracks.

[pRy]

F1 cars have a time and a place. I can understand why some residents get upset.. for example, in Melbourne, the circuit is very close to alot of houses. I imagine it must be pretty noisey for them.

On the other hand, the sound of an F1 car blasting around Imola is 100% natural and the local residents don't mind this one bit. It is as accepted as the sound of wind.

I had the pleasure of visiting Imola during a Minardi test day. And I noticed people fishing in the river next to the circuit, they didn't mind the sound one bit. I noticed an old lady walking alongside the track and she didn't mind atall. I noticed people in the park inside the circuit, they where going about their business, jogging, sitting in the park. I noticed two lovers, embraced as the car roared around the circuit literally within eye sight of them. But they didn't flinch or cover their ears.

I think when you are brought up around such a historic circuit, it becomes part of your life, rather than a disturbance.

[pRy]

Originally posted by Viss1
BOOOO!!! No noise restrictions! If you don't like the noise, don't live near the track!

Sorry, this hits a little close to home for me. Noise complaints have helped to shut down some of the world's great tracks.

Well to be fair Viss, the people on Melbourne didn't really have much choice. Anyone who has lived there for 10 years picked to live next to a nice park, not an F1 circuit

[Locai]

Originally posted by pRy
F1 cars have a time and a place. I can understand why some residents get upset.. for example, in Melbourne, the circuit is very close to alot of houses. I imagine it must be pretty noisey for them.

On the other hand, the sound of an F1 car blasting around Imola is 100% natural and the local residents don't mind this one bit. It is as accepted as the sound of wind.

I had the pleasure of visiting Imola during a Minardi test day. And I noticed people fishing in the river next to the circuit, they didn't mind the sound one bit. I noticed an old lady walking alongside the track and she didn't mind atall. I noticed people in the park inside the circuit, they where going about their business, jogging, sitting in the park. I noticed two lovers, embraced as the car roared around the circuit literally within eye sight of them. But they didn't flinch or cover their ears.

I think when you are brought up around such a historic circuit, it becomes part of your life, rather than a disturbance.

My guess is that the people of Imola have already gone deaf.

[hook]

Speaking of pollution...does somebody know how much fuel a F1 car uses during a race weekend? - I'm just curious.

[SennasCat]

Hook, I don't know if it was urban myth or not, I remember in some time in the 70's an article worked out that a Qantas 747 flying from LA to Sydney used more fuel (in litres) than the entire F1 racing season. It was maybe by Nick Munting from Chequred Flag but this was about 25 years ago. Maybe my learned colleagues like Ray Bell or Barry Lake can refute or otherwise????

Obviously, there is more testing now etc but I don't think the ratio would have changed that much.

[hook]

Thank you Steve...but I still can't figure how many litres per car per weekend from that...but I'm sure that is good enough to slap a good one to those "pollutionphobics" around the globe.

[MarkWRX]

After not having been to a GP in more than 20 years, I, with my wife, daughter, her godmother I arrived at Indy in 2000 with high expectations. We got the rental car and headed for the track. My daughter, then just turned 2, announced she was hungry, so we stopped at a Burger King to grab a quick bite. The parking lot was full of Mercedes courtesey vehicles, with drivers wearing McLaren gear. We sat outside to eat and just as we started, I heard the scream of an F1 car at speed. It was awesome, after 25 years or so and it reminded me of the first time I heard F1 engines.

At the inagural USGP at Long Beach, there was a Concours d'elegance on a side street. The street was mostly storefronts in buildings 2 and 3 stories tall. The cars were backed into their parking spots and the spectators allowed to get right up to them. Some of the smalled teams tool offense at the attention paid to the major teams like Ferrari and Tyrell. I saw some of the little gasoline powered carts head off to the paddock and when they came back, they had small cans of gasoline. I suspected what was going to happen, so I put my hearing protectors in. Sure enough, a Cosworth V8 starts up, the engine making a ripping sound as a mechanic manually tweaks the throttle. In a few moments, other cars start up. All around me, people are covering their ears with their hands.

The Ferrari gets into the act, the flat 12 making a beautiful sound. The noise is being echoed between the buildings and it becomes almost a symphony of mechanical sound, although the mechanics need a conductor to organize the basso sound of the Cosworths against the Italian tenor sound of the Ferrari engine. From the corner of my eye, I notice the Matra crew putting hearing protectors on. They have fueled the car and are ready to start it. The flat 12 used, if memory serves, a six into one collector, exhausting through an incredibly narrow pipe, perhaps less than 2 inches in diameter. They start the car, blip the throttle once or twice and slowly take it up in revs until there is an almost unearthly wail that sounds more like a jet turbine than a reciprocating engine. It is painfully loud and people began leaving the area quickly.

The rest of the cars shut down and then, having proved their point, the Matra does to, the huge airbox with the Gitanes lady is replaced and the car is towed back to the paddock.

Forgive the trip down memory lane.

Mark

[The Sensational]

What a farce. These people knew exactly what was going to happen when they moved to a venue so close to the track. People are so hypoctritical - they'll happily accept the benefits that are brought about by the track, for example, better access, restaurant/store attraction, tourism, extra income, but they'll quickly reject them for things like noise once a year. Well what a joke that is!

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by The Sensational
What a farce. These people knew exactly what was going to happen when they moved to a venue so close to the track. People are so hypoctritical - they'll happily accept the benefits that are brought about by the track, for example, better access, restaurant/store attraction, tourism, extra income, but they'll quickly reject them for things like noise once a year. Well what a joke that is!

Even the people who moved to the area before it became a race track? Does anyone know how long races of any sort have been held at Albert Park?

[HP]

Originally posted by The Sensational
What a farce. These people knew exactly what was going to happen when they moved to a venue so close to the track. People are so hypoctritical - they'll happily accept the benefits that are brought about by the track, for example, better access, restaurant/store attraction, tourism, extra income, but they'll quickly reject them for things like noise once a year. Well what a joke that is!

Quite agree, except for those people living before there. Same happens with airports, people get cheap land to build their houses and then some people think they have to go and complain about the noise. So far all cases I know are complaints from people that moved later on because of the opportunity provided.

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by HP
Quite agree, except for those people living before there. Same happens with airports, people get cheap land to build their houses and then some people think they have to go and complain about the noise. So far all cases I know are complaints from people that moved later on because of the opportunity provided.

A legal concept known as "Coming to the nuisance," which means you don't have standing to complain if the the nuisance (i.e., noise pollution) existed before you got there.

Still, at least where Montreal is concerned, the noise complained of exists only 3 days out of 365 per year. I think the loss of revenues to the city from axing the GP would be more deafening than the noise from the cars.

Wussies.

[MarkWRX]

Not GP related, but when I was a corner worker at Summit Point, I noticed a guy setting up equipment at the run-off of turn one. Since he was basically blocking the run off, I went to tell him to move. He was setting up sound equipment to support plantiffs suing Summit Point.

As far as I am concerned, this was silly. The track was there before most of them moved in. Did this people not notice the signs that said "Race track, one mile?" Did they not see on the plat the two mile road that goes nowhere? Most of the people were Northen Virginia residents who, tired of the high cost of real estate, moved to West (By God) Virginia and bought large homes on large lots. I guess they figured they would deal with the race track later.

It didn't work, since the track has been expanded once and another track is being planned.

Sound control during SCCA events is taken seriously. Many racers go to great lengths to get to the required 103 db. That includes curved exhaust tips that can be rotated. Sound control is on driver's left? Turn the tip right. Once sports racer was warned several times about sound. He wound up shortening the pipe so that it exhausted under the bodywork, assuming that the fiberglass would muffle the sound the critical 1 or 2 db he needed. It did. He was allowed to race, and did so up until the point that the hot exhaust gases ignited the fiberglass. It only took a short spritz from my fire bottle to put it out. But his day was done.

Mark

[Garagiste]

At a time when we are supposed to be reducing costs, I don’t think introducing silencers for some races is an idea anybody is going to look at.
Noise is the reason there are only a few weekends of (unrestricted) racing at Goodwood. Of course residents there do have a case as the circuit was closed for many years.

Clatter – sound always carries best in an up/down direction, I guess because there’s nothing to get in its way. Mate of mine used to get a load of Hot Air Balloons going over his garden and one hardly had to raise one’s voice to say hello to those in the basket. I guess you know this, just your observation reminded me. I'll stop rambling.

[Viss1]

Originally posted by Scudetto
A legal concept known as "Coming to the nuisance," which means you don't have standing to complain if the the nuisance (i.e., noise pollution) existed before you got there.

Don't tell that to the people who built multi-million dollar homes in Bridgehampton and eventually succeeded in getting the track turned into a golf course . Money and political connections ended up trumping the law in that case.

[ehagar]

Originally posted by Clatter
The sound those cars make is amazing and boy does it travel.

A few years ago I was circling Silverstone in a glider watching the testing and I could still hear the cars when I was nearly 6000 feet up.

That's nothing. I was at 2500 feet in a SGS 2-33A and could hear people having a conversation during a party at a barbeque... it was unreal.

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by Viss1
Don't tell that to the people who built multi-million dollar homes in Bridgehampton and eventually succeeded in getting the track turned into a golf course . Money and political connections ended up trumping the law in that case.

Yeah, legal doctrine is no substitute for political clout.

[Clatter]

Originally posted by ehagar


That's nothing. I was at 2500 feet in a SGS 2-33A and could hear people having a conversation during a party at a barbeque... it was unreal.

That must have been one hell of a party, or were they all using megaphones?.