Another weekend err...Sunday of racing and picture/video taking. This time it was held out at the Idaho Center in Nampa. A nice sunny warm Sunday much better than the last event and it showed with I believe a much larger turn out of drivers. Since it was at the Idaho Center I was able to just hang out on the grass without the need of a spotter to film and take pictures. I also brought the umbrella setup along and thank goodness I did. I definitely think it did a lot to keep me out of the sun and a good couple of degrees cooler than just being out under the sun. It may look a little goofy but it rocks like nothing else.

What also rocks is the new camera car mount. I was a little worried to be honest as after attaching it to a car and letting it sit there for a while it seemed to lose just a bit of suction not a lot but enough to make me worry just a bit but all was good and it hung on for three outings on various cars. Oh course one of the videos got messed up some how so only got three on car videos. I did try hard to get at least one video of most of the cars that were out there some I just didn't care for but I'm trying to get every one's car more than just a lot of videos of a handful of cars.

I was also taking still pictures and trying to do the whole motion capture thing so the cars look like they are in motion and all that jazz. Still working on fine tuning that aspect of my photography. I also wasn't in the best place for pictures compared to videos. And speaking of places to be for being in a relatively safe place that black Dodge Neon with a major front end plow problem came damn close on one run.

It was a lot of fun as usual. I managed to hang around all day this time thanks to the umbrella and having the day off. Found out that a lot of people are watching the videos and really enjoy them, which is always a nice thing to hear. I still need to figure out a way to cut down on the wind noise from the on car videos and I think I'll be heading to a music store to look at mic covers. You can the pictures here and the videos are all here.

I missed a good number of spins but I also got a few good ones as well. Like this one from a Corvette engined Datsun 240Z. There was another great one from a Mercedes Benz as well where the driver was able to save it and keep going.

Figure I should post this now because frankly if I waited to post this until I was actually done uploading all 84 videos that I took it would probably be time for the next autocross. Also I haven't posted anything for a week which is bad.

This event was held again out at the Idaho Center which ment a bit of a drive made worse by road paving work and detours. I only took the Canon G6 out this time just to film and with 2 1/2 gigs worth of flash cards and two batteries I was done before the start of the second half. For me that was good because it was getting hot (101 atleast add the heat from the pavement and wow it was HOT) , I was getting hot and it was getting late for me since I had to head back home to get some sleep before work.

Checking out the course it looked very tight and compact. Loads of tight corners and a pair of tight slaloms and no where to go full throttle. If you even got out of 2nd gear you were doing something really good (or driving a small car) Great for the smaller NA cars and go carts not so good for the hard charging Corvettes and cars with turbos. As usuall there was a nice assortment of cars out for the day but I was a very happy camper as two new Porsche showed up to race as well. I got the White V8 powered 914 the lovely blue 911 ducktail and two newer porsches a 911 targa and 911 C4. They were both Novices so were a bit slower than others but still I was grinning from the extra Porsches now if the Silver GT3RS would come out to play it would be great.

Without much room to get into the gas much and the hot weather making the tires grippy it made for a quit race track with no spin outs or lockups and a pretty stable course. Pretty much the most sliding I saw was from tail happy smaller cars like the older Toyota Corrola and an older RX-7. All in all I had a good time and I'm sure everyone else out ther was having a good time as well.

Some things that I need to change is that I need to get a much better camera a HUGE umbrella (my own RQ would be nice too) and a water someting or another to spray my sorry hot ass with water when I get over heated. The second battery that I got a while ago was great but I don't want to get any more compact flash cars just yet as I don't know what the new camera will use for media. Some cool things that happened is that people told that they were looking forward to the new videos so that was great and the Idaho Rotary club wanted to use my videos for their booth at some Rotary gathering soon. So I also need to get all the raw videos uploaded to the internet or on a DVD for them as well. Until the next race enjoy the videos.

With the rushing in of Spring another great thing happens the start of autocross. The sweet smell of burnt rubber and the lovely sounds of roaring engines and squelling tires brings much joyment and excitement to the humdrum of the week.

The first event was held out at the Idaho Center in Nampa, ID it was as far as I know the first time that it was held out there. It was actually a nice location and much better than the previous two locations that I've been to. Because it was the first event and because it was the end of March it was freaking COLD still in the morning and because it was still cold I didn't even think of taking sunscreen or lots of water with me. This proved a problem as I came home with a nice sunburn and heat exhaustion. The cold weather should have given us much skidding and spinning but people were keeping their cars in control (for the most part) which was alright.

The grid this run was pretty interesting and there were some folks there that had way way to much money invested in this little hobby. I should have shot more pictures of the grid but didn't even think about it really while we were walking around looking at the cars. Some of the more interesting things that I saw at the run was another V8 powered Porsche 914 along with a Ford Mustang Cobra R. The cone munching Viper was back and surprisingly he didn't eat any cones this time out. Everyone was talking about my roommate's Turbo charged Mazda RX8 but because it has a blown motor he took out the stock RX8 instead. The guy with the oldschool Cobra added a front splitter/lip and a HUGE spoiler on the back. Looks pretty badass actually.

So all the videos are uploaded to youtube and I'm taking a break again and not bothering with the pictures for now. I do need to get a new camera sooner or later because the G6 leaves a lot of room for improvements to shooting and quality. I should get another battery for the G6 until then because the battery died on me again so I missed a lot of stuff. I also need to remember to take plenty of water and the freaking sunscreen. I also need to pick up a cheapy snell helmet so that I can ride along and not worry about the loaner helmet.

The next one that I'll be attending will be sometime in May so until then...