Lights at Le Mans

Supur-Lyte

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Is anyone watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

If you can't get it on cable or satellite you can watch it at Le Mans TV. At times they've had in-car footage from the Audi with its LEDs. Calvin Fish just mentioned on SPEED that the Audis' lights "steer" into the corners.

At SPEED's page you can get in-car video from the Corvettes. #73's video has been alternating between front and rear views, while #74 is still showing the front view. Note that the Corvettes have a quite large tint band on the windshields which takes some of the fun out of the night viewing for lighting aficionados. :shrug:

Needless to say, even if you're not a fan of racing, fans of this forum can find things which interest them - at least until the sun rises.
 

Speedfreakz

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Interesting the number panels that lightup too. That is a fairly new thing. I also remember the lights on the side would tell you top 3 positions as well.
 

MichaelW

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Crazy lighting everywhere.
Lighting under the roll over hoops in the lesser prototypes.

It seems like the Audi was almost always running its high beams.
 

Supur-Lyte

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The 2014 race is underway!

TV schedule for the United States.

They said it won't really get dark until about 10:30 pm local time, so that will be 4:30 pm EDST when the "light show" begins.

Speaking of lights, check out this Lotus which is set to debut at the Lone Star Le Mans round of the WEC at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas in September. Something tells me those aren't Rigid D-Series up top.;)

That rotating banner at the top of the Lone Star Le Mans page shows a white-and-blue Lola from last year's American Le Mans Series. Look at the smallest of the three lamps in each pod. Notice how they're aimed cross-eyed? The frame after that Lola shows another Lola behind the Gulf-sponsored Aston Martin which is followed by an Audi with its LEDs. There, too, you can see the different aim of that particular lamp. Lola built those pods with that aiming as a designed-in feature as opposed to most others who use a straight-ahead baseline and let the team choose which way they want to deviate from that for their corner lighting. For example, at the 2012 12 Hours of Sebring Flying Lizard Motorsports ran two Porsche 911s - one with cross-eyed and one with wall-eyed aiming for their corner lighting. Despite what we've discussed on this forum, I've noticed cross-eyed aiming to be used far less than wall-eyed in endurance racing.

In addition to LED headlamps, Audi has a sense of humor. For those who don't follow this form of racing, Porsche has returned to the prototype class this year after a long absence. Might they be concerned that Audi's twelve overall victories at Le Mans are uncomfortably close to their leading number of sixteen?
 

MichaelW

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I believe I saw a Powerflare on one of the signs/arms that is used to show where the cars are supposed to pit at.
powerflare.com
 

Supur-Lyte

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The WEC (World Endurance Championship) race from the Circuit of the Americas is up and running again after a long red flag period due to a downpour that resulted in numerous cars hydroplaning off of the track.

Of note to us is that it is dark and there are still nearly three hours remaining to watch the light show. During a pit stop before the sun went down it looked as though the lower headlamp (off at the time) on the #7 Toyota prototype was aimed wall-eyed; perhaps an in-car shot will confirm this.

The race can be watched on either Fox Sports 2 on your cable/satellite provider, or on Fox Sports Go the 'net.
 

Supur-Lyte

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The Petit Le Mans (final race of the 2014 United Sports Car Championship season) is entering the evening hours at Road Atlanta.

During an interview about his retirement from the race, BMW factory driver Joey Hand said that this is the first race here in the U.S.A. for BMW to use the new laser headlamps in the Z4. Paraphrasing him, the lasers are used for the main lights, xenons to flash and LEDs for corners. Here are a few photos from Thursday's night practice. Z4s can be seen in column 1 / rows 1, 4 and 5, as well as column 3 / row 3. The white #56 is the factory-backed car which definitely have the laser lamps, and the yellow #94 is a privateer effort which might have them.

The race can be watched on either Fox Sports 2 on your cable/satellite provider, or you can watch the live broadcast streamed here.

If you prefer in-car camera views, they are available from the #01 Ford-Riley prototype (which is worth watching just to listen to the downshifts), the #56 BMW Z4 GTE and the #911 Porsche 911 RSR.
 

Supur-Lyte

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The 24 Hours of Daytona is this weekend.

Television Broadcast:
Saturday 2:00 - 4:00 PM ET FOX Network
Saturday 4:00 - 8:00 PM ET FOX Sports 2
Saturday 8:00 - 10:00 PM ET FOX Sports 1
Sat - Sun 10:00 PM - 7 AM ET IMSA.com
Sunday 7:00 AM - 2:30 PM ET FOX Sports 1

Compared to Le Mans, Daytona has more hours run in the dark, but because of the track lighting (which enables NASCAR to run their races at night) that was installed several years ago it's not nearly as dark as it is at Le Mans even though the lights aren't run at full intensity.
 

Franco

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Thanks for the reminder Supur-Lyte! My ability to keep up with motorsports schedules is surprisingly poor.
 

Supur-Lyte

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It's now dark, and beam patterns are clearly visible and varied.

Fog in the early hours of the morning is not unusual during this race, so the in-car camera views of that should be interesting if fog arrives.
 

MichaelW

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Did the Ford guy just say the next F150 Raptor would be 450hp?
and all hail Selective-Yellow!
 

Supur-Lyte

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Tonight from 12:30 - 2:30 am EDST on Turner Classic Movies is Le Mans. Some consider it to be the best racing movie ever.

There are a few scenes shot at night as well as some in the rain. Based on sponsor decals, the cars are equipped with an assortment of lamps including Carello, Cibie and S.E.V. Marchal. I'm assuming Hella and Lucas also, but I don't specifically remember seeing those decals.

If you enjoy listening to engines, then you'll love the battle between the Ferrari 512S' water-cooled V-12 and the Porsche 917's air-cooled flat-12 at redline down the pre-chicane Mulsanne, not to mention every other part of the track, too.


Did the Ford guy just say the next F150 Raptor would be 450hp?

Yes, he did. Did you see last week's Top Gear (Season 22 Episode 6) on BBC America? How about a 600 HP Hennessey VelociRaptor 600 blasting through the snow in the Canadian Rockies? Clarkson described the LED light bar as a "collapsed sun."
 

Franco

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Did you see last week's Top Gear (Season 22 Episode 6) on BBC America? How about a 600 HP Hennessey VelociRaptor 600 blasting through the snow in the Canadian Rockies? Clarkson described the LED light bar as a "collapsed sun."

:sigh: I've got to wait until it's on Netflix, and all everybody is talking about is how good this season is (after all the waiting).
 

Supur-Lyte

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Sebring 2015 has fewer than three hours to go, and you can watch it here online. TV coverage returns at 10:00 PM EDST on Fox Sports 2. A highlights show airs tomorrow morning from 8:00 until 10:00 AM EDST on Fox Sports 1.

The online coverage has been mostly in-car camera footage, though they have recently begun cutting back on that some. Regardless, it gives us a chance (for what it's worth) to see beam patterns from at least two different perspectives.

If they should happen to show a replay of the #10 prototype's in-car camera's view of the #4 Corvette's spin, note the two spots of light on the road ahead of the #10. Those are useful - especially at racing speeds? :thinking:
 

SubLGT

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Here is some info about the massive headlights in the Porsche 919 for the 2016 Le Man race (looks like the same package is being used for 2017, but I could be wrong)

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/porsche-919-9r9-my15/

The system is equipped with the latest and handpicked LEDs from Osram and features three different modes of operation: pencil beam (ultra long distance light), main beam and side beam. Twelve pairs of LEDs and reflectors per headlight unit are split into seven individually controlled strings for long distance and cornering light. The control unit is integrated into the headlights. At an angle of 45 degrees, the side light performance matches the quality of a good dipped-beam headlamp of a road going car. The flashing light is operated as a switchover between maximum and reduced operation mode of the LEDs.

In addition, each headlight has 20 of so called RGB-LEDs (RGB stands for the red-green-blue colour space) to make the two cars identifiable. The number 1 Porsche 919 Hybrid is illuminated in purple, the number 2 car can be recognised by its blue light.
Compared to 2015, the number of LEDs has been doubled while the weight of each headlight unit was reduced by 1.1 kilograms. The new headlight is fitted as a single component now. The pre-adjustment of the reflectors inside the headlight saves the fine-tuning procedure after fitting.
 

Supur-Lyte

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The 1,000 Miles of Sebring round of the World Endurance Championship is nearing the 4.5 hour mark, and they're transitioning into racing in the dark. Depending on the number of yellow flags and whether or not it rains - not expected tonight, but more likely for tomorrow's 12 Hours of Sebring - the race shouldn't be completed until 11:00-11:30 pm EDST. Tomorrow's 12 Hours of Sebring will have fewer hours run in the dark because it will end shortly after 10:30 pm EDST.

Though it's been mentioned before on this forum the shortcomings of the human eye to judge what it sees, and of photos and video to accurately portray a light's output, it's still interesting to compare the lights' beam patterns, whether seen from a trackside, aerial or in-car camera. Speaking of shortcomings, the commentator just mentioned that the level of ambient light seen on television is a bit darker than the actual level of light they are seeing.

Tonight's race is on Motortrend (formerly Velocity), and tomorrow's is on CNBC (10:30 am-1:00 pm), NBC (1:00-3:00 pm) and NBCSN (3:00-11:00 pm).
 
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Supur-Lyte

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Well, the source I used for television coverage was incorrect, and there will not be anything on NBC from 1:00-3:00 pm.

Last night, while showing the view from the in-car camera of the #91 Porsche, the announcer pointed out that the driver has a much better view of things than what we were seeing because the human eye is much better than the camera in the dark.
 
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