2024 Indy from the Inside

Action Cameras Score a New High

(The above video is from this year’s Indy 500. The first part is a top long shot from fairly high above the track. The next shot is from a drone dramatically moving in front of the cars as they start racing. Both shots of the start of the race are exciting. But the real excitement starts around 45 seconds into the video when we move from looking at the drivers to the drivers looking at the other drivers. The change in perspective is the most dramatic in all of sports.)

John Fraim

When I was in my early teen years, a friend’s father took me and his son and my classmate Bill to the Indy 500. We sat on the bleachers on the side opposite the main action in front of the pit stops. The roar as the cars passed for the first time is hard to forget. Somewhat like standing on an airport runway behind a few 747s about to take off.

But as the race progressed, initial excitement turned into boredom. Yes the cars were going by faster than any car I had ever seen. And yes, I was following the Indy in those years of my life. (In fact, I was building an Indy race car featuring my favorite Indy driver Roger Ward.) So of course I was rooting for Ward to win the Indy.

The great sports event became a bore to me and also my classmate Bill. But not to Bill’s father who had picked me up around 5:00 am to drive to Indianapolis from my home in Dayton, Ohio. He followed auto racing closely every year as he used to race stock cars when he was younger. He knew about the drivers and cars like people at Churchill Downs know around horses and jockeys and trainers.

Roger Ward

Like most of my friends in those years, fast cars were one of those top-of-the-mind things. I almost religiously watched the Indy 500 each year on television. After all, it was the largest spectacle in all of sport. And there is always that feeling of the tremendous number of people watching the same event. Certainly the television cameras gave a lot better than we had at the event in those bleachers. And also the various commentators added greatly to the event.

Yet, in the end, it was still about watching from a considerable distance, the cars go around the track. Of course there is the draw to being at the Indy 500. The Brickyard. But not for me. The place to watch the Indy is in front of the television. The onboard action cameras have never been put to more dramatic use.

One can see the danger and drama of the race. Though the commentator and the voices of drivers and pit crews. From on the ground and not in the stands. Not outside looking in but inside looking out. My perspective on Indy changed when I began watching the TV event each year as the inside cameras got better and better. The production team more efficient in this type of production. This new option open to them more and more in broadcasting the famous race.

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Hop on board into some Indy cars during the Indy 500 this year. Perhaps more than any other sport, action cameras in auto racing have added to the the excitement and better understanding the difficulty of race car driving. Things look relatively easy from the outside looking down on the cars going around the track. of a sport for me. Particular the fastest auto racing and most prestigious auto race, the Indianapolis 500. One of the big three sports spectaculars with the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl.

A totally different perspective of the race ensues from being onboard a race car today going 230 mph. Passing another car is not as simple as it looks viewing the race from the stands or on television.

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On board with the live action cameras, broadcasting a video and audio feed. I’m not sure when Indy started with the onboard cameras but it has dramatically raised the level of excitement in the sport for me. The director of the Indy program is using a switcher to get the feed from different cars. Do all of the cars have cameras in them? The director can switch to the best live feeds from the pits, passing, crashes. There is the ability to jump around the race to various places instantaneous. Jump not to stationary cameras but cameras inside race cars going 230 mph. There are few more dramatic first person views of sports than inside an Indy car. During the Indy 500.

2004 (& 2023) Indy Winner Josef Newgarden & Crew

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Notes

As someone who has played around with action cameras such as one of the first ones from DJI to now GoPro, through a few upgrades. Incredible what my current GoPro Black 11 can do. They’ve corrected most things that upset their customers amazingly well over the camera’s various versions. Now, they are in competition with some new action cameras as well as the increasingly good video and photos one can get from smartphones. Movies were created with smartphones a number of years ago. They looked pretty good. Now, they look stunning.

In the past five or so years, onboard cameras on the race cars have drastically changed our view of racing. My perspective and view of the sport in particular. And most likely, the perspective and views of millions of others.

As rain held up the race this year, viewers got to watch a replay of the 2023 Indy 500. The replay continues as long as the rain continues and then stops and the track is cleared and dried by trucks and workers with blowers and dryers.

In the replay of last year’s race, I am amazed at the quality of the onboard action cameras used. I’ve been using my GoPro 11 in a number of places. On the front of the car in the wine country of Sonoma. Bike riding on various routes around town is another one of these places.

Onboard action cameras have improved so much I can now shoot 5k video on the GoPro. The onboard cameras on the Indy cars, showing crashes and weaving past cars from a drivers view, puts the viewer in the driver’s seat more than most any other sport. The cameras get better and better and producers of the show better and better with the newer technology they use each year.

The change from spectatorship to participant is prevalent in a number of sports today. But the most dramatic change from spectator to sport’s participant is greatest in auto racing. Perhaps its time for IMS to consider more inside car experience to spectators. Allowing spectators live streaming from the driver of their choice. (If not already offered).

Perhaps one day (sooner than we think) spectators will be able to virtually sit in the cars with their favorite drivers. The noise and smell of the engine all around them. Hear clearly the discussions of the driver with his race strategist. Watching him or her press the buttons on the oblong shaped steering wheel. The whole set up much like a video game. And appropriately so as many/most of the drivers grew up playing video games and perhaps first learning about racing through a virtual ticket aboard one of the race cars.