Lights for 24hours at New Orleans (Page 2 of 2)

I'm not sure if crosseyed would help a lot, but maybe the extra few feet of distance from the light to the apex would give a wider beam vs. angled out?

Our lights at Nelson Ledges were fine because there were a bunch of other cars on the track helping to light it and the turns were all sweeping.  At GingerMan in the ChumpCar race, there were about a dozen cars running when it got dark and the track has some tighter turns with elevation changes.  I couldn't see shit when I first went out in the pitch black night.  I came in three laps in a row to adjust the LH apex light.  Once dialed in, I had great lighting and could have turned about the same lap times as I did during the day.  I backed off a few seconds a lap though since it was the last hour of the race and we couldn't move up any positions.

We run a 36 year old car, so the most important thing was to rewire the entire lighting system from scratch.  We used relays, toggle switches, and 12 ga. wire throughout.  Our 25+ year old 50amp alternator worked perfectly (two races so far) and we had no dimming at idle.

If at all possible, aim your lights before the race starts.  If a Friday night practice is offered, jump at it and get the aiming correct.  If no practice is available, be ready to adjust after it gets dark in the race.  Have the tools laid out and train the first night driver to know exactly how much up/down/in/out each light must move.

What about colored lights on the side of the car for identification? Is that ok with the rules?

Richard Newton
Intervention Motorsports
http://www.racecars360.com/Intervention … _Page.html

I don't think the rules are vague on that point as much as they are silent on it. That said, I agree that so long as the lights aren't flashing or distracting, you would be fine. We have lit-up numbers on the sides of our TARP North car and those have never been a problem.

Watch from about 10:00 in this video (or watch the whole thing, it's a good battle):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p-Lx48Uq5w

This is from my team's last ChumpCar outing at Gingerman.  You can see that as soon as he gets by the Alfa, he doesn't have a wide enough area illuminated, and goes for some offroading because of it.  The guys suggesting apex beams are totally right.

Make sure that you take your car for a night drive pre-race.  I remember watching cars go around at Nelson, and you'd see cars with a bright beam pointing up at about 45 degrees.

Though it might be less serious at a Lemons event.  There were only a dozen or so cars on-track at Gingerman, so you spent more time being the sole source of lighting on your section of track.  At Nelson Ledges even woefully inadequate lights could get you by because there was so many cars around that'd light the track up for you.

I did the final hour in the GingerMan ChumpCar race race as well running in the Lamest Day at Nelson Ledges and can attest that poor lighting with an empty track is a nightmare.  At Nelson, like bongle said, it didn't matter since there were 121 other cars helping to light up the track.

bongle's teammate's battle with the Alfa was epic.  I got to watch from Turn 11 and it was really cool in the dark.  The crowd was really into it and cheered loudly every time they looked to pass.  Luckily for me, they went off just in time for me to get my suit on for my stint.  I would have hated missing any of the dicing.

Have you seen any of my videos?  They were all made using a sub $200 Samsung via QVC.

On a side note, if you decide to mount some lights under the front fender in a classic rally style set up.....make sure to have people watching you when you drive it onto the trailer or transporter, so that they can laugh at you when they get smashed off for being too low!!! DOH!