|
 Readers, the last time S&T was invited to a live motorsport event, we found  ourselves half way up a mountain in Corsica, soaked to the skin in a torrential downpour, as guests of the fabulous World Rally Championships. We didn’t think life could get more exciting than that. Fast forward to nearly a year later at Brands Hatch in Kent, England, and standing in the pit lanes of the inaugural A1 Grand Prix, the self-monikered ‘World Cup of Motor Racing’, as the 25 racing cars screeched past us at over 150 miles an hour. Now that was pretty darn exciting too.
The A1 Grand Prix series incorporates teams representing nations, with all the drivers competing on an even keel through racing in identical cars. The series is therefore designed to gauge driver skill than that of the manufacturer – a complaint often levelled at Formula One motor racing. The use of a power boost button in the car several times during the race is played much like a ‘joker’ in cards, and in A1 terms helps to spice things up to the tune of 550bhp and give an advantage when overtaking - not that the race lacked excitement.
S&T was there courtesy of our pals at BBC Outside Broadcast, providers of some rather sexy in-car kit – the not-so-sexily named ‘onboard camera systems’. (But hell, it does what it says on the tin. End of.) Using revolutionary digital ground-receive technology, pioneered by the BBC and Gigawave, the coverage provided new pictures in a difficult RF environment.
Phil Aspden, head of commercial at BBC Outside Broadcasts, told S&T: “A1 Grand Prix was developed with television viewers in mind, and it has been fantastic to have been involved with this new property right from its inception. The cars were designed in order to facilitate cameras within their structures so that we could provide new angles such as the driver’s own view.”
The science bit During the race, 12 of the 25 race cars were rigged up with four custom-built digital live onboard camera systems. The cars were fitted with bespoke Gigawave transmitters and 10 possible positions were offered per car. Pictures from four cars were available on the mixer at any one time and the rest of the cameras could be operated remotely via an RF data link from a control room in the pits.
As well as supplying, installing, operating and maintaining all the live onboard systems, BBC Outside Broadcasts’ special cameras team also provided a ‘Kerb cam’ to capture the action from the ground.
Additionally, all the cameras were fitted with a remotely operated ‘clear screen’ cleaning system, basically a sheet of plastic that gets pulled over the front of the lens, to enable the BBC to deliver clean pictures when things get a little dusty or muddy.
The new ground-receive system used up to three sites with maximum ratio combining and packet switching, based on techniques developed by the BBC Research and Development department. Thus neatly eliminating the need for helicopter relays, making coverage more reliable and continuous. (One less whirlybird in the sky is always a good thing in S&T’s opinion).
During testing on the Friday before the race, the on-board camera system experienced a couple of minor glitches that could only be rectified by the BBC Outside Broadcast team opening every camera in every car and snipping a particular wire. Bearing in mind these babies are not cheap to put together, S&T was glad to see that the BBC team’s hands were by no means shaky during a wire-snipping marathon that would have been worthy of an SAS bomb disposal manoeuvre. The triumph of the test day (apart from identifying and mending the aforementioned fault) was the survival of the cameras and some very compelling footage during a sensational smash. All boded well for Sunday’s race day.
Indeed as Aspden was able to later confirm: "We were really pleased with the robust pictures our onboard camera systems delivered on Sunday - they even captured the view from a Lebanese car as it rolled across the track in a spectacular 100mph crash. We look forward to working with production teams around the world to provide a totally unique perspective on the A1 Grand Prix and deliver exciting pictures of the races to the viewers at home." “This play is huge” While three S&T favourite sports seasons come to an end – English domestic cricket, Major League Baseball and Aussie Rules Footy (but let’s not mention the hapless St Kilda Saints) – luckily another three begin, albeit all in the US which makes viewing from ArkSports Towers in London a wee bit challenging. The National Hockey League is back after a year’s R&R and both National Basketball Association and the National Football League hit the screens again. (Come on the Suns and the Pats. The teams that is, not the peanut butter).
S&T was enthralled to discover that according to research conducted by Dr Don Powell, a psychologist in the US, NFL players will have uttered 2.5m clichés (we presume collectively) by the end of the 2005-06 season. His nominations for the top 10 that will be uttered profusely this season include “This game will be won in the trenches”, “He put a lick on him”, “This play is huge” and “He’s a good north south runner.” Now, to cut a long story short, at the end of the day, these phrases mean very little outside the US. We would therefore like to invite readers from other nations to send in their favourite sports clichés.
S&T’s personal favourite, mostly used when watching our soccer team Exeter City FC, has to be “Referee, are you blind?”. Just as an aside, opinions on what constitutes an acceptable verbal diatribe can even vary in the same country. While enjoying some fine hospitality at York City v Exeter City at the weekend, S&T got rather excited and was heard to shout “Take his legs out” when an opposition player teared off with our ball. Now, most soccer fans would agree that this is an acceptable substitute for the phrase “Tackle him” in southern England. Not so up North apparently where a very disgruntled old dear supporting York City, took extreme umbrage and berated S&T for being “offensive and yobbish”. Luckily, said old dear’s husband eventually intervened and told her to be quiet. And that readers sums up the problem with hospitality at sports events. It’s often frequented by people who know naff all about sport and get offended if someone as good as sneezes noisily.
Finally, S&T has a message of warning for you all. According to newspaper reports, huge solar flares could knock out the world’s radio and satellite communications links ‘very shortly’. A vast and volatile sunspot is lining up to face Earth in a showdown worthy of the WWE, and could cause havoc with our SMS, MMS and A1 Grand Prix viewing. Combine this with the fact that apparently there isn’t actually enough 3G spectrum out there to cope with all the services that are going to be launched, we could be heading for a catastrophic cellular meltdown that even Nostradamus failed to predict. Or then again you happily might not even notice if you are like S&T’s pal Frank who doesn’t own a television set or mobile phone.
That’s it for this month chaps, see you at SPORTELMonaco next month. And don’t forget to bring the Factor 30 to rub on your mobile phones. Rachael Church
Editor Do you think there are enough clichés already in sport? Or could you not give a monkeys? If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in S&T, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments to editor@sportandtechnology.com.
This article was seen first by people who receive the monthly newsletter, join them.
|
