I dont know you from a bar of soap but having found your channel just last week and now watched every video its time to say, hats off mate. Ive enjoyed the build, the racing, the commentary and well everything about it. You have inadvertently stuck that rocket in my exhaust and have made me wont to race again. Cheers and look forward to following the future.
Congratulations Simon! This whole project has been a joy to watch. Kudos for your passion, drive, skill and for sharing all this. I'll be looking forward to watching your progress next season
Congrats on the 5th place finish, been following since before the start of the season. Can't wait to see the off season improvements! One of my favourite UA-cam channels, always quality content :)
its 3 am in the morning i was just going through videos and so happy i stumbled upon your channel great job on the car sorry about the plug being wrecked when making the mold would have been a nice thing to keep but the car looks amazing
Awww man was this adventure fun! Can't wait for next season! You did great this one, luck served you well. Aside from the brakes that is. But man, looking forward to your next video!
Good job on spotting the broken master cylinder before the race start. I had the same issue on the fastest karting track in my country, only with the front brakes (felt it in the warm up lap, but didn't think it was that big of a problem). Not the same loss in pressure though, but sufficient enough that my braking zones had to be moved up far more than what I had gotten used to. For the first lap though, I think the guy in 2nd needed new underwear too, because I was damn near taking both of us out
Felt it pretty quickly, I wasn't happy at all to have the problem again. Like I mentioned it had been plaguing me for a couple of meetings at that point. I replaced both master cylinders and the brakes were brilliant at the club round we had last weekend. Should be a video going out in a couple of weeks on that.
Thanks. On and off, I've really struggled with sim racing each time I try it. I don't have the same feel for the car that I do in real life so find it much harder to drive and race. I've spoken to some people who are heavily involved in iRacing here in Aus and they've suggested some things to me that might improve my experience. Basically improving my wheel and screen setup.
Yeah, it takes some time to get used to have as sources of information only your vision, some sounds (skids or engine) and Force Feedback from steering wheel. After three years, it feels I just learned how to do it properly now. Anyway, I asked because in Automobilista there are Brazilian F-Vees, which are praised by their fidelity with their real world counterpart. I don't know the differences related to Aussie ones, maybe the Skip Barber from iRacing is close enough, but they could be a good practice exercise where you don't have limited track time. Of course, there must be a mod of Sydney MP track for you to be able to practice, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the many Australians who play Automobilista already took care of that track. Well, good luck with your real racing! And keep doing this amazing job of taking us in the passenger seat through your journey. Thanks for that. And if you need any help from the virtual world, just ask me!
Heitor, the skip barber in iRacing behaves very close to how a vee behaves, I drive them almost identical with my inputs. The draft in Vee's is just a bit more effective than in iRacing
Thanks. I use a Samsung Gear 360 for the main outboard camera. This is the old one with the sphere shape, not the new tall one. The camera in the car is a GoPro Hero 4 Black. I also have a GoPro Hero 2 which I use for some other shots when the others are in use. The Samsung Gear 360 sound quality is not good enough, you don't need to be travelling too quickly before the sound just becomes a high pitched screech. I use the sound from the GoPro instead in the videos.
Random question, how do you get the 360 deg' camera work? I assume someone has control of the orientation but on this vid' it seems to work too well to explain the movement.
The 360 degree camera takes a video of its complete surroundings at all times using two very wide angle cameras. So when I'm editing the video I'm able to "turn" the camera however I'd like to get the best shot. There is a compromise, which is that the camera - while 4k - spreads its recording resolution over the entire 360H x 180V view. So when I take a small field of view for these videos the resulting quality is much lower. But overall I think it's worth it to get a complete picture of what's going on.
Yeah that's right. If you're interested in our engine rules they are here under section 3.6: docs.cams.com.au/Manual/Race/RA14-Formula-Vee-2017-1.pdf There is a lot that can be done and it rewards perfectionists who are willing to go through each and every part down to the finest detail.
Other clearly have power advantage. So even in standard class heads could be ported, rised compression ratio,rebalance conrods and pistons, may be even stock camshaft could be reground and lot other smaller stuff. Of course this is another big project it self.
All this is intended to reduce the cost but it can - and does - go both ways. There's enough inconsistency between some components that some people have managed to find very good engine heads for instance that nobody else is going to be able to get their hands on and nobody can achieve parity with due to not being able to bring it to a consistent specification. They are working to solve these issues but it's a very difficult problem to solve fairly and cheaply.
The points chart at the end? It was actually just Microsoft Excel, I copied the points table, created a graph of the cumulative points for each race (excluding the drivers worst race which the pointscore system allows us to drop) then made each driver a blue shade with myself highlighted in red. Then I saved the graph as a picture, saved another without any lines on top and used those with a swipe transition to show how it progressed.
It would be a combination. Those at the front have spent countless hours and spent a lot of money on every aspect of their car, engine and themselves. I've not spent the money they have, partly because I couldn't afford to after building the car and partly because it would have been too high risk to go all in on the cars first year, too much development work had to be done as well. The guys at the front are also much more experienced drivers than myself, which is just a case of seat time. It would take another couple of years of hard work I reckon to be a genuine contender for the championship. But it's better that way, it wouldn't be an achievement if it weren't so hard.
This series just become way for satisfying to watch. Plus the 5th place sounds way more rewarding to me now. Congrats on your work and keep on having fun on your way to the podium!
Is this what it really takes to get into racing? Are most people in this same boat - you need to build and bring your cars unless you're somehow ushered into the sport with sponsors like the children of current and past pros are?
No not at all. I've gone about it in about the hardest way possible but I was interested in designing and building something myself. Most people have simply bought manufacturer cars or lease cars from teams. I myself leased a car for a couple of years when I first got into Formula Vee.
I dont know you from a bar of soap but having found your channel just last week and now watched every video its time to say, hats off mate. Ive enjoyed the build, the racing, the commentary and well everything about it. You have inadvertently stuck that rocket in my exhaust and have made me wont to race again. Cheers and look forward to following the future.
Great job! Top 5 for the first season of a brand new car is incredible!
Congratulations Simon! This whole project has been a joy to watch. Kudos for your passion, drive, skill and for sharing all this. I'll be looking forward to watching your progress next season
I like to see you improving every time keep going mate!
Congrats on the 5th place finish, been following since before the start of the season. Can't wait to see the off season improvements! One of my favourite UA-cam channels, always quality content :)
Congratulations on your achievement! Job well done! These are the most interesting series on UA-cam. Good luck with the seasons to come.
Thank you for showing us your hard work.
You. Are. Awesome.
Thank you for doing this! This series was a fantastic watch!
Congrats on the successes of 2017 - looking forward to hearing how things go with 2018 :-)
Wish you the very best Simon... please keep posting all your works! :)
Congrats Simon on an excellent year. Sounds like you learned a lot from that last round. Looking forward to following your progress next year.
Get that undertray done and on!
Great video! Great editing, narration, and CGI well done, congrats and good luck
Congrats man, really cool series. Kinda inspiring as someone who hopes to get into race car design at some point in the future.
Fantastic series, really informative and enjoyable races and commentary. Thank you for your effort.
Enjoyable videos mate. Living the dream.
Great Vid, I love this series and am so exited to see what you do to the car next. Amazing Job!!!!!
its 3 am in the morning i was just going through videos and so happy i stumbled upon your channel great job on the car sorry about the plug being wrecked when making the mold would have been a nice thing to keep but the car looks amazing
Thanks - there are worse things to be doing at 3am!
Awww man was this adventure fun! Can't wait for next season! You did great this one, luck served you well. Aside from the brakes that is. But man, looking forward to your next video!
Good job on spotting the broken master cylinder before the race start. I had the same issue on the fastest karting track in my country, only with the front brakes (felt it in the warm up lap, but didn't think it was that big of a problem). Not the same loss in pressure though, but sufficient enough that my braking zones had to be moved up far more than what I had gotten used to. For the first lap though, I think the guy in 2nd needed new underwear too, because I was damn near taking both of us out
Felt it pretty quickly, I wasn't happy at all to have the problem again. Like I mentioned it had been plaguing me for a couple of meetings at that point. I replaced both master cylinders and the brakes were brilliant at the club round we had last weekend. Should be a video going out in a couple of weeks on that.
This series has been quite interesting.
Thanks for the great hours of watching! And I'm curious, are you into SimRacing?
Thanks. On and off, I've really struggled with sim racing each time I try it. I don't have the same feel for the car that I do in real life so find it much harder to drive and race. I've spoken to some people who are heavily involved in iRacing here in Aus and they've suggested some things to me that might improve my experience. Basically improving my wheel and screen setup.
Yeah, it takes some time to get used to have as sources of information only your vision, some sounds (skids or engine) and Force Feedback from steering wheel. After three years, it feels I just learned how to do it properly now.
Anyway, I asked because in Automobilista there are Brazilian F-Vees, which are praised by their fidelity with their real world counterpart. I don't know the differences related to Aussie ones, maybe the Skip Barber from iRacing is close enough, but they could be a good practice exercise where you don't have limited track time. Of course, there must be a mod of Sydney MP track for you to be able to practice, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the many Australians who play Automobilista already took care of that track.
Well, good luck with your real racing! And keep doing this amazing job of taking us in the passenger seat through your journey. Thanks for that. And if you need any help from the virtual world, just ask me!
Heitor, the skip barber in iRacing behaves very close to how a vee behaves, I drive them almost identical with my inputs. The draft in Vee's is just a bit more effective than in iRacing
Well done! Great accomplishments for the first season. Keep it up!
love your videos man. keep it up
I like your vids keep up the good work and I hope next year is a better year.
Well done Bravo! beautifully made videos. thank you
Major respect bro
Love your videos.
Awesome job
your videos are great, what camera do you use? congratulations on the hard work keep it going
Thanks. I use a Samsung Gear 360 for the main outboard camera. This is the old one with the sphere shape, not the new tall one. The camera in the car is a GoPro Hero 4 Black. I also have a GoPro Hero 2 which I use for some other shots when the others are in use.
The Samsung Gear 360 sound quality is not good enough, you don't need to be travelling too quickly before the sound just becomes a high pitched screech. I use the sound from the GoPro instead in the videos.
Congratulations! Cool stuff.
Bravissimo!!!!
good works thomsen 👌👌
Random question, how do you get the 360 deg' camera work? I assume someone has control of the orientation but on this vid' it seems to work too well to explain the movement.
The 360 degree camera takes a video of its complete surroundings at all times using two very wide angle cameras. So when I'm editing the video I'm able to "turn" the camera however I'd like to get the best shot. There is a compromise, which is that the camera - while 4k - spreads its recording resolution over the entire 360H x 180V view. So when I take a small field of view for these videos the resulting quality is much lower. But overall I think it's worth it to get a complete picture of what's going on.
How do you clean the brake pads? Alcohol, Oven?
Brake cleaner. Comes in a spray, we just doused everything.
Do You planning to modify engine? A lot can be done there.
Yeah that's right. If you're interested in our engine rules they are here under section 3.6:
docs.cams.com.au/Manual/Race/RA14-Formula-Vee-2017-1.pdf
There is a lot that can be done and it rewards perfectionists who are willing to go through each and every part down to the finest detail.
Other clearly have power advantage. So even in standard class heads could be ported, rised compression ratio,rebalance conrods and pistons, may be even stock camshaft could be reground and lot other smaller stuff. Of course this is another big project it self.
All this is intended to reduce the cost but it can - and does - go both ways. There's enough inconsistency between some components that some people have managed to find very good engine heads for instance that nobody else is going to be able to get their hands on and nobody can achieve parity with due to not being able to bring it to a consistent specification. They are working to solve these issues but it's a very difficult problem to solve fairly and cheaply.
Hi Simon, what is the average speed of your FV and the top speed? Congratulations on builing and racing your car!
Average speed would be maybe between 80kph and 120kph depending on the track. The top speed is about 180kph.
Thank you and good luck!
which programe you use to do the race plot?
The points chart at the end? It was actually just Microsoft Excel, I copied the points table, created a graph of the cumulative points for each race (excluding the drivers worst race which the pointscore system allows us to drop) then made each driver a blue shade with myself highlighted in red. Then I saved the graph as a picture, saved another without any lines on top and used those with a swipe transition to show how it progressed.
What is the main difference between you and the first guy, is it something in your design, engine or just skills/experience?
It would be a combination. Those at the front have spent countless hours and spent a lot of money on every aspect of their car, engine and themselves. I've not spent the money they have, partly because I couldn't afford to after building the car and partly because it would have been too high risk to go all in on the cars first year, too much development work had to be done as well. The guys at the front are also much more experienced drivers than myself, which is just a case of seat time. It would take another couple of years of hard work I reckon to be a genuine contender for the championship. But it's better that way, it wouldn't be an achievement if it weren't so hard.
This series just become way for satisfying to watch. Plus the 5th place sounds way more rewarding to me now. Congrats on your work and keep on having fun on your way to the podium!
How old do i have to be to race formula vee
I believe the minimum age that you can get a racing licence is 16. Under that age the only option would be karting.
U are a interesting guy thanks for inspiration
Get that aero part done to finish it off, if your original calculations were made with the wings, then you should make them to get better performance
Very impressive and inspiring.
Some day i may go from iracing to something like this.
The guy who won the state championship went from iRacing to Formula Vee, I think it was four years ago now.
I can't explain why but your videos are relaxing as fuck
Awsome!
salute
More winglets and coat-hangers than a 2017 F1 car for next season!
Simon Thomsen’s sister is my teacher.
Is this what it really takes to get into racing? Are most people in this same boat - you need to build and bring your cars unless you're somehow ushered into the sport with sponsors like the children of current and past pros are?
No not at all. I've gone about it in about the hardest way possible but I was interested in designing and building something myself. Most people have simply bought manufacturer cars or lease cars from teams. I myself leased a car for a couple of years when I first got into Formula Vee.