it is with great pleasure that I announce that Rebel Scum will travel to the great state of Pennsylvania. We shall visit the much loved Pitt and participate in the Endurance Karting 6 hr race-shenanigan.
Nick will be back from college. @RandallC has family out in that neck of the woods so he’ll be joining us. Andre and Marc have prior commitments. Perhaps Elias will have time between his probation meetings.
Anyways June 29:
Dan, are there any hotels worth staying at? Nick bringing his squeeze.
The Omni is pretty cool!
GL in the enduro Pitt is such a sweet place to race
Well, crud, I may be in trouble now with my spouse. She didn’t seem enthused about visiting Pittsburgh.
We really need a way to make these trips attractive for our non-racing spouses/friends etc.
Race directors take note: we need adult entertainment in addition to the racing…
How about a wet bar and some bouncy castles?
Sweet - you’ll have fun!
Cranberry area is one exit away on 76 and well worth the 20 minute drive. Great hotels, restaurants, breweries, etc. Typical upper middle class suburban sprawl in a good way.
Cranberry also puts you less than 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and some really cool neighborhoods - Strip District, Lawrenceville, Mt Washington and South Side (if you like the college town scene).
Pittsburgh is an absolute foodie and brewery Mecca plus a couple great night life and view spots.
Do you have a race day schedule yet? Can give you some ideas if I know your timeline.
If you are into Baseball, you should catch a Pirates Game. The Stadium overlooks the Rivers and has a great view of the Downtown Skyline. Plus Good Eats & Drinks!
Most excellent. I thank all of you for the reccos! You are the Angie’s List of karting, - minus the murderers and meth dealers, presumably.
The plan is typically Chris has a practice day on Fridays with paid sessions and also classes for those who require refamiliarization or are newer. Probably worth doing the classes for newbies as these things are usually fun and useful.
Saturday is usually paid practice 9-11 with race going off somewhere around 12-1, depending upon Mr. Murphy. Closing ceremonies etc, done by 8-9.
Then back to hotel and stay the night, drive back Sunday.
Schedule of Events
Monday, June 24, 2024
Driver Info Session 7:00PM-7:30PM
This is an OPTIONAL meeting with an intro to the event and a good opportunity to ask questions. Meeting Link Or dial: (US) +1 317-360-0376 PIN: 102 012 150#
Friday, June 28, 2024
Early Check-in 3:00PM - 6:00PM
Drivers sign waivers and pickup safety gear
NEW-Paid Practice Sessions 6:00PM - 8:00PM Open to all qualifying drivers 16+ years old*, not just race competitors. Cost is $40 for a 15 minute session. All safety gear included.
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Team Check-in 7:00AM - 9:30AM
Drivers sign waivers and pickup safety gear.
Paid Practice Sessions & Kart Racing 201 Clinic 8:00AM - 9:00AM
Cost is $25 for a 10 minute session. Prepurchasing online is recommended. Coaching available in registration for limited #s.
Mandatory Driver’s Meeting 9:05AM-9:50AM
ALL DRIVERS AND TEAM MANAGERS ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND. First practice driver should be dressed (exc. helmet) and ready to practice.
Team Practice 9:55AM-10:40AM This session is included with the entry fee and is a great opportunity to get to know the kart that you will be using for the qualifying session and the start of the race. This is also a good time to practice driver changes and weight swaps on the kart.
Qualifying 10:40AM-10:45AM Your quickest driver sets the time that determines your starting poistion on the grid.
Prerace Ceremonies 10:55 AM Give thanks. Honor our country.
6 Hour Race 11:15PM-5:15PM Teams compete for 7 hours in 4 different karts with drivers switching out on the team strategy.
Awards 5:30 PM After the results are certified official, we hand out the awards in up to 7 classes.
With that schedule, I agree with Dan and would stay in Cranberry. Lots of great food choices and hotels.
The Pirates are away that weekend but if you’re done by 6 on Saturday, I would head downtown for dinner. A dinner on Mt. Washington (+ a ride on the incline) would make it up to the wife. Beautiful views overlooking the city and fantastic restaurant options - pricey though. Otherwise there are a ton of great options downtown or in Lawrenceville as Dan mentioned.
OR stay in Cranberry for Saturday night and head to the strip district downtown on Sunday morning for breakfast / lunch before heading home. Doesn’t get more Pittsburgh than that.
Another option is to stay in the Tryp hotel in Lawrenceville - boutiquey hotel with a great rooftop restaurant/bar with a view of the city. It’s an old steel neighborhood that has turned in to the cool spot in town - tons of breweries, restaurants, shops, etc. Also puts you a short Uber ride to downtown and some of the other great spots around town - Warhol museum, Incline to Mt Washington, Strip District shops, etc. If your wife likes some options that don’t include 14 hours at the track while you are playing on karts - this will score some points! 
For an early Saturday morning it’s a very easy 45 minute drive to the track. I know because I live 2 minutes from the Tryp and make that drive 3-4 times a week. Lol
Love Chris’s idea of hitting the Strip for breakfast Sunday before leaving too!
Going to say without a doubt that you are going to love our little city if you give it a try. Let us know what kind of things you like to do/eat/drink and we’ll toss some ideas your way. And also check out r/Pittsburgh on Reddit - Pittsburghers LOVE showing off their city.
Gentlemen,
Thank you!
I shall be staying in Cranberry.
I noticed this on the Pitt site… they seem to have a lot of rental stuff for newbies,… maybe worth a visit for the folks interested in learning the basics…
They seem to have these on the regular.
Now do I get a new 360 cam and give @EnduranceKarting a heart attack again by taking out all his caution tape ribbons again?
Answer: Yes. (But we’ll try a different mounting approach).
Rental stuff at Pitt is awesome! that’s where I started my karting journey! Nice spot in cranberry! Just recently moved out of there 5 minutes down the road to Zelienople! Cranberry is a super busy little town. Should be a great time!
Memo to self
I have often wondered why @speedcraft has resisted all attempts to partake in racing where the powerplant is the self.
Now we know.
We do most of the instruction for that program and had 31 participants at the May event. Three jumped in with both feet and are kart owners/A&D racers already. 
Rebel Scum Podium Pancakes does sound like a good idea 
Noted re Tryp. This sounds ideal for a less racy visit and a better option for taking in Pittsburgh. I’ll deffo do this next year.
One week to go!
Let’s take a look at forecast:
Not too bad but hydration/shade will be important.
Also, we are running a 3 man team so we could choose to do many short sessions or two long each. If it’s hot and humid I think short is better.
Also, @EnduranceKarting can breathe a sigh of relief. Gopro dragged their feet on my cam replacement for the hero max so I won’t have 360 footage. As a consequence, all of Chris’s carefully taped off sections will remain upright.
However, @RandallC just got a hero12 so we will have good footage from his perspective too.
Speaking of hero 12: it has 10bit color buried in the menu. Turn that on and highest bit rate. Color, natural. Flat is too much post processing, gopro color is too contrasty (but useful outdoors).
Since you won’t have the 2.0 lens mod, you will be able to shoot in 5.3k, which is nice!
The other thing by with the hero 12 is the big 8x7 sensor. It then crops this for shooting mode. So you can shoot shorts vertical 9x16, if you wanted to.
I just create a seperate movie when I make shorts where I define the image size in premier sequence and then drop the full frame footage in and it crops in editor. I’ll use square to get max width/height that I can off the footage. Ie 2160x2160.
@nikspeeds has been playing with ND filters. The deal with action cans is that they are fixed aperture (always wide open) and therefore use shutter speed and film sensitivity (asa/iso) as the 2nd variable to get exposure. So the film sensitivity ranges from 100-3200.
Outdoors the cam will have to shoot 60fps and high shutter speed. This is great for freezing action but appears almost too good, too sharp.
We are used to 24 fps from the movies. When you slap a ND filter on it allows the cam to be less focused in freezing action and you can then use a slower shutter speed and it looks more natural. Note pavement artifacts.
In my 60fps high shutter footage, the pavement needs very high resolution and high bitrate playback or it looks weird, too sharp. If resolution of playback drops, that transforms into blocky areas.
With Nik’s footage, the camera cant get sharp frames of the pavement since the shutter speed is low enough to create motion blur and the pavement texture is de-emphasized.
Nik:
Mine:
I’ve been a fan of the 2160 square as well 
Quick chuckle imagining the size a film reel would have to be to hold as much as these SD cards
Yeah that video there is ND32. I tried ND16 at GRX and like both.
The multi-pack I bought came with 4 Amazon.com … I haven’t tried the 8 or 64 yet. Comparing 32 to 16 I think 64 would be way too much and 8 might be too little … But I’ll try them eventually 
I think I’m slightly partial to the ND16. The blur is subtle and you almost don’t notice anything “special” was used.
Like Quincy in the Park. They had food and beer trailers, corn hole turnament, bounncy houses, down hill barbie jeep(and similar) races, and a concert at night. There migh have been more.
Barbie jeep races would be awesome. Every race meeting, including SKUSA, should begin with the children on battery toy cars doing a race. It would remind us why we are there.
