5 GoPro Mounting Locations For Your Race Car Video

There are several locations on a race car that are ideal for a GoPro mount. These ads reveal the most racing action with the least amount of custom fabrication camera mounting. This article looks at 5 possible mounting points that will add to the quality of your racing videos right from the start with minimal testing.

Place 1: roll cage. With GoPro’s standard roll bar mounting kit, you can position the camera just over the driver’s shoulder on a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal bar. This location offers the best view of the in-car racing action, whether it’s on the race track, road course or oval. In addition to front view of the track and racing competitors, a cage-mounted GoPro camera can be easily adjusted to capture the driver’s upper body, dash and gauges, in-car sponsor logos and traffic racing to both sides of the car. Slight adjustments to the camera angle and resolution will produce different effects. Roll bars form stable platforms, so video is normally vibration-free. Be sure to use the open back cover of the GoPro housing if you want to capture car sounds.

Place 2: front bumper. This is one of the riskiest places, especially for stock cars, drifters and road racers, due to the inevitable contact with competitors. However, there are advantages to mounting your GoPro on the front bumper for creating realistic and exciting videos. First of all, the low camera angle gives an incredible sense of speed. The track surface plunges under the car in the bottom half of the footage, giving viewers a great sense of speed. Second, close the action with the competitors in front, the track, the crowd, etc. it’s captured in a way that you can’t get any other way because of the wide angle lens. The driver always feels close to the action: to achieve this effect with a camera, he must physically mount it close to the action. Obviously the risk of the bumper mount is that you will lose the camera in an impact. This risk can be reduced, but not eliminated, by locating the bracket at the top of the bumper toward the rear, or even within the grill area.

Point 3: Roof. The GoPro Car Mount Kit includes a sturdy suction cup mount that’s ideal for mounting your camera on a car roof. The benefit of a ceiling mount is unrestricted views in any direction. Gives a “bird’s eye” view of the action from a high angle. This allows the camera to capture multiple cars, much of the track, and even interesting things like flying trees, the starting flag stand, fans in the crowd, and other views. A roof mount is perfect for displaying sponsor logos on the hood, roof, or tailgate of a car. The suction cup mount is sturdy and rarely comes off. The downside is that the excitement and impact of being in the driver’s seat doesn’t translate as well from on high. However, this is one of those locations that provides some great additional footage for your racing videos.

Point 4: Outside over the driver’s shoulder. The drifting crowd has made this cam spot popular. The GoPro mounts with a simple adhesive mount or suction cup to the outside of the window, behind and above the driver. It has the advantage of capturing the driver’s head and hands during the race, which adds a great sense of action to the video sequences. When the camera is positioned higher up, it offers something of a bird’s eye ceiling mount effect. When mounted lower, it offers more driver action in the picture. Watch out for mounting it too low or you risk having your camera taken from you by a competitor! The outside window location is best for very wide angle views.

Point 5: Inside aiming at the driver. This option offers a ton of variety in where the camera is mounted and what you focus it on. On the dashboard directly in front of the driver, aiming at his face, film his eyes and reactions during the race. This makes the video very realistic and conveys the interesting human element of racing. Moving the camera on the dash to the center or far corner gradually captures more of the driver’s side and what’s going on outside the car. These angles combine the action of the driver with the movements of technical control and the activity of external competitors. Pointing your dash-mounted GoPro directly to the rear is usually not the best, as 75% of the view will be inside the car and very little racing action will be shown. There are many other points, such as foot room, opposite door, rear-facing steering wheel, etc. play with.

Mounting one or more GoPro cameras in any of these locations on a race car will produce great footage for your next race video. Feel free to experiment or use these locations as a starting point.