A primer on in-car video systems for the historic racer.

Humans are such visual animals that even when our eyes are closed, some form of imagery usually plays across the big screen of our consciousness as we remember, imagine, or dream of things both real and not. This reality has fostered both the motion picture and television industries and, in recent years, the advent of video technology that has become so accessible to the average person that you could conceivably find images from your neighbor’s shower stall (or even your own) on YouTube.

Being creative, adaptable, and inventive folks, racers quickly embraced this new technology both as a way to share and relive their moments behind the wheel, as well as a means to improve their on-track performance. Not only have once cumbersome systems (think John Frankenheimer’s Cinerama cameras) been miniaturized to the point that they weigh nearly nothing and can fit inside your helmet, but with amazing rapidity, the recording technology also has evolved from film to tape and, most recently, to solid-state digital format.