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Dramatic in-car CCTV footage from the famous Le Mans 24 Hours race demonstrates vividly the moment when AD Group CEO, and founder of Dedicated Micros, Mike Newton's challenge in the 2008 event came to an abrupt end as his car left the track and took flight at 270 kph.
Mike Newton, who already has two class wins at Le Mans to his name, had been driving the powerful RML MG Lola EX264 race car for nearly an hour - after taking over from his co-driver Brazilian Tommy Erdos - when, 8 hours into the gruelling 24 hour race, disaster struck as he came into the famous Porsche Curves.
His approach to the sweeping curve was nothing unusual, but the result was. The car snapped suddenly to the right, side-on to the direction of travel, and as the air pressure built up under the edge, the car lifted clear of the ground. It kept on rising, and revolving. "I can recall looking across, and seeing the ground coming in towards me," said Mike Newton, later. Almost at the point when the car was upside down, the front corner dug in, spinning the car violently back the other way, until the left rear hit the ground in turn. The car bucked again before finally settling back on its wheels. Miraculously, Mike was able to bring the MG slowly back to the pitlane and into the garage.
Thanks to AD Group's CCTV recording technology, installed in the MG Lola in the form of a racing variant of the award-winning TransVu - the RML X-PRO Recorder - Mike was able to show Phil Barker, RML Team Manager, exactly what the car - and driver - had just experienced with the recorded images linked to all-important telemetry data.
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