Thanks Mark, I tried your suggestion and scaled the camera... however I get the same result.
Freeze, Carrara recovers and I see there is no movement, try again and the same thing.

This occurs in both C6pro and C7pro

another screen of my scene for reference. I must have some kind of setting wrong or something.

The car is actually not touching the road in the shot tho it look like it from the angle, its still a few feet higher above the spline-road

EDIT I thought it might be the target helper so I scaled that too, but get the same result.

Carrara 7 Pro, Anime Studio Pro 8, Hexagon 2.5, Zbrush 4.6, trueSpace 7.6, and Corel Draw X3. Manga Studio 4EX, Open Canvas 5, WACOM Cintiq 12WX User