BRCA Sportscar Endurance - Race Reports

[Mad Ax]

It was September last year, and I was at the Iconic Revival in Broxtowe, when I doomscrolled past a post on Facebook notifying me of a 5-hour endurance event at Mendip RC Raceway.  This seemed like the perfect race weekend for me - simple cars, a local track that I know and love and perform well at, and a chance to drive in a long endurance race, something I've been going on about for years.  The only problem was, it was only 2 weeks away, and so far the Algorithms That Be had decided I didn't need to know about it.  I called up all the RC friends I knew, and put my name on the reserves list for a drive at Mendip, but alas, it was not to be - the day came and went, and I had no drive.

The event itself was a rip-roaring success, and from the back of it came a whole new BRCA race series: Sportscar Endurance.  With teams of 4 drivers, races between 2 and 6 hours long, 23.5 motor limit and strict rules on scale Le Mans Hypercar bodies and liveries (no Juan Can or tribal flames!), it looked like it would be awesome.  However, with a maximum of 10 teams per event, places would be at a premium, and if I wanted to drive, I'd have to act fast.

I spotted a post on Facebook from someone I knew from my indoor carpet racing days at West Wilts Model Car Club, stating his intent to enter a team and asking for volunteer drivers.  Immediately I dropped him a message and offered my services - limited though they are, as I'm not exactly a top-class driver.  That was fine, he said - it's about having fun, not winning, and he'd be happy to have me on the team.

Autumn came and went, winter set in, and things were moving slowly in the Sportscar Endurance world.  The committee were working hard behind the scenes, but naturally it took a while to get commitment from the host clubs, to sort the ruleset, and to organise a calendar, but by February things seemed to be moving.  Two of my prospective teammates would be racing at the CWICS in Chippenham - 2 towns along from me - in mid-Feb, so I took a day out to introduce myself.  It had been some years since I'd seen either of them in person, so we had a brief reunion between race rounds, and I had a chance to look over the TRF-421 which would be our weapon of choice for the upcoming race series.

Since I haven't raced touring in many, many years - not since the TA-05IFS was a current car - and I haven't owned a proper, high-spec touring car since the Corally RDX was current - and I was pretty gosh-darned rubbish at it - I decided I needed some practice.  See this thread for details, in which I got a chance to drive a TRF-421 and found it to be horribly slippery on new tyres compared to my Schumacher Mi-8.

The first round of the season isn't until mid-April, but as there are lots of potential pitfalls in endurance racing - for the organisers as much as for the racers - they decided to run a 2-hour practice round at Cotswold on 23rd March.  Our team captain booked our entry, our mechanic prepped the car, our chef prepped the burgers and I prepped the frying pan.

to be continued...

[Mad Ax]

The Rules

Before we go too deep into the race reports, let's quickly go over the rules.  A full rule book is available on the Facebook page but here's a brief overview:

Cars - modern touring, 1:10 / 190mm.

Bodies - Le Mans Hypercar, from a predefined list.

Liveries - Le Man / WEC / IMSA replicas preferred, must be realistic, no painted windows / Juan Can specials, no clear wings, no tribal flames.

Tyres - rubber, preferably round.  No additives or tyre warmers, no limits on number of sets used per race.

Motors - 23.5 turn brushless, adjustable timing permitted.

Batteries - 2S LiPo, audible alarm must be fitted and LiPo cutoff must be enabled on ESC.

Teams - 4 drivers.

Qualifying - 5-minute staggered-start heats, 1 heat per driver.  Race starting position determined by aggregate time.

Race Rules

• 2 to 6 hours, depending on host club
• drivers to share equal time
• drivers must change when batteries are changed (driver changes can also be done between battery changes)
• battery and tyre changes to be performed at trackside pits
• all other repairs and modifications must be performed at the team pit table
• no spare cars, although pre-assembled corners and bulkheads are permitted
• only one full lap may be performed after the LiPo alarm sounds
• at any time during the race, teams must have 1 member on the drivers' rostrum, 1 member in marshalling duty and 1 member on pit stop duty.  the 4th member should be on rest time (although normally this meant being on battery charge duty)
• race will begin with a full lap behind the pace car, then the lead car will control the pace until passing the start/finish line, all other cars to maintain stagger formation until the line

Meet the Team

Alistair: team captain, car owner, chief painter

Jon: star driver, chief mechanic

Matt: experienced driver

Alex: makes tea and burgers

The Event

After a week of sunshine and the first hint of warm weather, Sunday 23rd dawned cold and misty, with a threat of rain.  I left home at 7am to make the hour-long journey to the track, passing a shower of light drizzle on the way.  It was dry when I arrived at the track, although low temperatures and heavy mist made the track surface damp, with little chance that it would dry much unless the sun came out.  It was cold, with a blustery wind that cut right through the Garage30 official sponsor hoodie and the Dell's Racing Products beanie hat.  It was so cold that I had to go throw my walking jacket on over my hoodie and pull on my gloves, and even then, I was still chilled to the bone.

The rest of the team turned up a few minutes later, we bagged ourselves a table in the covered pitting area, threw down a pit matthew and pulled out the car.  Alistair set up a second pit mat with all the spares arranged as if in an exploded diagram, so if we had a breakage during the race we could quickly grab the parts we needed to repair it.

While the rest of the team were doing complicated team stuff, I made my way through the pits with a camera and took some pics of the track and other cars.

Track.  Tarmac.  Cold, damp.

Pits.  Wooden.  Cold, dry.  Full power and lights.  Cotswold truly is a high-end facility and it will be a sad, sad loss if the landowners kick them off like they tried to do last year.

Team Jagermoose.  Juan Can rule does not apply because it is a replica.

Other team bodies.

Spike.

Wrong Turn Racing - our team, in Alistair's personal livery for this pre-championship round.  This is a fantastic livery.

to be continued...

[River19]

This is awesome.

It is pretty clear to me that the UK/Europe has a much more interesting on-road racing scene than what I have found here in the US.  This is a cool format.

I hope enjoyed yourself.

[Mad Ax]

3 hours ago, River19 said:

It is pretty clear to me that the UK/Europe has a much more interesting on-road racing scene than what I have found here in the US.

TBH this evolved from a small friendly 5-hour race at the Mendip track last September, which was something a few local lads had been talking about doing for ages and not got around to.  That event went so well that they formed an official committee, registered with the BRCA, and started drafting a ruleset and contacting clubs.  We've never had anything quite like it before, only the odd special endurance event.

It's also going to be a pretty niche thing, by necessity.  Most clubs can't allow more than 10 drivers on the rostrum at a time, for safety reasons, which means a max of 10 cars per race.  If the race is between 2 and 5 hours, with a practice session before the race starts, that doesn't leave time for any other races.  With teams of 4, that's a max of 40 drivers per day - which is way below the 100+ drivers you'd see at a big club meet.

It's happening elsewhere in Europe, but I don't know what will happen to the series in 2026.  Will it be the same exclusive club of 40 drivers in an event which simply can't grow, or will they find a way to run more teams?

Interestingly, most of the host clubs (and some non-host clubs) are also running their own endurance races outside of the official championship.  For host clubs, this is most likely an opportunity to test the timing system and race control procedures before they have to host the official event - losing 1 final on a club weekend due to a procedural error is bad enough, losing the result of a 6 hour race because the timing app crashes after 5 hours and 55 minutes would be desperately disappointing!

More to follow when I have time to sit down and sort it out

[Mad Ax]

Open practice began at 9am, so the rest of the team had a relaxed morning getting the car prepped and ready to go while I fired up the hob and cooked some bacon rolls.

With the Breakfast of Endurance Champions thoroughly nommed, Alistair and Jon took turns running the car on track to see how well it handled.

The next 3 hours was something of a blur.  Matt hadn't held a transmitter in over 8 months, and is not a fan of touring car racing, preferring RWD GT12 with foams on carpet to 4wd 1:10 with rubber on tarmac, so he had the 3rd stint of practice, and he put in some respectable times despite the tricky, slippery conditions.  Cold and damp with intermittent light drizzle was the order of the day, and after slipping around on dry tyres we eventually went for full wets.

I was incredibly nervous for my stint.  Although I raced 7 Iconic Cup rounds on tarmac last year, including a 2 day event at this very same track in September, that was with an FWD M-chassis car, not with a high-spec TC.  I was worried I'd find it too much of a handful, and my two practice races with a 421 on carpet a week ago weren't filling me with any confidence at all.

Regardless, my stint went very well.  The car was very smooth despite the conditions, and it drove extremely well.  I ran for about 10 minutes before I was called down on the radio for some setup changes and a fresh battery, and I was pleased to find that my laptimes were consistent, if not fast.  Jon said it was funny how my laptimes would improve dramatically when someone started catching me, I'd push my braking points later and corner faster, get on the power earlier and generally drive much more aggressively when I knew a faster car was approaching.  On several occasions it served me well because the "faster" car would go off the track before it got close enough that I had to pull over and let it through.

The car got a bad knock from another racer at some point during the practice, which didn't break anything but tweaked it quite badly, so it went on the deck for realignment before we went out again for another session.

I got another 10 minutes or so of practice at the end of the 3 hour session, and then I was off to cook the burgers while the team got the car ready for qualifying.

Here's some photos from the morning practice.

[Mad Ax]

Qualifying was to run over an hour-long session, in the form of 5 minute staggered-start heats with a 10 minute break between.  Team captains had to submit the qualifier driver order to race control in advance, and it was a tactical decision to send Matt out first while he was still fresh from his recent practice stint.  The drizzle had increased just before Q1 and laptimes were down, but Matt put in a respectable 11 laps and qualified 5th out of 6.  The 4 teams above us were on 12 laps, but our best lap was comparable with theirs.

The track was faster again for Q2, and Jon went out to get us the top spot - 1st place with 13 laps, 3 seconds ahead of 2nd.

Q3 was even faster still, and it was my turn to get on track for a 5-minute sprint.  We broke the 14 lap barrier and got 3rd.

Alistair was up for Q4, but laptimes were up again thanks to the weather, and we came in 4th.

Overall we qualified 3rd out of 6, which was pretty good considering we only have 1 superstar driver, I don't rate myself as particularly fast and Matt hasn't raced in 8 months.

We had a 30 minute break to go over the car again, top off all the batteries, and prepare our strategy for the race.

[Mad Ax]

Sometime during the morning our LiPo alarm had stopped working, so we only knew our battery was flat when the ESC shut off.  That meant we had no idea how long we could run in a stint, and had to be ultra-conservative on our pit stops.  Since we all have to run more-or-less equal times on track, we settled on 15 minute stints in qualifying order: Matt first, then Jon, then me, then Alistair, then repeat for the 2nd hour.  I was the first to take pitstop duty, which filled me with more dread than actually driving the car since a) I hadn't practiced any pitstops or battery changes all day, 2) my back was very stiff and with all the layers to keep warm I was struggling to get to the ground, and iii) I've never worked on the car before and was worried I'd fumble the battery change.  I am also pretty clumsy and have a tendency to drop body clips (and anything else you give me to hold, tbh) so there was a good chance I'd mess something up and cost us laptime.

The race start was a spectacular thing to behold.  The organisers opened up a Secret Box to reveal the official series pace car - a black Porsche with roof lights and flashing indicators.  The competitors would make their way slowly out on track, follow the pace car for 1 lap in staggered formation, then the lead car would control the pace from the back straight while the pace car got ahead and safely into the pits, and the race would start as the lead car crossed the timing loop.

Of course all this sounds fab, but nobody had practiced this.  Driving an RC car slow is actually harder than driving it fast, especially when you're trying to keep pace and formation with 6 other cars.  In the end it wasn't even the race start that was the problem - it was getting to the grid.  Matt went off to drive around to the back straight, where we thought we were lining up behind the pace car, but the others had stopped in the middle section and our car hit another, hard.  Everything seemed OK but these modern TCs don't take much to get tweaked out, so we were potentially starting with a twisted car.

The formation lap went well, and then, as the drizzle came down, we were off.

Laptimes were slowed by the weather, and Matt had lost some confidence after the crash, but he put in 35 laps before we radioed up for a driver change and I got my gloves off ready to swap the battery.  In the car came, over I creaked to lift it up, off came the shell, out came the battery, in went the new one, and then it was back together and on track, and Jon was racing away to put in some fast laptimes and chase down the lead.

When the stars had cleared from my eyes, I realised we were the first team in, by a long, long way.  We were already some laps down on the lead, and they were running a lot longer than us.

And then I realised - I only had 10 minutes or so before I was up, and it would all be in my hands.  Literally.

[Mad Ax]

I had misunderstood the rules, and was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Jon came down.  I didn't realise until Alistair came to relieve me later than I could have waited at the top of the stairs, but it didn't matter - it takes longer to change a battery than to climb some stairs.  I got myself settled and ready, and then the car was on track, and I was pulling the throttle, and I was racing.

At the end of the pit straight is a tight right-hand hairpin, then a left kink which you have to be properly lined up for, otherwise the camber takes you into a nasty concrete barrier.  Coming out of the hairpin the car pulled sharply to the right and scuffed over the grass, although thankfully missed the concrete barrier.  A few laps later I had another big one, flipping the car over on the straight, but no damage was done besides 8 lost seconds, and otherwise my times were consistent.  I was out at the same time as some slower drivers, and was able to get me elbows out on track and put in some passes, and hold off some other cars for long enough that they slid off track.

I ran for almost 15 minutes - long enough for my eyes to tear up and my feet to ache and my fingers to go numb - and before I was ready for it I was being called in for a driver change.

After that I was out on marshalling duties for 15 minutes, which mostly involved a relaxing rest on a camping chair.  Our corner had a lot of minor slides off the track, but with only 6 cars and a 23.5T limit, I didn't have to work too hard.  It was nice to rest my legs and back and do some stretches while I waited for my turn at pitting.

As the 1st hour turned into the 2nd, the rain started to fall harder.  We'd had a good 40 minutes of dry running, and Jon reported that the front tyres were almost slicks.  That would have been fine if it stayed dry, but with the weather getting wetter, we didn't weren't sure if we should suffer the time lost changing tyres or risk having a car that was hard to drive in the wet.  We deliberated for a while as it got steadily worse, and then Jon had to go take the driving position, leaving me to make the snap decision to change tyres.

Changing tyres isn't easy under duress, as well as changing the battery and remembering not to reverse-polarity the ESC and fold up the front corner of the body that had been scraping on the ground since lap 10.  I got it done, grabbed the car and threw it on the pit lane.  The wheels span, but it didn't go anywhere.  Something felt amiss.  It wasn't on the ground.

The stubby aluminium pit stand had got damp in the rain, and had suction-fitted itself to the underside of the car, so when I put it on the track the wheels were in the air 

A quick knock and it was running, the stand was recovered and I could breathe a sigh of relief, or actually a wince of pain, because I'd caught my knee on the wooden barrier that separates the pit lane from where the crew stand.

But never mind the pain - there'll be time to hurt later.  I was off for a quick freshen up before my final stint.

When it came, it was over in the blink of an eye.  I think I was out for a little over 10 minutes, putting in some steady times, although not spectacularly fast despite the fresher tyres, and before I was even in to my stride I was down again for a final marshalling stint while Alistair did battle with the lead cars to take us to the end of the race.

[Mad Ax]

After over 2 hours of constant running, the car completed 282 laps and came in 4th overall, missing out on 3rd by just 4 laps and 2nd by 7.  1st were a long way out on 295, and their best lap was over a second faster than ours, but otherwise our laptimes were very competitive, and with a few less pitstops we could have challenged for a podium.  It's a learning experience, and this round is non-championship, so it doesn't matter - we'll be at Stafford in April, taking everything we've learned onto the track to try to climb the ladder.  Our battery issues give us huge scope for improvement.

In total, including practice, quali and the race, our car covered 137km and the total distance covered by all cars was 781km.  That's a huge distance for tiny little bits of carbon fibre and aluminium.

Here's a video that one of the organisers put together showcasing some highlights of the day.

 

 

[ThunderDragonCy]

This looks so fun. Thanks for the write up.

[Mad Ax]

2 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

This looks so fun. Thanks for the write up.

More to come in 3 weeks time.  It's just over 2 weeks until the first official round, which was announced today as a 4 hour race at Stafford.  They're also opening the track for practice on Saturday.  I don't have the budget for a hotel at this short notice so I'll probably spend the night in the van.  4 hours racing plus quali plus 90 minute morning practice off the back of a whole day of practice plus a night in the van suddenly doesn't sound so appealing 

[Starky_UK]

Great write up.

I'd love to do some endurance racing myself but as you mentioned, limitations on team numbers could be an issue.

My local club has a limit of 8 on the rostrum and the nearby indoor raceway would probably struggle to accommodate 40+ people servicing one race. 

I have had many conversation with others over the years about wanting to do an endurance race (mostly as one off events) so there are clearly plenty people out there with interest in this.

Hopefully this championship does well, continues and builds interest from other clubs to run endurance events. 

Good luck to you and team. 

[Mad Ax]

@Starky_UK there are a few clubs running one-off endurance events this year.  I think South Hants Model Car Club are doing one, and Mendip might be doing some too.  Hopefully the trend grows and more clubs will do one or two special endurance races each year.

Keep an eye on the Colchester club, they are hosting a round of the BRCA championship later this year but they might do a one-off endurance before then to test out their timing equipment.

[Mad Ax]

OK - a sort-of update!

I was hoping to be able to do a really detailed blow-by-blow account of the racing, but it was nearly 2 weeks ago and I've been too busy to sit down and write down everything I remember, so I've mostly forgotten it now.  I also didn't take many photos, because I was too busy doing racing stuff.  That's the interesting point about endurance racing - although I'm only racing for 1/4 of the time the car is on track, I'm busy for the remaining 3/4 of the time, either marshalling, pit crewing, or on rest time, which usually means going to the toilet, grabbing a drink and a snack, and stretching my muscles before my next driving stint.

Saturday practice began cool but dry.  It's a 2.5 hour drive from home, but since the half of the team that have custodianship of the race chassis were busy sorting their 1:1 car out in the morning, I was in no rush to get to the track. Team captain Alistair arrived about 30 minutes before me, and I got there just before lunchtime to find he'd already got a good spot in the new covered pits at Stafford's permanent outdoor circuit, and had taken the "spare" chassis (which he uses for carpet racing during the week) and had put on some tyres ready for some early sighting laps before the main car arrived.

We took turns at some medium runs on the track - around 15 minutes each - before Jon and Matt arrived with the race car.  We were also fully equipped this time with 4 portable radios and Guenther Steiner headsets and voice-activated transmission, so we can stay in full communication all the time, even when driving.  Not every team uses these but they are extremely useful.

Jon is our star driver and chief mechanic, and he spent a fair bit of time on track making changes to the car and trying to get us closer to the top spot.  I had mostly expected the championship to attract hobby-grade racers like myself who aren't really fast enough for nationals but want something a bit more exciting than racing at the local civic centre.  In truth, there are some very fast drivers in the series, and we had our work cut out finding pace both in ourselves and in our car.  Try as we might, the TRF-421 would always have just a little too much understeer, and a tendency to want to spin out leaving the corners if we weren't gentle on the throttle.  Throttle gentleness seems to be a specialty of mine, so I was able to handle the car even when it was being badly behaved, but speed it not a specialty of mine, and my laptimes were not where they needed to be.

Hotels in the area were proving expensive, so 3 of our team had opted to camp at the track.  A few other teams also camped, so once the racing was done I went off on an Asda run to buy some beers and supplies, and Alistair went to get the Chinese takeaway, and we had a thoroughly relaxing night out under the stars until it got too cold, and we all went off to bed.

I only took one picture on Saturday, and I really like it.  Although I take no credit for the composition, I simply pointed my Galaxy S22 at the moon and pressed the "take picture now" button and its clever algorithms did all the rest.

[Mad Ax]

Sunday morning was cold and, if I recall correctly, a little damp, although there would be no proper rain during the day.  Jon made a few more last-minute setup changes to the car before we had our 90-minute practice session.

I'd got a lot of running on Saturday and was feeling confident, so I let the others get in more track time before going out for a few quick sighting laps to recalibrate my brain.  A couple of laps in and I made an error coming into the hairpin at the end of turn 1, the car slowed and tightened more than I expected and I launched it off the inner barrier.  I flew neatly and landed on its wheels with no obvious damage, and it still felt OK, but after a couple more laps I decided to bring it in for a courtesy-check and de-tweaking.  It was the first big mistake I'd had since joining the team, and I felt that a chance to get off the rostrum, breathe, gather my thoughts, and go up again, was better than persisting with a car that might have been carrying a significant problem.

It came off the setup station with no obvious breakages and not too far out of true, so we all had a little more running before we broke for the drivers' briefing.

Then it was time for qualifying - 4 x 5 minute rounds, all rounds to count, with all drivers to take a turn in an order presented to the race steward by the team captain prior to quali beginning.  We opted to send Alistair out first, followed by Matt, then Jon, and finally me.  Although not mandatory, we opted to keep the same order for our race stints just because it makes it easier to remember.

Alistair went up first and put in a solid run, although our laptimes were down, and we finished 7th out of 8.  Our best time of 21.07 was over 2 seconds slower than the fastest of 18.99, and most of the teams were lapping in the mid-19s.

Matt went up for round 2 and got our best time up to 20.81, although the other teams were improving by similar amounts and ultimately we finished last, 2 laps off the lead but just 5 seconds down on 7th place.

Jon was supposed to bump us up a few positions by being our star driver, but coming onto the main straight on lap 5, the car suddenly snapped sideways and stopped in the middle of the track.  A following car couldn't avoid it and there was a big crunch, and our car limped away with a rear wheel at an unpleasant angle.  One of the nuts had come off the rear toe link, causing the car to spin out.  Fortunately we didn't sustain any significant damage in the crash, but we lost our chance at getting our best time.  One of the other teams would also have a bad run with a car failure, so despite a 20.09 fastest lap, we finished 7th with only 7 laps to our name.

Finally, it was my turn to give it some welly.  Looking like we were going to be last anyway, there wasn't really that much pressure - but I still didn't want to total the car or ruin anyone else's efforts, so I got my head down and got in some solid laps.  It was a clean run with no tangles, and eventually I stepped down from the rostrum, pleased with a job well done.  We finished 6th, 1 lap off the lead and less than 2 seconds off 5th, with a best time of 20.30.  Good though that was, it wasn't enough to get us off the bottom step, so we would be starting last.

[Mad Ax]

Alistair went out and got in some good clean laps without much in the way of off-track excursions, and came in after around 25 minutes to swap battery and driver.  Matt went out, but immediately reported a problem with the car - very tail happy and hard to drive - so it came in for another quick check-over, but ultimately was sent out again without any changes.

At this point everything pretty much became a blur.  We had 2 scrubbed sets of 32 tyres for the 4 hour race, but before long we were noticing the rears going off.  The rules stated that we need to change driver after every major stop (tyres, battery or other repairs) so we kept Matt out as long as we could before bringing him in for some new rears and a driver swap to Jon.  Immediately our laptimes were up into the 19s, and Jon had a good, clean stint.

Finally it was my turn, and I took my spot on the rostrum while I waited for the battery to be changed.  Then, like the vacant airhead that I am, I found something thoroughly interesting on the far side of the track to look at, and had to be called over the radio to tell me the car was ready and waiting in the pit lane.  Feeling a little foolish, I squeezed the throttle and got back on track.

Jon came on the radio a moment later to warn me that Bill was closing in behind, and he's a fast driver, so watch out and be ready to give him space.  I know Bill from my old days of racing and bashing in Bristol, he's a great guy and good fun to be around but apparently he's not as quick as everyone thinks, because after he closed up, I started pulling away.  Finding my stride, I dropped him to almost half a lap.  Then, inexplicably, he started catching up again.  I find RC racing can be like this - pace comes and goes between drivers during a race, and someone I can keep up with at the start suddenly pulls away from me later on.

25 minutes were over in a heartbeat, or so it seemed, although I'm not sure my legs agreed with that statement.  I had a lot of pain in the legs - I have to remember, squeeze and release the leg muscles through the lap, then lift and wiggle each foot on the straight.  Not only does it help with pain in the legs and back, it also loosens up the body and prevents me getting too tight a grip on the transmitter and losing what little finesse I have.

Nearly 2 hours into the race, I had a chance to sit down on my marshalling chair in the middle of the track for 20 minutes before I was relieved for my turn in the pits.

The next 2 hours would play out much the same, with no major repairs needed but a scrape on the body causing the front splitter to rattle on the ground.  A new body was fitted in time for my second outing, but by that point I was well into my stride and happy to be on the rostrum again, solidly putting in lap after lap, staying out of the way of the fast cars and battling with some very fast but slightly scruffy juniors who race like juniors always do - like it's the last lap of the last race of the championship!  I could hear their team captain shouting "let him go, let him go!" from the other side of the track, but I know what it's like when the red mist descends - all you hear is the whine of the motor and the scrub of the tyres and the pumping of the blood and the taste of metal on the back of the tongue (yes, taste has a sound.  It sounds like silver-grey smells).

And then my stint was done, and I was in to do my turn on the marshall's chair while Alistair had his final run.  This took us almost to the flag, but when the battery alarm sounded, and we had one more driver change to take us to the flag.  Alistair got caught up in the pits so I wasn't relieved from my marshalling stint, but that wasn't a big deal since it was comfortable in the chair and nobody was crashing.  In fact I went all day without having to pick up a single car, and then 2 broke down right in front of me on the very last lap.

[Mad Ax]

We finished the race in 7th place, with 665 laps and a total time of 14410.69 seconds, just 8 laps off 6th.  The winners took the top spot by 11 laps, with a total of 736, and last place managed 589.  The midfield was very close, with 2nd to 5th managing 725, 724, 711 and 685 laps.

All in all, it was an absolutely fabulous race, tremendous fun, and we all gave it our best.  It's a shame we didn't have more pace in the car, but even Jon couldn't get close to the leaders, so we need to find out what's going on with the car and see if we can get more speed.  Jon and Alistair will probably be doing some testing at Aldershot over the summer break.  That's a 2 hour drive from our neck of the woods, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to join them, but Jon is very good with car setup so we'll see what he can do with plenty of time and a clear track to really get focussed on what the car can do.

There's a big break now until round 2, which is at South Hants in July.  It's going to be an interesting race, as South Hants is a very tight and technical circuit and requires razor precision to get the best from it.  It's also bumpy, so it needs a soft setup that can make the car feel lazy, plus it's a very abrasive surface, so we could spend a few pennies on tyres.  There's no track shop at these rounds, so we'll have to stock up on tyres before we go.  I'm kind of wondering if the organisers should impose a tyre limit for the race, as it would be easy for richer teams to change tyres every hour, but as this is the 1st season the rules are constantly being monitored and we've already had a few clarifications on pit rules etc. as we have fallen foul of the one-man-on-a-car rule and others did the drive-the-car-directly-to-the-paddock-without-stopping-in-the-pits-first thing, which will probably get a penalty at the next round.

I took a few other photos during the weekend, so I'll share them here before I sign off.

Cooking bacon for a pre-race breakfast before practice.

Saturday night was heavy.  People say we only go racing for an excuse to drink.  In my defence, I was on strong antibiotics at the time.

Our race shell, before it got a few battle scars in the race.  This is based on the 2006 Pescarolo colours.

We even have official-looking driver names above the door, just like a real racing car.

The official pace car.  This leads the cars around on 2 parade laps.  Half-way through the second lap, the lead car must back up the field to allow the pace car to get away to the pits.  At this point the race director starts the 10 second timer, and it is the responsibility of the lead car to hold up the field and choose when to go, but they must not cross the start line before the 10 second timer otherwise they'll lose the first racing lap.

One of our tyres after the race.  We used 2 sets of tyres, but we could have used many more.

 

[Pylon80]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading all this. Do I wish we had this kind of racing (or any on-road racing at all for that matter) over here... Anyways well done folks (love the names on the car 😎)!

I'm surprised at the tires, they are not just worn, they look pitted like they over heated almost? Is that even a thing?

Thanks for taking the time to make these reports for us.

[ThunderDragonCy]

That was great. Really enjoying these endurance race reports @Mad Ax

[Mad Ax]

I will endeavour to take a few notes during the next round, so I have a more detailed report to give.

[ThunderDragonCy]

12 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I will endeavour to take a few notes during the next round, so I have a more detailed report to give.

Don't sweat it. Enjoy. That last one was plenty detailed

[ucacjbs]

On 4/25/2025 at 3:09 PM, Mad Ax said:

I will endeavour to take a few notes during the next round, so I have a more detailed report to give.

Echoing @ThunderDragonCy - enjoy yourself! These reports are a fun read as-is 👍🏻