The race ran smoothly until around 2am. Earlier, the pre-grid festivities were completed under a Simpsons sky and all was right with the world. We started 64th, which due to class vagaries left us in the front third of the second grid - those unfamiliar with the race won't know that it's so big you have three 60 car grids spaced several minutes apart, each running a rolling start.
#100 Vantage started third in SP10
By the end of lap 1, Andy Guelden was 46th. That's quite a bit of overtaking. He then chased down the leading car in our class, SP10, the Mathol Racing GT4 Aston which has dominated the class in both the regular VLN series and the N24 for years. They began trading seconds, and a big yellow flag go-slow zone gave our boss-man David King a perfect excuse to pit him early for a drink and new shoes, but mostly to calm the intense battle. Despite splitting the pugilists, we'd effectively be fighting that same car for another 10 hours.
I watched the opening hour of this year's race with a mixture of bewilderment and awe. The test and qualifying sessions had suggested the lead GT3 cars were taking no prisoners, but this was something else - the pole-sitting McLaren zoomed off into the lead and, once it began lapping slower cars, the mayhem began. There were shunts everywhere: in gravel traps, into slower cars, into each other, on their own. All involving the big, fast metal driven by pro-pedallers. As a display of the noble art of endurance driving, and by that I mean balancing all of the known problems of racing a car for a full day and night, it was about the least impressive demonstration I'd seen. Like watching a test batsman go big after facing three balls and get himself caught at cow-corner. It was as if they'd forgotten why they were there.
Early laps so fast the camera couldn't keep up...
But hell was it exciting. Everyone assumed the McLaren wouldn't last because it never lasts - and general consensus proved correct. Then there were multiple lead changes and more crashes and then, after the first few hours the attrition rate subsided and the race seemed to assume its more familiar pace. But this stage we were running in the low 40s and slightly losing ground to that Mathol Aston. The excuses for this were varied and valid (because they always are!); we had slightly slower Pirelli rubber, they probably had a more developed car and we were nursing a clutch engagement issue that required us to lift the throttle on upshifts (this car had paddles) and that really cost us time. All things considered, if the Mathol car ran without fault, we would not beat it.
So Guelden handed over to Meaden, to me, to Matthai, and then back to Guelden who under cover of darkness decided to double stint - that being 16 laps, or around two and a half hours. Dickie did a single stint, maintained position and then I jumped in at around 2:30am. A few minutes later, as I was wondering why the headlights were so poor, chief engineer and voice-of-calm on the radio Fraser Dunn crackled into life "Ollie (Matthai) is feeling sick, he can't drive, can you double stint?" I said I'd give it a couple of laps and give an answer. Looking back, I never did give that answer, we just did it. The next two hours were among the more stressful of my racing life.
GT3 car no doubt very close behind very soon!
Clearly rested after their opening tussles, the GT3 drivers had taken nocturnal mad pills and were intent on playing chicken with all slower-moving traffic. In that time, I think I probably make 10 moves that were pure avoidance - not just peeling away from the throttle or steering a little, but proper leap-out-the-way moves based on sets of looming yellow headlights and the single blue flashing light that signify a front 30 runner. At one point, at Kesselchen, I let two of them past on the left hand side, simultaneously another came past on the right. The circuit is only two cars wide. I was doing 125mph, they must have been in the 140s.
The laps were slow and lacked continuity because there were so many big shunts and slow zones. Of 16 laps, I think only one was vaguely clear. This isn't unusual, and of course we had two real upsides, racing on the Solstice keeps the night time to a minimum and, best of all, there was no rain or fog. And still I had an eerie sense that the level of aggression from the GT3 cars was going to be my undoing - the Aston's performance sits in quite an uncomfortable zone - miles faster than the small hatchbacks, but with the clutch issue, surprisingly close to stuff like the fast Astras and M235is. In other words it takes time and concentration to pass them, but you need 2.5 eyes on the mirrors for the next big bruiser because they are just so much faster everywhere.
N430 flawless bar iffy clutch
I suppose it was inevitable - but on my last lap, braking into the first corner on the GP circuit, just before the apex, there was a large BANG and I was punted stage left. An Audi missing its dive flips chuntered around the chicane and into the night. I followed with the steering wheel at ten-to-two and completed the full lap before pitting.
The time lost fitting a new steering arm and re-tracking the suspension was something in the order of 40 minutes. It dropped us back to fourth in class and high 50s overall. Andy's out-lap from the pit box was a 9min 30sec, on cold rubber. That's rather impressive.
From then on we all double-stinted, nursed the clutch and began the slow process of climbing the leader board. With each hour the position improved, and we eventually locked ourselves into third place. From the start the car had felt superb in all direction changes and very forgiving. It was also demon under brakes - the faster Porsche Cup cars would monster us most places, but in the wiggly Hohe Acht to Brunnchen section we could stay with them. But the great pauses for upshifts were killing us and mentally we had settled for third. Morning light gave way to midday sunshine - this is only the second time I've had a rain-free N24 - and after 21 and a half hours lady luck smiled on us and the Mathol car retired. I feel gutted for them because on pure pace they deserved the class win. We maintained second in class to the finish and were listed 40th overall at the end, that changed to 39th in the published results.
Quite a view as the sun rises on Sunday
I found it a physical race, largely because of the compromised seating position that comes from running with four drivers, despite a seat runner and adjustable wheel. In my second double stint I burnt 1750kcal, which is a reasonable workout - by comparison the catatonic Meaden appeared to barely work beyond tick-over. But it was the sheer aggressiveness of the fast cars that will be the abiding memory. In many ways they tainted the race for me and many others. I fully understand their frustrations with us slow-coaches, but the rules of racing clearly state that they have to work past us, not through us, and the expectation that we can simply disappear from the circuit is unrealistic. It is ironic that many of the perpetrators were at Le Mans the week earlier in GT cars, complaining of being bullied by the prototypes.
But this remains the ultimate expression of hard, unpredictable racing and just being a part of it feels like a huge privilege. I always wonder about the ifs and buts, and maybe a top thirty finish was on if I hadn't been collected by that Audi, but second in class was the best we could have hoped for on pure pace, and the N430 was tough as a pair of old Gaydon boots. Good times.