2016 Dubai 24hr
Discussion
I agree with what Jason90 said.
100 cars was about 20 to many in my opinion. Cars that could not be towed back to its garage were put on a recovery truck with the car delivered to the scrutineering bay area. The team then had to get the car back to the garage down pit lane as there was insufficient access in the paddock area. Previously if you stopped on the right your car was brought back down pit lane irrespective.
A Porsche hit our car within the first 15 minutes and destroyed a brand new wheel.
A lot of teams showed real arrogance in the pit lane when waiting for a pit stop. They believed they could set-up where they wanted to irrespective of blocking other teams garages when a team wanted to push their car out of a garage after a repair. Certain nationalities where worse than others....
Even though we dropped a valve after 19 1/2hrs racing, our car must have one of the very few without any bodywork damage (we had a very, very small dent).
I still believe the Dubai 24hr is the jewel in the crown for Creventic, but as Jason said, is it time for the smaller classes (ie: below 3L engine capacity) to be removed from the event, or to remove the top 2 classes (effectively GT cars)?
The new rules certainly made pit stop planning more of a challenge (this is what I do during the race) Some of the top teams ran out of fuel during the race, which have been a result of this rule change.
SVDP's BMW 120 has served them well (its 1st 24hr race was the Britcar 24hr at Silverstone in 2010), and I believe it has taken the chequered flag in every race it started (it might have had its engine changed in the race a few times, but that is endurance racing and the teams never give up attitude).
Car number wise:
ZRT Motorsport (me): 48
SVDP Racing (Jason 90): 191
2W Racing: 69
Lap57: 57
100 cars was about 20 to many in my opinion. Cars that could not be towed back to its garage were put on a recovery truck with the car delivered to the scrutineering bay area. The team then had to get the car back to the garage down pit lane as there was insufficient access in the paddock area. Previously if you stopped on the right your car was brought back down pit lane irrespective.
A Porsche hit our car within the first 15 minutes and destroyed a brand new wheel.
A lot of teams showed real arrogance in the pit lane when waiting for a pit stop. They believed they could set-up where they wanted to irrespective of blocking other teams garages when a team wanted to push their car out of a garage after a repair. Certain nationalities where worse than others....
Even though we dropped a valve after 19 1/2hrs racing, our car must have one of the very few without any bodywork damage (we had a very, very small dent).
I still believe the Dubai 24hr is the jewel in the crown for Creventic, but as Jason said, is it time for the smaller classes (ie: below 3L engine capacity) to be removed from the event, or to remove the top 2 classes (effectively GT cars)?
The new rules certainly made pit stop planning more of a challenge (this is what I do during the race) Some of the top teams ran out of fuel during the race, which have been a result of this rule change.
SVDP's BMW 120 has served them well (its 1st 24hr race was the Britcar 24hr at Silverstone in 2010), and I believe it has taken the chequered flag in every race it started (it might have had its engine changed in the race a few times, but that is endurance racing and the teams never give up attitude).
Car number wise:
ZRT Motorsport (me): 48
SVDP Racing (Jason 90): 191
2W Racing: 69
Lap57: 57
looking at the grids this race now attracts i think even a3 and tcr class cars wont be there in a few years. you only need to look at the calibre of the teams that arrived this year with two new car debuts [amg and audi] run by effectively semi-works teams.
after le mans, petit le mans and daytona dubai is the next big deal and i doubt it will be long before its profile surpasses the latter 2.
shame for local amateur teams such as those we are all involved with but creventic is a business and i doubt they'll lose much sleep over it. the silverstone TCR race is obviously meant as an apologia to those european A2 stalwarts such as team sally, hofor etc. who will be squeezed out as well.
i do agree 100 cars is too many even with a2 eliminated. there were a lot of gung-ho flash charlies who didn't have the talent to match their chequebooks. almost 4.5hrs of code 60 attests to that as does the poor sod who got punted into the wall by the scuderia praha car and is still in hospital with multiple broken bones.
shame to hear about the demise of the 120 jason. i saw chris briefly at lunch who seemed to think it was repairable. that car has been a great example of what a bunch of mates [and a few $$$!] can achieve. perversely, that's also exactly the kind of thing creventic should be aiming to promote.
after le mans, petit le mans and daytona dubai is the next big deal and i doubt it will be long before its profile surpasses the latter 2.
shame for local amateur teams such as those we are all involved with but creventic is a business and i doubt they'll lose much sleep over it. the silverstone TCR race is obviously meant as an apologia to those european A2 stalwarts such as team sally, hofor etc. who will be squeezed out as well.
i do agree 100 cars is too many even with a2 eliminated. there were a lot of gung-ho flash charlies who didn't have the talent to match their chequebooks. almost 4.5hrs of code 60 attests to that as does the poor sod who got punted into the wall by the scuderia praha car and is still in hospital with multiple broken bones.
shame to hear about the demise of the 120 jason. i saw chris briefly at lunch who seemed to think it was repairable. that car has been a great example of what a bunch of mates [and a few $$$!] can achieve. perversely, that's also exactly the kind of thing creventic should be aiming to promote.
IanUAE said:
Cars that could not be towed back to its garage were put on a recovery truck with the car delivered to the scrutineering bay area. The team then had to get the car back to the garage down pit lane as there was insufficient access in the paddock area. Previously if you stopped on the right your car was brought back down pit lane irrespective.
not strictly safe though is it? i like the newer system. if the car can be towed and not leaking fluids then they still deliver it to the pitlane. if it has to be put on a flatbed then it goes to parc ferme. this keeps the pitlane clear and also creates a situation where the scrutineers have to check the car before its allowed to rejoin the race. v sensible imho.as for arrogance i thought we did ok with the 2 forch gt3's. i fell asleep on the garage floor in front of their tyre stack and woke up to find they'd been lifting them over me as they didn't want to wake me up. doubt my own team mates would have been so kind!
shirt]looking at the grids this race now attracts i think even a3 and tcr class cars wont be there in a few years. you only need to look at the calibre of the teams that arrived this year with two new car debuts [amg and audi said:
run by effectively semi-works teams.
after le mans, petit le mans and daytona dubai is the next big deal and i doubt it will be long before its profile surpasses the latter 2.
shame for local amateur teams such as those we are all involved with but creventic is a business and i doubt they'll lose much sleep over it. the silverstone TCR race is obviously meant as an apologia to those european A2 stalwarts such as team sally, hofor etc. who will be squeezed out as well.
i do agree 100 cars is too many even with a2 eliminated. there were a lot of gung-ho flash charlies who didn't have the talent to match their chequebooks. almost 4.5hrs of code 60 attests to that as does the poor sod who got punted into the wall by the scuderia praha car and is still in hospital with multiple broken bones.
shame to hear about the demise of the 120 jason. i saw chris briefly at lunch who seemed to think it was repairable. that car has been a great example of what a bunch of mates [and a few $$$!] can achieve. perversely, that's also exactly the kind of thing creventic should be aiming to promote.
Im sure it could be repaired but the cost will out way the benefits. The car is 10 years old and I think we have pushed it as far as we can on our budget, the diesel is a great engine but will always struggle against the RCZ/Mini/New gen clio. We can certainly squeeze more power out of it but then as we all no it becomes an arms race of upgrades and questionable reliabilityafter le mans, petit le mans and daytona dubai is the next big deal and i doubt it will be long before its profile surpasses the latter 2.
shame for local amateur teams such as those we are all involved with but creventic is a business and i doubt they'll lose much sleep over it. the silverstone TCR race is obviously meant as an apologia to those european A2 stalwarts such as team sally, hofor etc. who will be squeezed out as well.
i do agree 100 cars is too many even with a2 eliminated. there were a lot of gung-ho flash charlies who didn't have the talent to match their chequebooks. almost 4.5hrs of code 60 attests to that as does the poor sod who got punted into the wall by the scuderia praha car and is still in hospital with multiple broken bones.
shame to hear about the demise of the 120 jason. i saw chris briefly at lunch who seemed to think it was repairable. that car has been a great example of what a bunch of mates [and a few $$$!] can achieve. perversely, that's also exactly the kind of thing creventic should be aiming to promote.
shirt said:
not strictly safe though is it? i like the newer system. if the car can be towed and not leaking fluids then they still deliver it to the pitlane. if it has to be put on a flatbed then it goes to parc ferme. this keeps the pitlane clear and also creates a situation where the scrutineers have to check the car before its allowed to rejoin the race. v sensible imho.
as for arrogance i thought we did ok with the 2 forch gt3's. i fell asleep on the garage floor in front of their tyre stack and woke up to find they'd been lifting them over me as they didn't want to wake me up. doubt my own team mates would have been so kind!
I agree that the newer system works well, even it was a pita pushing 2 cars all the way from parc ferme. I like the fact that the scrutineers can quickly check the car over before hand.as for arrogance i thought we did ok with the 2 forch gt3's. i fell asleep on the garage floor in front of their tyre stack and woke up to find they'd been lifting them over me as they didn't want to wake me up. doubt my own team mates would have been so kind!
ct84 said:
I agree that the newer system works well, even it was a pita pushing 2 cars all the way from parc ferme. I like the fact that the scrutineers can quickly check the car over before hand.
Harder to push on 3 wheels though aren't they?How badly did the cars come off? Was a shame to see them go past the garage in that condition as reckon you'd have been in with a shout
From a regulation point of view, were you given a penalty for having people who were not wearing the yellow bibs pushing the car down pit lane and not a registered driver "driving" the car? I hope you were not.
Did you hear about the Clio whose fuel tank split and dumped a huge quantity of petrol outside its garage? Thank god no spark set fire to the pool of fuel and car. It would have been a major disaster.
Did you hear about the Clio whose fuel tank split and dumped a huge quantity of petrol outside its garage? Thank god no spark set fire to the pool of fuel and car. It would have been a major disaster.
A little off topic from the general race debrief going on but I have to say that as a spectator and my first Dubai 24h it was a great event to watch.
For me it was the accessibility of the teams, their openness and lack of barriers to wandering while taking it all in that made it stand out. I've done LeMans previously and while ultimately with camping and alcohol it's a better night out I really enjoyed wandering around the garages and chatting to people over the course of the night.
To echo some of the comments above though there was such a wide range of setups. I was there as a guest of Audi Customer Racing and to see their immaculate sterile grey support containers complete with every part necessary bar a chassis was staggering. But even more fun was chatting to Iain's team and seeing real enthusiasts just getting on with it when obstacles were thrown in their way.
While some changes might be necessary, I hope it won't change too much.
For me it was the accessibility of the teams, their openness and lack of barriers to wandering while taking it all in that made it stand out. I've done LeMans previously and while ultimately with camping and alcohol it's a better night out I really enjoyed wandering around the garages and chatting to people over the course of the night.
To echo some of the comments above though there was such a wide range of setups. I was there as a guest of Audi Customer Racing and to see their immaculate sterile grey support containers complete with every part necessary bar a chassis was staggering. But even more fun was chatting to Iain's team and seeing real enthusiasts just getting on with it when obstacles were thrown in their way.
While some changes might be necessary, I hope it won't change too much.
I don't think any of the local teams had a really god race. The grid was too large, that was obvious, plus with an apparent lack of talent from a lot of people in some very fast cars. I guess the solution is to make the grid smaller - even 80 cars from last year was probably too many from my memory. If you have time check our Peter Kox open letter to Creventic following the Scuderia Praha 458 race ban for the next round for causing an avoidable accident - some very valid points (currently on DailySportsCar).
Anyway, some photos of local heroes from the weekend.
Anyway, some photos of local heroes from the weekend.
shirt said:
Harder to push on 3 wheels though aren't they?
How badly did the cars come off? Was a shame to see them go past the garage in that condition as reckon you'd have been in with a shout
The first one (88) came off really badly, huge crack in the front chassis leg, so that one was retired. The second (888) would have definitely been in with a shout, sheared drive pegs meant we lost 10 laps changing the rear left corner, went back out and done a driveshaft and hub on the same corner after a punt from a Porsche. Finished 19th overall which wasn't a bad effort considering the downtime in the garage.How badly did the cars come off? Was a shame to see them go past the garage in that condition as reckon you'd have been in with a shout
Some good points raised on that letter re: grid density but to feign innocence after that shunt is taking the piss.
There was a good feed at night with Connor de phillipi in the land motorsport r8. This showed how it should be done, showing courtesy and not taking stupid chances whilst still banging out 2:02's lap after lap.
There was a good feed at night with Connor de phillipi in the land motorsport r8. This showed how it should be done, showing courtesy and not taking stupid chances whilst still banging out 2:02's lap after lap.
Just realised there were 90 cars back in 2011 and although that felt hairy, it wasn't nearly as bad as this year's race. There were very few Code 60s (including one on lap one when a 997 got wiped out in the melee) and we had a few comings together with faster cars who had misjudged the overtake, but otherwise it was a good race.
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