Spa6 2009: various snaps
Discussion
dinkel said:
50th place for this lovely Griff. I bet Esper can do better than that.
DB4 GT Rock 'n Roll!
The green onw would have been top 5 other wise.
Nice story on the awesome Marcos:
Nicked from www.massracingdevelopments.co.uk:
"The long range forecast for Spa Francorchamps had looked good from Friday onwards and it turned out to be spot on. Friday dawned, dry and sunny. Allen Tice and Chris Conoley did the minimum qualifying in the Marcos and Chris set the qualifying time to give Allen a grid starting position of 29 for the race. All seemed to be good with the car. The strategy was that Allen would start and do two and a half hours, followed by Chris to do the same with Allen finishing the remainder of the race. Re-fuelling strategies were a little less clear cut and would be assessed as the race progressed. However, there was no need to worry. The race was fifteen minutes late starting and after an early pace car it was clear that after re-fuelling at the first driver changeover they would make it to the end with what they had.
After one hour of racing Allen had moved up to 22 and after two hours to 11. The changeover dropped them to 14 but Chris soon got on the pace and moved ahead to 8 overall after four hours. Then, the lap times started to slow. The car sounded OK as it came by lap after lap and no signals from the driver. Chris then came in and handed over to Allen to finish the race. His explanation for the lap times was that there was a distinct lack of power – Oh well we thought, the engine was very tired, but lets hope it makes it to the end. The leader – GT40 -finished the race on 106 laps and our car, the Marcos GT crossed the line in 10th place overall with 101 laps to their credit. We were first home of the smaller cars, first in class and did in actual fact, achieve the highest position we could possibly have amongst the competition.
Time to celebrate a truly remarkable achievement for man and machine – what a feeling of euphoria and pride within our team, fit to burst!
The best news was that upon rolling road inspection back at MASS the loss of power was found to be due to ‘closing up’ points and not engine failure at all - even more impressive. Perhaps the last hour of the race was not as much fun as it could have been but the drivers maximized every drop of power that was available to them and have some great tales to tell.
Chris had worked out that if they had brought the car in for inspection during the race, diagnosed the problem and then fixed it, it would have given the same result at best, but been more fun to drive. Although, in all probability Keith Ahlers/Billy Bellinger in the Morgan +8 would have sneaked through closely followed we suspect by the Cottingham MGB. All in all a good call!"
Nicked from www.massracingdevelopments.co.uk:
"The long range forecast for Spa Francorchamps had looked good from Friday onwards and it turned out to be spot on. Friday dawned, dry and sunny. Allen Tice and Chris Conoley did the minimum qualifying in the Marcos and Chris set the qualifying time to give Allen a grid starting position of 29 for the race. All seemed to be good with the car. The strategy was that Allen would start and do two and a half hours, followed by Chris to do the same with Allen finishing the remainder of the race. Re-fuelling strategies were a little less clear cut and would be assessed as the race progressed. However, there was no need to worry. The race was fifteen minutes late starting and after an early pace car it was clear that after re-fuelling at the first driver changeover they would make it to the end with what they had.
After one hour of racing Allen had moved up to 22 and after two hours to 11. The changeover dropped them to 14 but Chris soon got on the pace and moved ahead to 8 overall after four hours. Then, the lap times started to slow. The car sounded OK as it came by lap after lap and no signals from the driver. Chris then came in and handed over to Allen to finish the race. His explanation for the lap times was that there was a distinct lack of power – Oh well we thought, the engine was very tired, but lets hope it makes it to the end. The leader – GT40 -finished the race on 106 laps and our car, the Marcos GT crossed the line in 10th place overall with 101 laps to their credit. We were first home of the smaller cars, first in class and did in actual fact, achieve the highest position we could possibly have amongst the competition.
Time to celebrate a truly remarkable achievement for man and machine – what a feeling of euphoria and pride within our team, fit to burst!
The best news was that upon rolling road inspection back at MASS the loss of power was found to be due to ‘closing up’ points and not engine failure at all - even more impressive. Perhaps the last hour of the race was not as much fun as it could have been but the drivers maximized every drop of power that was available to them and have some great tales to tell.
Chris had worked out that if they had brought the car in for inspection during the race, diagnosed the problem and then fixed it, it would have given the same result at best, but been more fun to drive. Although, in all probability Keith Ahlers/Billy Bellinger in the Morgan +8 would have sneaked through closely followed we suspect by the Cottingham MGB. All in all a good call!"
Yep great vid. Some very weird lines! And although they overtook the Shippman Griff (I presume this was when the Green one was having carb issues (they had to change one!) as generally through the race the Green car was the faster of the two.
You can see the guy have to be fairly gentle on the anchors (not sure if this was post or pre (think post)) the disc shatteing at very high speed, but the brakes on these on long races are the cars achiles heal (Cobras can be bigger - and oversight on the homologation papers!).
Hmm - imagine it with another 50+bhp and big modern brakes (I am!!).
You can see the guy have to be fairly gentle on the anchors (not sure if this was post or pre (think post)) the disc shatteing at very high speed, but the brakes on these on long races are the cars achiles heal (Cobras can be bigger - and oversight on the homologation papers!).
Hmm - imagine it with another 50+bhp and big modern brakes (I am!!).
Here we go again - best wishes all - and continuing the 6 Hrs race:
Aston in yer face.
Cobra in yer face.
Ford GTs are a little more carefull, maybe because of the smaller size wheels.
The Allen / Dose Falcon - 302? - came in 49th (3:09)
German-Belgium team drove this Ford GT to 75th place.
More . . .
Aston in yer face.
Cobra in yer face.
Ford GTs are a little more carefull, maybe because of the smaller size wheels.
The Allen / Dose Falcon - 302? - came in 49th (3:09)
German-Belgium team drove this Ford GT to 75th place.
More . . .
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