TVR-GTF Well Done Guys..
Discussion
Fantastic result Guys, scratch built car, part time team ( not sure wives and girl friends would agree but you know what i mean!!!)
first 24hr entered and first 24hr finished with the car running well at then end, so not a push out for a last lap gasp across the line either..
Plenty of the teams with lots of experience didnt make it, and a 24hr race is a massive undertaking that I doubt anyone that hasnt tried it can even grasp.
So once again guys fantasticly well done..
first 24hr entered and first 24hr finished with the car running well at then end, so not a push out for a last lap gasp across the line either..
Plenty of the teams with lots of experience didnt make it, and a 24hr race is a massive undertaking that I doubt anyone that hasnt tried it can even grasp.
So once again guys fantasticly well done..
richard_abra said:
Chris, they had a crash in the horrendous conditions and did a fantastic job of repairing the car to finish, i think that is an achievement in its self! i was surprised to see it back out again after the crash.
Fair point and well done to the team for fixing it....... don’t want to belittle anything the team or drivers did...... but we beat them 
in an old BMW 330D.
chrisb0 said:
Fair point and well done to the team for fixing it....... don’t want to belittle anything the team or drivers did...... but we beat them in an old BMW 330D.
And very well done to you as well, its a bloody hard game that needs a lot of work and a lot of luck. I think the point is though that in a 330d bmw you would be expected to finish,and if faster cars fall by the wayside a good overall result is quite possible, and BMW spent millions on developing the basic package.. in an old BMW 330D.The TVR/GTF crew were not expected by most people to still be running when it got dark, They lost most of their time with a precautionary Gearbox change ( turns out they would have actually been fine on the original box) and a chunk more when a rose joint broke pitching them off the track..
They started building the car with not much more than an old tuscan Challenge chassis and designed and built everything else..
Everyone along the pit lane deserves some accolade for finishing the race, but expectations and aims also vary a lot and I think most would agree the TVR result was a good one.
Edited by Graham on Monday 4th October 18:21
Thanks, you are correct it's not easy to finish a 24hr event, and everyone who finished deserves a pat on the back.
My reason for posting was not to have a go at anyone but to put the TVR finish in to perspective.
Yes the BM is a rep mobile but getting it to the finish is not as easy as you might think.
As for the British built comment what about the G40 and G50 don't they deserve some praise.
Any way well done to the TVR team and everyone who finished.
Don't forget the old saying " to finish first, first you must finish"
My reason for posting was not to have a go at anyone but to put the TVR finish in to perspective.
Yes the BM is a rep mobile but getting it to the finish is not as easy as you might think.
As for the British built comment what about the G40 and G50 don't they deserve some praise.
Any way well done to the TVR team and everyone who finished.
Don't forget the old saying " to finish first, first you must finish"
Edited by chrisb0 on Monday 4th October 18:42
chrisb0 said:
richard_abra said:
Chris, they had a crash in the horrendous conditions and did a fantastic job of repairing the car to finish, i think that is an achievement in its self! i was surprised to see it back out again after the crash.
Fair point and well done to the team for fixing it....... don’t want to belittle anything the team or drivers did...... but we beat them in an old BMW 330D.The TVR got a special mention because it was built from scratch by a part time team - and I mean built from scratch - its not a converted road car or a production race car. Yes they had some issues (as it looks you did at around midnight) - a wiper motor and ECU failure and a broken rose joint which chucked them into the gravel, but the main one was a precautionary gearbox change which lost them 3 hours.
In my book any team which got their car to the finish deserves congratulating - as do those who didn't for trying in the first place.
So that includes you - those conditions were truly horrendous whatever you were driving. Well done
edited to say I typed this a while ago but forgot to press send!
Edited by teamHOLDENracing on Monday 4th October 18:57
Well done to ALL who finished!(and got to the start line chimp tune!)
If you think its hard running one car in an event like this you should try running 3!!! and getting them to the finish.
I am glad another Britcar regular won the race....thanks for the sticker guys.
Paul Topcats Racing.
If you think its hard running one car in an event like this you should try running 3!!! and getting them to the finish.
I am glad another Britcar regular won the race....thanks for the sticker guys.
Paul Topcats Racing.
Now I am in from work (my proper job) I would like to on behalf of Tim and myself give a little report.
firstly and most importantly I would like to do the thank you's in no particular order.
My Crew - Jamie, Paul, Michael, James, Steve and Luke without all of them it would have been impossible they worked superbly as a team.
The people who fed and watered us - Tracey and Carolyn
The Drivers - Tim, Fred, Darren, Steve and Sam they persevered with poor visibility, were patient when we were fixing it, drove at a endurance pace when asked and kept the car between the white lines in appalling conditions.
All our wife's, partners and families - motor sport for us is not a part time hobby, it is a full time hobby and more. In the week before the race I spent the evening of my wedding anniversary at the workshop with Tim getting the car ready.
The marshals and recovery crews - without you we would firstly not be able to run and secondly not be able to continue when we breakdown.
The dedicated TVR supporters - don't know how many were in the garage at times but the support and cheers when we got the car out after problems is so encouraging especially when you are tired.
Dunlop and Sunoco - superb service, don't know how you managed to keep us all serviced but you did.
James and all the team at Britcar - what a brilliant event!!!
Hope I've not missed anyone...
Now a report.
Day qualifying was tight for time getting 5 drivers to do the necessary 3 laps in meant that they were told they had one shot at a quick time. A big ask. Night quali was hampered when the alternator failed which during daylight hours we could have coped with but at night running all the lighting meant that we had to quickly strap a bigger battery in the car and only do the minimum amount of laps for each driver.
Tim took the start of the race and soon made up places and was running a good pace when unfortunately he was clipped by a Seat who only saw the Mosler Tim was following when they lapped it, the car was damaged but was able to continue. The first problem came with the rain, the wiper motor had failed and we were coming in to clean the windscreen too often. We had a spare wiper motor Andy Holden had lent us so we decided to fit it. The existing motor and arm is buried deep within the dash so replacing it would have taken too long so we strapped the new one to the rollcage on the passengers side drilled a hole in the screen and modified the arm to fit the height of the screen and sent the car out again. It did not clean the screen as much as we would have liked but it helped and the drivers did their best with the slightly better visibility. We started to make our way back up the timing screen when we lost contact with Steve. He was in the gravel and reported that he had rear suspension failure. When the recovery crew got the car back (thanks guys and girls) we saw it was only a bottom rose joint broken so an easy fix, it took more time to remove all the gravel from the car.
Car was back on track and each driver took his turn at the wheel everyone pacing themselves and being careful not to put it in the kitty litter. During Tims stint the car suddenly stopped and would not restart. Time to call on the services of another recovery crew. We plugged the computer into the car and it said that the 5volt feed to all the sensors was shorting out! we thought that we would have to either strip & check the loom for shorts or replace the loom with the one from Steve's car we had brought for spares. Before we did we thought we would try swapping the ECU, bingo! it fired up. ECU failure not come across that one before, still we were back on track, it was 8am and we were starting to think that we might just finish this race - dare we look at the light at the end of the tunnel of a 24hr race? 8 1/2 hrs to go. The drivers continued putting in the laps and with 5 hrs to go Darren reported that the gearbox was making strange noises. After getting this far we were determined to make the finish so we decided to change the gearbox. Fortunatly for us Mark from Elite Gearboxes had lent us a spare box. This was done and the car was sent straight back out to continue the race (no sitting in the pits and waiting for the last few laps just to take the flag)
After inspection of the removed gearbox we felt that it would have finished the race but better safe than sorry.
The Finish... 24hrs chequered flag, who would have though it? Most people thought we were mad to try to do it, even we didn't think we would finish. We wanted to be classified which meant doing 50% of the winners laps, we dreamt of doing 75% running, we actually made 80% and finished the race.
I still don't think it has sunk in and anyone who has done it will tell you it's a great feeling.
A week ago the car was still in bits and we were waiting for parts but, we did it!!
This time a finish was a win. Next time ... who knows?
Finally, thanks Fred (GTF Race Cars). We truly could not have done it without you support. Fred paid the bills and made it possible for us to do this.
Edited to add, don't know if they get internet in Wales
but thanks Guys, it was a laugh and a pleasure, it was great sharing a garage with you, would do it again, no problems getting in each others way or anything and well done for nursing it to the finish - never seen so many stops for oil and water 
firstly and most importantly I would like to do the thank you's in no particular order.
My Crew - Jamie, Paul, Michael, James, Steve and Luke without all of them it would have been impossible they worked superbly as a team.
The people who fed and watered us - Tracey and Carolyn
The Drivers - Tim, Fred, Darren, Steve and Sam they persevered with poor visibility, were patient when we were fixing it, drove at a endurance pace when asked and kept the car between the white lines in appalling conditions.
All our wife's, partners and families - motor sport for us is not a part time hobby, it is a full time hobby and more. In the week before the race I spent the evening of my wedding anniversary at the workshop with Tim getting the car ready.
The marshals and recovery crews - without you we would firstly not be able to run and secondly not be able to continue when we breakdown.
The dedicated TVR supporters - don't know how many were in the garage at times but the support and cheers when we got the car out after problems is so encouraging especially when you are tired.
Dunlop and Sunoco - superb service, don't know how you managed to keep us all serviced but you did.
James and all the team at Britcar - what a brilliant event!!!
Hope I've not missed anyone...
Now a report.
Day qualifying was tight for time getting 5 drivers to do the necessary 3 laps in meant that they were told they had one shot at a quick time. A big ask. Night quali was hampered when the alternator failed which during daylight hours we could have coped with but at night running all the lighting meant that we had to quickly strap a bigger battery in the car and only do the minimum amount of laps for each driver.
Tim took the start of the race and soon made up places and was running a good pace when unfortunately he was clipped by a Seat who only saw the Mosler Tim was following when they lapped it, the car was damaged but was able to continue. The first problem came with the rain, the wiper motor had failed and we were coming in to clean the windscreen too often. We had a spare wiper motor Andy Holden had lent us so we decided to fit it. The existing motor and arm is buried deep within the dash so replacing it would have taken too long so we strapped the new one to the rollcage on the passengers side drilled a hole in the screen and modified the arm to fit the height of the screen and sent the car out again. It did not clean the screen as much as we would have liked but it helped and the drivers did their best with the slightly better visibility. We started to make our way back up the timing screen when we lost contact with Steve. He was in the gravel and reported that he had rear suspension failure. When the recovery crew got the car back (thanks guys and girls) we saw it was only a bottom rose joint broken so an easy fix, it took more time to remove all the gravel from the car.
Car was back on track and each driver took his turn at the wheel everyone pacing themselves and being careful not to put it in the kitty litter. During Tims stint the car suddenly stopped and would not restart. Time to call on the services of another recovery crew. We plugged the computer into the car and it said that the 5volt feed to all the sensors was shorting out! we thought that we would have to either strip & check the loom for shorts or replace the loom with the one from Steve's car we had brought for spares. Before we did we thought we would try swapping the ECU, bingo! it fired up. ECU failure not come across that one before, still we were back on track, it was 8am and we were starting to think that we might just finish this race - dare we look at the light at the end of the tunnel of a 24hr race? 8 1/2 hrs to go. The drivers continued putting in the laps and with 5 hrs to go Darren reported that the gearbox was making strange noises. After getting this far we were determined to make the finish so we decided to change the gearbox. Fortunatly for us Mark from Elite Gearboxes had lent us a spare box. This was done and the car was sent straight back out to continue the race (no sitting in the pits and waiting for the last few laps just to take the flag)
After inspection of the removed gearbox we felt that it would have finished the race but better safe than sorry.
The Finish... 24hrs chequered flag, who would have though it? Most people thought we were mad to try to do it, even we didn't think we would finish. We wanted to be classified which meant doing 50% of the winners laps, we dreamt of doing 75% running, we actually made 80% and finished the race.
I still don't think it has sunk in and anyone who has done it will tell you it's a great feeling.
A week ago the car was still in bits and we were waiting for parts but, we did it!!
This time a finish was a win. Next time ... who knows?
Finally, thanks Fred (GTF Race Cars). We truly could not have done it without you support. Fred paid the bills and made it possible for us to do this.
Edited to add, don't know if they get internet in Wales
but thanks Guys, it was a laugh and a pleasure, it was great sharing a garage with you, would do it again, no problems getting in each others way or anything and well done for nursing it to the finish - never seen so many stops for oil and water Edited by Jetblackonetenth on Monday 4th October 20:49
The TVR was brilliant and was a real pleasure to see so congratulations on an excellent result especially considering the work and effort that went into it.
Hope you like these and if the team want any hi res shots then drop me a mail.
Hope you like these and if the team want any hi res shots then drop me a mail.
Edited by Arnold The Bat on Monday 4th October 23:22
Robin_54 said:
I'd like to say well done too.
The car seemed to be going well, and hopefully we didn't delay your reapir time too much by dragging you out of the gravel at Vale.
Was good to see you finish though!
Thanks Robin 54 and indeed the rest of marshalls who helped us over the course of the weekend. The car seemed to be going well, and hopefully we didn't delay your reapir time too much by dragging you out of the gravel at Vale.
Was good to see you finish though!
I was the driver at the time of the unscheduled stop in the gravel and as you may remember I was somewhat disconserted at the time thinking that I must have had a blow out on a rear tyre. It's a bit worrying when you're doing well over a 100mph in those conditions, are just about to squeeze the brakes ready for the left turn at Vale when all of sudden the car tries to swap ends on you. Thankfully I caught it as we were heading straight towards the wall at first but had limited steering after that. I desperately tried to keep her out the gravel but with the back end moving left and right it was very hard to guide her. In fact it wasn't until you managed to pull the car out of the gravel that you were able to tell me that the rear wheel was stuck up inside the body of the wheel arch.
Given the car was very hard to move and I was being paranoid that no additional damage was done in that process, I owe you a big thanks for getting us back to the garage with minimum fuss. Thanks again
Steve
Edited by GlynnsportRacing on Tuesday 5th October 10:45
Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff