Car 70 - Porsche 968 race report
Discussion
"Save the car, win the trophy."
Thursday 6th September, somehow I'd been convinced to part with a not
insignificant sum to race a Porsche 968 in the Britcar 24hrs at Silverstone and was pestered to arrive early on the Thursday as that was the test-day. Fairly critical for me as although I've driven 968's I've never driven at Silverstone, let alone a race car on slicks. All of the other drivers were entirely comfortable with Silverstone as they'd all raced there before and also attended several track days there.
I get two whole laps in the car - brilliant - two laps of 'proper' race cars hurtling past me at huge speeds. Managed to learn where a couple of the turns were, but my times must have been well over 3minutes per lap. How much did this cost, why did I bother?!
Spent the evening trying to re-visualise the laps & find clips of the GP circuit on youtube - felt much happier for the next day, which is just as well as Friday was qualifying...
It's a 24hr race and I'm repeatedly told that the qualifying grid position doesn't matter, I'm not convinced that's quite true but there you have it. Each driver had to complete three timed laps during the day, plus three after 8pm i.e. in the dark.
Daytime qualifying was a one hour slot, and if I thought the two laps of testing were stressful this was another league altogether; imagine trying to cross the road during the start of a major marathon race - cars were flying past my ears at a great rate of knots - reminded me of my first track days and being hopelessly out of my depth. Stepped out of the car dripping with sweat - very hard work! Posted a best time of 2m36s - way off the pace when two of the other drivers were running 2m26s – I was disappointed and they weren't impressed. I knew I would be able to get on the pace - I just needed more time on the circuit, trying to convince myself with thoughts of GP style one hot lap qualifying didn't really help matters - I can barely class myself as a club racer let alone compare to such heady levels. Equally I didn't want to be in the all-the-gear-no-idea club - I know I can drive a circuit like Spa really well but Friday afternoon Silverstone was eluding me...
Roll on night time qualifying – this was a two hour session so hopefully it shouldn't be as busy as the daytime session. How I laughed as that turned out not to be the case... The two most difficult corners to sight were the turns prior to Club and Bridge – both low speed left turns, however I was braking and turning for them only to find that they were actually another 300yds further down the road. In a left hand drive car the prospect of being t-boned by a Mosler whilst going for a left which doesn't exist was more than intimidating! The trickle of cars whizzing by earlier today had now turned into a raging torrent made worse by their very bright lights – those few laps in the dark were simply about survival - I was genuinely afraid that a twitch in the wrong direction would result in a big crash – quite possibly the most intense 15 minutes of driving I'd ever done. I was relieved to be back in the pit lane for a driver change, falling out of the car a quivering wreck. I didn't even consider checking the lap times, I was overjoyed at still being alive.
Race Day
I started just after 6pm. By now the track layout had embedded itself in my mind and I seemed to be pretty much on the pace with 2m18's-2m24's, the traffic had spread out and I was getting into the flow of driving the circuit, still wary of the faster cars but by now this was more like a track day session and I could hold a decent pace. An hour or so into my drive I closed up on a 3-series BMW – which gushed out a fountain of diesel everytime it hit the brakes or changed direction – the screen was awash with the stuff – zero visibility for a few moments and an urgent overtake required!
The 968 handled benignly and was very flattering to drive – it was great fun hurtling into corners and driving through four wheel drifts or occasionally ludicrously easy to control oversteer, the brakes worked faultlessly – which allowed time to think about lines and progress rather than on the car. The two hours felt like 25 minutes or so, there were no incidents, no close scrapes, fuelled up on the way in for a driver change and was unceremoniously dragged out of the car as Crasher took over. It wasn't quite dark yet so Crasher had a few laps to settle in before the night took hold.
Had the opportunity of a bit of a break now as I was next due to drive at 2am. It was nice to see a few friends had made it over – always good to see a friendly face when you're in the thick of it! Tried to get some sleep once they'd left but as the motorhome was just behind the garages the noise from the cars was as relentless as the commentary being blasted into the car park. Good to get the weight off my feet though.
As a rule the next driver up tended to be ready to drive whilst the current driver was on the circuit – I was back in the garage for midnight – it had been a long weekend and it was all catching up with me now. The prospect of driving in the dark after the terror that was qualifying didn't exactly sound appealing. Peter who was currently in the hot-seat radio'd in to say that one of the headlights had been hit and was now pointing skyward and visibility was seriously compromised and he was having a tough time of it out there. They decided to pull him in early as lap times were stretching out over 2m30s. So, no pressure then, and my turn again...
Went out for the first couple of laps trying to find the markers I'd spotted during daylight to help at night, once these were twigged I was on the radio to get lap times – for the first half hour these were 2m30's – not good enough. However these thirty minutes gave me the opportunity to settle into being a racing driver rather than having fun on a track day or learning a new circuit. I'd been losing momentum when letting other cars by – I had to put a stop to that, secondly the Moslers etc were coming around so frequently and flashing their way past it was putting me off my drive.
Handed over to Crasher at 3am, felt like I'd been driving for no more than 12 minutes – I could have done it all over again several times over – absolutely fantastic driving fun, I was on a real high behind the wheel! Lap times were confirmed by the team – they asked me how I did it – that was easy – I was having fun!
Managed a couple of hours sleep while the race was stopped due to fog – glad I wasn't driving then. Based on the 2CV experience I knew that the final stint would be the most difficult as that's when the tiredness really sets in. 90 minutes into that drive really felt like 90 minutes, handed over to Crasher, my racing complete for the day.
The garage had become increasingly tense about the finish – with a few hours to go we were so near yet so far. Although we were racing in Class 2, we were really only ever racing the other 968, for some daft reasons we'd done nearly twice as many pitstops as car71. Down to the last hour we were now only a lap ahead and running out of fuel fast, car 71 was having braking problems, fortunately a safety car period came in at just the right point to help conserve both brakes and fuel. The final three laps had the teams up on the pitwall willing the cars on. Last two laps for car 70 were with the fuel light on and car 71 poised directly behind in order to push us over the line if needed.
Car 70 took the flag to take third in class, car 71 was fourth in class. Highlight for me has to be those fast laps in the dark – priceless.
Thursday 6th September, somehow I'd been convinced to part with a not
insignificant sum to race a Porsche 968 in the Britcar 24hrs at Silverstone and was pestered to arrive early on the Thursday as that was the test-day. Fairly critical for me as although I've driven 968's I've never driven at Silverstone, let alone a race car on slicks. All of the other drivers were entirely comfortable with Silverstone as they'd all raced there before and also attended several track days there.
I get two whole laps in the car - brilliant - two laps of 'proper' race cars hurtling past me at huge speeds. Managed to learn where a couple of the turns were, but my times must have been well over 3minutes per lap. How much did this cost, why did I bother?!
Spent the evening trying to re-visualise the laps & find clips of the GP circuit on youtube - felt much happier for the next day, which is just as well as Friday was qualifying...
It's a 24hr race and I'm repeatedly told that the qualifying grid position doesn't matter, I'm not convinced that's quite true but there you have it. Each driver had to complete three timed laps during the day, plus three after 8pm i.e. in the dark.
Daytime qualifying was a one hour slot, and if I thought the two laps of testing were stressful this was another league altogether; imagine trying to cross the road during the start of a major marathon race - cars were flying past my ears at a great rate of knots - reminded me of my first track days and being hopelessly out of my depth. Stepped out of the car dripping with sweat - very hard work! Posted a best time of 2m36s - way off the pace when two of the other drivers were running 2m26s – I was disappointed and they weren't impressed. I knew I would be able to get on the pace - I just needed more time on the circuit, trying to convince myself with thoughts of GP style one hot lap qualifying didn't really help matters - I can barely class myself as a club racer let alone compare to such heady levels. Equally I didn't want to be in the all-the-gear-no-idea club - I know I can drive a circuit like Spa really well but Friday afternoon Silverstone was eluding me...
Roll on night time qualifying – this was a two hour session so hopefully it shouldn't be as busy as the daytime session. How I laughed as that turned out not to be the case... The two most difficult corners to sight were the turns prior to Club and Bridge – both low speed left turns, however I was braking and turning for them only to find that they were actually another 300yds further down the road. In a left hand drive car the prospect of being t-boned by a Mosler whilst going for a left which doesn't exist was more than intimidating! The trickle of cars whizzing by earlier today had now turned into a raging torrent made worse by their very bright lights – those few laps in the dark were simply about survival - I was genuinely afraid that a twitch in the wrong direction would result in a big crash – quite possibly the most intense 15 minutes of driving I'd ever done. I was relieved to be back in the pit lane for a driver change, falling out of the car a quivering wreck. I didn't even consider checking the lap times, I was overjoyed at still being alive.
Race Day
I started just after 6pm. By now the track layout had embedded itself in my mind and I seemed to be pretty much on the pace with 2m18's-2m24's, the traffic had spread out and I was getting into the flow of driving the circuit, still wary of the faster cars but by now this was more like a track day session and I could hold a decent pace. An hour or so into my drive I closed up on a 3-series BMW – which gushed out a fountain of diesel everytime it hit the brakes or changed direction – the screen was awash with the stuff – zero visibility for a few moments and an urgent overtake required!
The 968 handled benignly and was very flattering to drive – it was great fun hurtling into corners and driving through four wheel drifts or occasionally ludicrously easy to control oversteer, the brakes worked faultlessly – which allowed time to think about lines and progress rather than on the car. The two hours felt like 25 minutes or so, there were no incidents, no close scrapes, fuelled up on the way in for a driver change and was unceremoniously dragged out of the car as Crasher took over. It wasn't quite dark yet so Crasher had a few laps to settle in before the night took hold.
Had the opportunity of a bit of a break now as I was next due to drive at 2am. It was nice to see a few friends had made it over – always good to see a friendly face when you're in the thick of it! Tried to get some sleep once they'd left but as the motorhome was just behind the garages the noise from the cars was as relentless as the commentary being blasted into the car park. Good to get the weight off my feet though.
As a rule the next driver up tended to be ready to drive whilst the current driver was on the circuit – I was back in the garage for midnight – it had been a long weekend and it was all catching up with me now. The prospect of driving in the dark after the terror that was qualifying didn't exactly sound appealing. Peter who was currently in the hot-seat radio'd in to say that one of the headlights had been hit and was now pointing skyward and visibility was seriously compromised and he was having a tough time of it out there. They decided to pull him in early as lap times were stretching out over 2m30s. So, no pressure then, and my turn again...
Went out for the first couple of laps trying to find the markers I'd spotted during daylight to help at night, once these were twigged I was on the radio to get lap times – for the first half hour these were 2m30's – not good enough. However these thirty minutes gave me the opportunity to settle into being a racing driver rather than having fun on a track day or learning a new circuit. I'd been losing momentum when letting other cars by – I had to put a stop to that, secondly the Moslers etc were coming around so frequently and flashing their way past it was putting me off my drive.
Handed over to Crasher at 3am, felt like I'd been driving for no more than 12 minutes – I could have done it all over again several times over – absolutely fantastic driving fun, I was on a real high behind the wheel! Lap times were confirmed by the team – they asked me how I did it – that was easy – I was having fun!
Managed a couple of hours sleep while the race was stopped due to fog – glad I wasn't driving then. Based on the 2CV experience I knew that the final stint would be the most difficult as that's when the tiredness really sets in. 90 minutes into that drive really felt like 90 minutes, handed over to Crasher, my racing complete for the day.
The garage had become increasingly tense about the finish – with a few hours to go we were so near yet so far. Although we were racing in Class 2, we were really only ever racing the other 968, for some daft reasons we'd done nearly twice as many pitstops as car71. Down to the last hour we were now only a lap ahead and running out of fuel fast, car 71 was having braking problems, fortunately a safety car period came in at just the right point to help conserve both brakes and fuel. The final three laps had the teams up on the pitwall willing the cars on. Last two laps for car 70 were with the fuel light on and car 71 poised directly behind in order to push us over the line if needed.
Car 70 took the flag to take third in class, car 71 was fourth in class. Highlight for me has to be those fast laps in the dark – priceless.
Edited by steil on Thursday 13th September 15:25
Plenty of car 70 here..
http://www.liasmedia.com/britcar24/index.htm
I'll sort a EMC Motorsport seperate gallery tomorrow and update this post.
http://www.liasmedia.com/britcar24/index.htm
I'll sort a EMC Motorsport seperate gallery tomorrow and update this post.
Great write up! Glad to hear it was worth all the effort!
In the pits getting ready
Not sure if this is driving attire or not!
From the inside of Copse
On the run down to Bridge
At night coming up to Abbey
Driver change Sunday morning
3rd and 4th in class at the finish line
There's a few more Art, both of 70 and 71, but mostly just me experimenting with different shutter speeds, some good, and some with not great success!! Got to say thank you again. Cheers bud!
Andy
In the pits getting ready
Not sure if this is driving attire or not!
From the inside of Copse
On the run down to Bridge
At night coming up to Abbey
Driver change Sunday morning
3rd and 4th in class at the finish line
There's a few more Art, both of 70 and 71, but mostly just me experimenting with different shutter speeds, some good, and some with not great success!! Got to say thank you again. Cheers bud!
Andy
Edited by LaSarthe&Back on Tuesday 18th September 23:38
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