Car 19 - Mick Storey
Our drivers consisted of Ian Dixon, Ainslie, Chris Cardell-Williams and me. We had a vision at the start of the weekend that should have acted as a warning and made us turn around, go home and sit in the pub. Joining the M6 we were confronted by the naked posterior of an elderly female bending down to pull up her underwear after having relieved herself on the hard shoulder of the motorway.
Shocked but undaunted, we continued to experience numerous disasters. The common factor was Ainslie. Every catastrophe seemed to involve Ainslie except when the steering arm snapped. However, under interrogation, Ainslie confessed that he was thinking about the steering when it broke. Driver/car compatibility was another problem. The lowest driver weight was just nudging 11 stone while the upper end approached "mobile crane" status. As a result, it was difficult to fit everyone in the seat. By the end of the event, the seat was stuffed with pillows and cushions to allow Chris to see out.
Memories of the camaraderie are as delightful as ever: such as Team Telguards supporting comments of ‘you cheating bastard’ and the welcoming greeting of Cupid Stunt racing of ‘piss off you Geordie git’. My main recollection is of three hangovers and a fear of RAC vans – a splendid weekend.
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Car 14 - Team Yellow Peril
We arrived at Mondello Park Circuit late on Wednesday night. We spent all day Thursday and Friday morning setting up the car to be suitable for all four drivers: Neil Thompson, Pete Simpson, Nick Woodward and me (Christine Savage). Unfortunately, the main race engine blew up so by lunchtime Thursday we were using our only spare. The mechanics (Bas, Tim and my brother Neil) had a busy evening rebuilding the race engine. On Friday the qualifying session ran from 7pm until 9:30pm. We all drove and Nick set the car’s fastest time to put us 9th on the grid.
The race started on Saturday afternoon at 2pm. All was going well until about 30 minutes into the race a front wheel broke leaving Neil stranded out on the track. By the time the car had been towed back to the pits and had been repaired we were in last position, 33rd! Neil set about reclaiming places then Pete took over at 5pm. We were up into 16th place when just before 6:30 our car was being towed in again. Pete had missed a gear and blown the engine. Our mechanics put in the repaired engine in a little over 15 mins and Pete was soon back out on track: in last place again! My turn to drive came just before 8pm, by this time we were up into 22nd. The car ran through the night with very few problems other then damage inflicted by a clumsy back-marker. This meant a pit-stop to repair the front of the car which we held together with bungees and sticky tape. All four of us drove consistently and quickly so by 5am we were up into 11th place, and by 1pm we were in 8th. We looked set to stay in 8th as the exhaust had broken which meant that we had lost engine power so the cars ahead were quicker than us. In the last hour of the race cars are not towed back to the pits so if you should have a problem in this time, the car does not finish the race. Richard Dalton’s 2nd place car (last year’s winner) fell foul of this when 1/2 hour before the end, it’s suspension broke leaving the car stranded in a gravel trap.
15 minutes before the end of the race Pete too found himself stranded out in the gravel trap at the far end the circuit: it looked like we were not going to finish the race. Luckily for us, the organisers deemed our car to be in a dangerous place so pulled our car out of the gravel onto some grass. Pete got back into the car and waited. The rest of the team had no idea what Pete was planning, all we could do was watch. As the flag fell at 2pm to end the race, Pete started the car and drove the remainder of the lap very slowly to take the flag and stopped on the track immediately after the finish line. It was only when we spoke to Pete that we realised what had happened: the front suspension arm had broken leaving the front wheel attached by only the track rod and drive shaft. Pete had realised that he could not make it back to the pits so waited for the flag as he felt he could just about manage the 1/2 lap to the finish line. Had it not been for Pete’s quick thinking we would not have finished, as it was we were classified 11th.
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Car 911 - Eurologic Racing Team
We had an eventful weekend with plenty of trouble before the race but great reliability during it, resulting in a top 10 finish, which was well beyond our best hopes. None of the drivers or pit crew had ever taken part in anything like this before, so the whole thing was a totally new experience for us. We had such fun we're already looking forward to next year.
Thursday testing went well, using the engine we got in the car, which we had bought during the winter. That evening we changed the engine for one our mechanic had rebuilt which we expected to give us better power. We ran in the new engine on Friday but lost out a bit in qualifying because it was still a bit tight on the high end of the rev band. We ended up qualifying in 29th place, but this didn't worry us too much as it gave us the opportunity to settle in to the race and find our own pace.
Disaster struck on Saturday morning. We went out to put more miles on the engine, but unknown to us the fan failed and it didn't take long for the engine to seize in the heat of the sunny morning. We then had a bit of a panic re-installing our spare engine. We made it to the grid with minutes
to spare and a funny smell coming from the engine - this was diagnosed as some adhesive burning off tape we had on the the exhaust and with fingers crossed we were ready to go.
The race itself went very well for us. We had two unscheduled stops to check the car over after trips to the gravel trap (both times down at Tarzan) and a splash and dash in the final hour. Other wise our strategy of changing drivers early if the safety car went out within a certain time window worked really well for us. We only made contact with one other car - at the time there were 4 of us going through Parabolica and one of the Top Tottie drivers tried to join the party. We were half spun and then
t-boned back onto the track. A bit of bodywork damage, with some rubbing against a tyre was the result - but no long term harm was done.
All race we moved steadily up the order. We finished 12th or 13th on the road and after the exclusion of the ECAS car and application of towback penalties we finished up in 10th. We were second of the Irish cars and top Rookies. An interesting statistic is that you have to go all the way down to 23rd place to find a car with a slower fastest lap - just showing how important consistency and reliability are in a race such as this. Check out the Eurologic web site for more details
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Car 12 - MRB Racing
We set off for Mondello with hopes of building on last year's 7th place, particularly as the expert hands of Pete Sparrow had been to work on the car giving it some extra tweaks, and we had the talents of Tim Grey and Paul Taylor, both of whom are former Mondello winners. It was a bit of a slap in the face to find out how much the pace of other cars had improved, and we had to swap our super-duper tweaked engine for 'old reliable' after a disappointing qualifying session, which saw us 15th on the grid.
Tim Grey was first out in the car, and gave it a punishing first session. When he came in for the first driver change we had already suffered a damaged sill and doors and had two damaged wings. Other than this we were progressing well up the field, and had secured 10th place by early evening. Our strategy held up well through the race, and the new 145mm tyres proved that they could last much longer than the old 125's we used last year.
By midnight it was clear we had a fuel leak problem. The realigned rear arms were causing the right tyre to rub against a rubber section of pipe near the fuel cap, wearing a hole through it. Top Tottie manager Geoff Archer leapt into action to help effect repairs using Coke cans. These held for a few hours, but other teams kept telling us we were leaking fuel onto the track, and before long the Clerk of the Course told us to bring in the car to sort it out. More desperate repairs were made by our brave mechanic Vinny Taylor, and at one point we had a production line going to prepare Coke cans in advance of any further repairs.
The problem persisted, and the leaking fuel began to affect other teams. Gadget Racing suffered a clogged air filter, and their driver Martin Woodley was made so ill he had to visit the paramedics on site to have oxygen. In the end they were our salvation, as Gadget boss Wayne Cowling was able to lend us a new section on pipe to replace the damaged one, so our carefully prepared Coke cans could be thrown away!
The problem was solved, but we lost an estimated 44 minutes in additional pit stops. This did have the advantage of letting two of our drivers pop to the toilets during their stints, but it cost us a possible 5th place.
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Car 98 - AJP Racing (CVR)
As Mondello Park Virgins, we were a bit on the nervous side when practising, let alone qualifying or racing. Our big aim was to finish the race. We qualified in 27th place, and were delighted not to be last. On the grid next to us was car 99 the other half of the AJP Racing entries and our friendly rivals for the weekend.
Throughout the afternoon we swapped place with other cars in the lower half of the pack, but as we kept it on the black stuff for the majority of the time we started to sneak up the order, actually breaking the top 20!
Through the night stints, we carried on trying to keep out of the quicker cars way (thanks for waving guys!) and spend as much time as possible on the tarmac. The car ahead of us was the Eurologic car, and we were starting to catch them, until we were just half a lap behind and found ourselves in 16th place!!! Unfortunately, at about 4.30 am, fire struck. Thanks to every ones hard work and blagging abilities, we were back on the circuit after just over an hour. The car was running better than ever, and our lap times began dropping as our confidence increased.
Eurologic were now way on up ahead of us, but we were still ahead of our Team rivals and wound up finishing exhausted and delighted in 23rd place. So after 24 hours of Mondello Park, we achieved our aim and finished. Many off road ventures were discussed in the bar afterwards, where we all tried to catch up on 30 odd hours of missed drinking opportunities!
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