VIR 2008 Agony - 13hr Charge of the Headlight Brigade

The plan this year for the 13 hour enduro at VIR was to get on the podium with an all UK team.

So when I ran out of fuel on the LAST lap and went from a fairly safe 3rd to limp home 4th with less than one minute of the race left, I discovered a new level of disappointment! The list of "what if" scenarios is large but the biggest one is (for me at least) that I regret pitting in the last stint having mistaken another team's pit board for ours!

This is going to haunt me for a long time.

Our team's other car (Ron was part of that car's driver line up) came in 6th so with a class field of 29 Miata's, 4th and 6th is a good team result.

Big thanks to Ron for helping set it all up again and to Ron Munnerlyn and his Laticrete International team for the car and crew who did a fantastic job as ever. Also thanks to my fellow drivers, Glenn, Phil and Matthew for solid and quick driving and finally to Paul who came to spectate and support us.

A few pics - I'll leave Malc to title where required.

and a few others..

Thanks Paul.

In the top row of pictures, Glenn is to take the start, set our fastest lap of 2.23.6, not bad considering how hot it was and the tyres kept getting too hot. There was first lap mayhem which Glenn did well to avoid, as did Jeff Yound in the 06 car. The last picture in the top set is me being towed in after completely running dry of fuel on the cool down lap after the chequered flag. Today I found out we lost 3rd place by 5 seconds. After 13 hours of racing! Aaaargh!

In the second set of pics you can see not a lot happening whilst fuel goes in. No one can touch the car during refuelling. In one picture I am not fighting Matthew, but pulling him out the car at the end of his stint. Jeff Young is the sleeping beauty. Not sure how the Porsche bust its windshield but quite surprised at the repair allowed, chicken wire taped on!

The 06 car in our team ran out of brakes. Required a caliper change as the pads welded onto the piston! If you look closely in the bottom row middle picture you can see the sparks by the front wheel. Robert Mitchell suffered this brake failure at over 100 mph at the end of the main back straight but was able to rejoin at Hogs Pen having missed turns 13, 14, and 15! A bumpy hair raising ride!

The very last picture shows right to left, Matthew, Glenn and Phil moments before I made the ill fated pit stop. Ha, that took the smile off their faces!

You guys drove great. That SM field was deep -- 30 cars - with pro drivers and the SM National Champion (Andrew Cadell). Running 3rd until the last corner and finishing 4th is damn good.

We should have had both cars in the top 3 if we had a bit better luck.

Looks like a lot of fun. There is an 8 hour race at Road Atlanta coming up...

Don't beat yourself up Malc at least it wasn't a DNF. Of course if you had won, the headline would have been "Poms beat Yanks in Japanese Lotus Elan.Can you imagine an Elan still running after 8 hours of racing?
Well done
Ross

This Elan can...

1964 Lotus Elan 26R ex Team Lotus, FIA registered Spec Sheet

Thanks guys.

FWIW video did sort of work this time (!) but Glenn forgot to start it until 30 minutes into the race. The polisher! We did manage to get about 8 hours (out of 13) of the race covered but it would be really sad to sit and watch all of that again! And of course all the intersting bits are missing ie the start and the end! The night session on the Friday for light setting came out well, must be the HIDs fitted to the car.

This year the apex lights worked really well during the race, don't remember cursing them at all! When a car in front runs wide it really kicks up a massive dust cloud that at night is totally opaque. Gets your heart in your mouth at race speed as you hope there is no car stuck across the track!

Well, at least I have the recession to keep my mind off the close finish now!

Recent Competition History

Spa 2003, The fastest 26R by 9 seconds per lap, 12TH overall out of 70 cars in qualifying , class leader of GTS10! First time out in over 13 years.

Kieth
12th out of 70 cars in qualifying! An old cynic like me would suggest it didn't finish or finished in a lowly position.:laugh: Sorry for the drift Malc.

Ross