A Mechanic’s Memoirs
The Inside Story of KSM’s Le Mans

The Le Mans 24 Hours is always a daunting challenge, where a year’s worth of emotions and experiences are condensed into what is essentially a three week period of testing, qualifying and the race itself. Having finished 2nd with Bill Binnie in 2006, experienced mechanic Martyn ‘Gilbo’ Gilbert had ridden the full range of La Sarthe emotions. Or so he thought.

For the 2008 edition of the great race, Gilbert joined the Kruse-Schiller Lola-Mazda team, a little over three weeks before the big weekend and had just a night test at Magny Cours under his belt before being thrust in to the cauldron of Le Mans as chief mechanic. Here, talking to Legh Armes, he takes up the story of an intense, emotional and unforgettable week for the German based team.

“I was new to the team, the personalities and the ways of working at Kruse-Schiller; so, as chief mechanic, working out the strengths and potential weaknesses of the team was my priority.

“Pre race was all going to plan; the night test at Magny Cours had gone well, the only changes made were to replace one of the drivers (Yvon with Simonsen) and have an extra mechanic. Luckily Allan Simonsen was able to use Yvon’s seat and so the driving position remained almost unchanged.

“The usual pre race hike in hotel charges had seemed steeper than usual (Novotel 330 euros a night...eeek!), so we moved out to a gite 40 minutes away from the circuit; not ideal, but you have to get on with it. Having said that, sleeping in a kid’s bunk bed with a duvet covered in Mr Men and trains did seem somewhat surreal at 3 o clock in the morning!

“The Lola-Mazda got finished and the airfield got booked for a systems check, so the scene was set for Allan (Simonsen) to get acquainted with his new steed. Sharing the airfield with Peugeot was something of an eye-opener. I have never seen so many people running one car. I’m not sure what they all did but they must have had some kind of role to play.

“Allan settled in straight away and found a number of problems with the shift systems which AER duly altered. The gearcut needed tweaking, but by the end of the test everything was working perfectly; and it proved to be a very useful test as it would allow us a trouble free qualifying, or so we thought!

“A noise developed during the first session of qualifying which was worrying but we had no option but to keep running. It turned out to be a noisy release bearing, which eventually failed during the session. We would have preferred to use the opportunity of taking the gearbox off and to stop there and then, change the engine for the race engine, then do the last session on Thursday. But it was decided that more analysis with the engine and drivers was needed. Also, putting extra mileage on the engine wasn't deemed a good thing. So the back end went back on for the night session.

“The team had just got on the pits to car radio to inform Hideki about a technical problem, (a water pressure sensor that we needed to investigate). Unfortunately the car ran a kerb with a big rut on the inside of it going in to the Dunlop chicane and as everyone has now seen Hideki had the most appalling accident. The tub came to rest near the entry to the chicane itself, some 80 metres from the point of him losing the car. The rest of the car was scattered all over the place and very little was salvageable. Thankfully Hideki was ok, saved by the skill of the Lola and Lola composites designers and engineers who continuously strive to make these cars safe as well as damn fast.

“And so it began. In these situations it is very easy to get totally overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead. So, I got all the team together at the back of the garage and after a brief but very frank conversation we all agreed that if the tub was repairable then the car would be ready for the warm up on Saturday morning. To a man, everybody in the team was up for the challenge ahead, you could see it in their eyes. This in retrospect was the true starting point for a job of this magnitude.

“During the previous week Alex Schiller (brother of joint team owner - Hardy) the number one mechanic kept playing Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits; to a point where I had to ban it purely for my own sanity, as I can't stick Dire Straits. However, as we started work on the car, it dawned on me that the most apt CD to play was in fact Brothers in Arms. It was also not lost on most of us that we were also in severe Dire Straits!

“By 3 o clock on Thursday morning the car was stripped down to its tub so Lola could assess the situation. Thursday was the important day of the rebuild because the chassis had to go to project7 (an on-site carbon shop) to get the initial repairs done. The repairs had to be completed in two parts. The 3" hole where the lower pick up used to live had to be repaired first, complete with cold curing. This meant that the earliest we would see the chassis in the pit garage would be 2pm Friday, so all the sub assembly had to be finished by then. The engine dressing, gearbox, uprights and corners plus the biggest job of all the bodywork also had strict deadlines.

“The tub duly arrived at 2pm and in the end the secondary repair had to be carried out in the garage. This would start just before 5pm, so we used the three hours in between to get the engine and gearbox on to the car. We did as much as we could sub assembly wise, as well as a hundred other small but necessary jobs, until midnight.  But there came to a point were we couldn’t physically work on the car because the glue on the repair had to set. This freed up half the team to go back to the gite to get some sleep. I was able to grab two hours rest in the garage but drifted in and out as fireworks crackled overhead in the campsites. The fans are the lifeblood of the sport but sometimes…!!!!

“So at 2am on Saturday morning, some six hours before warm-up, the epic battle to build the car started. The first things fitted were the bib and the front floor. However, both jobs we were unable to do whilst the glue was going off, so our data engineer Jonathan Bartlett got on with installing the electrics that had got damaged in the accident at the front of the tub. Fluids and systems checks followed and at approximately 04.30 we were ready to fire up the Mazda!

“We got fuel pressure, but it wouldn’t start as an errant bung in an air pipe stopped it from breathing. When removed, though, the thing burst into life. Bingo!

“At this stage we are working on nothing more than adrenalin, sweets and fear. Soon came the time to check the gears. Alex hopped in to the hot seat, ready to pull the paddles; unbeknown to him (and us), the car was in limp home mode (i.e. 20% throttle) which only cuts in when you pull a gear. You can see what’s coming can’t you!

“First gear is pulled. And in the blink of an eye the car starts bouncing around with frightening violence. 20% is a lot of throttle when you're on chassis stands. How the car didn't fall off the stands and fly off through the garage door into the pitwall is a little beyond me. But out of the scariest events sometimes has the funniest memories in retrospect. After hitting every possible switch he could, Alex as white as a sheet turned to me and came out with a phrase he'd picked up during the week and in a shaky Germanic/English accent utters “GILBO, I THINK I’VE JUST TOUCHED CLOTH.......!

“Well... we lost 15 minutes working on the car, as all of us were rolling about on the floor like deranged hyenas with tears in our eyes. After gathering our thoughts and ribs the hard push started; getting the rear floor on, tidying up the electrics and hanging on the front left suspension.

“With the car now in one piece it was set up time and final fiddling, bodywork etc. The car was ready by about 9-15am with thirty minutes of warm-up to go. Pushing out the car was one of the most emotional events I have been involved in. I gather that some fans in the grandstands stood up and applauded, as did some of the mechanics from other teams down the pit lane. I was totally oblivious to all this and it was a good job really as I would have been in a flood of tears if I had witnessed it.

“The team had three targets that we wanted to achieve. The first was to get on the grid. The second was to complete 12 hours. The third was to finish the race. We as a team achieved two of the three objectives and I think that this was not a bad effort under the circumstances and for a relatively small team.

“As for the race, we lost telemetry after six hours so we couldn't monitor any pressures and, in effect, we were flying blind. This would eventually lead to a loss of gearbox pressure, then gearbox failure; stranding Jean out on the track just after Mulsanne corner. He did a sterling job to try and fix the car, achieving more with one hand than many achieve with two.

“The experience was something that will never be forgotten. A special thanks has to go to Torsten from Project 7 and, Adrian Wylde from Lola, who worked solidly for two days. Also thanks to John Doonan from Mazda, the AER guys, David Scotney, Julian Sole, Paul Rennie and Arthur Gover (the Lola gearbox guru) from Huntingdon’s finest; and to all the teams down the pitlane that gave us so much support; especially RML, ASM and Chamberlain Synergy.

As they say in racing circles. You can't beat a good shitfight!