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Britcar 24 Hours -
Hours 13-15 4:30am and the mist is rolling in. The #65 TJH Civic’s fine run is punctuated by a long stop, for a routine pad change, the car drops out of the top 10 as the Eclipse Mosler also seems to hit trouble, the car trickling over the line seemingly with little or no drive – Adam Sharpe brings the car into the pits and sure enough it’s another failed right rear driveshaft and almost as soon as the car reaches the garage for the 20 minute job to commence, the Safety Car is mobilised to bring the field under control with visibility dropping fast. The Eclipse driveshaft replacement is completed in just 12 minutes, the car now in tenth position. Drama in the pitlane as a mechanic in the Saxon Motorsport team suffers an injury as the car comes down from the jacks following a lengthy pitstop, a medical car is on the scene immediately and an ambulance is despatched the wrong way down pit lane. No serious injury. It seems that 39 cars are still currently circulating with a couple of others under repair.
5am – Fog 5:15am – Very low cloud 5:25am – Extremely misty, the race is about to be suspended, the cars will be stopped in parc ferme conditions on the main pit straight. 5:30am – Race Suspended
Most of the remaining runners are stopped in line astern on the pit straight with any cars in the pitlane or garages required to be pulled out and left on the pit apron. Parc ferme conditions apply, no work permitted. The Rollcentre Mosler is in the process of having a full pads and disc change in pitlane.
The #45 CWS BMW is ready to rejoin the race after a propshaft change, the previously class leading car now ninth overall and second in class behind the Simply Racing Porsche, this car now seventh overall, the team having pitted under the safety car for new rubber all round and a top up with oil. “It’s the tyre changes that are killing us, “ said Piers Masarati, “We have to change left tyres every stop and all four every other stop and that’s costing us a minute per stop.”
Mark Sumpter meanwhile is loving every moment of his Britcar 24 hours in a newly resurrected ex-Carrera Cup car from 2002: “We’ve upgraded the brakes and the dampers but the real strength has been in a good, solid and well-matched driver line-up. We’ve had no problems whatsoever, just tyres and fuel every 90 minutes. The only thing we probably should have done is to fit a marginally bigger fuel tank as the BMWs have an advantage on us there.” At 07:00 the screens come up
with the welcome message that the race will restart in 15 minutes and sure
enough, as the drivers saunter back to their cars, and after a pair of laps
under the Safety car, we go racing again after just less than 2 hours of race
suspension and with 15 minutes until the end of Hour 15. Hour 15 Positions
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