RML
Team News
Britcar 24 Hours - Race Report. Issued September 11th 2006
A brief report begins immediately, while in-depth coverage
follows on below that.
Use the navigation bar above to move to sections within
that main report.
Falcon
Flies to the Flag
Much
against the odds, the AD NetVu Falcon gave a highly commendable
account of itself in last weekend’s Britcar 24 Hours
a Silverstone. Only confirmed as an entrant a few days before
the event, the big Australian Ford arrived at the “Home
of British Motorsport” somewhat unprepared for the
task. Nevertheless, with the help of the determined crew
of mechanics and engineers from Xero Competition, headed
by Dave Beecroft, the four-driver line-up of Mike Newton,
Thomas Erdos, Adam Wiseberg and Philippe Hesnault raced
through to 25th overall, fourth in class. Along the way
the car set a fastest lap of 2:01.841 for Silverstone’s
Grand Prix circuit to stand 10th quickest overall, rose
as high as 14th, and was one of 35 out of 52 starters classified
at the finish. All this from a car now into its twelfth
year, and still capable of offering entertainment as well
as pace to its drivers. “We all had a great time,”
said Thomas Erdos after the race. “I’d love
to do it again!”
The
Race in Brief
The
event didn’t start especially well for the team, with
problems in qualifying meaning that Mike Newton took the
start from next-to last position. He had a moderately good
first few laps, and had made up fifteen or sixteen places
in the opening half-hour before being called in to address
a fuel leak from the filler. Fixing that dropped the Falcon
back to the mid-forties, but Mike was able to recover that
ground steadily before handing over to Philippe Hesnault.
The
Frenchman, followed by Adam Wiseberg driving third, continued
the recovery, and the Falcon moved inside the top-thirty
before Thomas Erdos took over in the fifth hour. It was
a characteristic performance from the Brazilian, encouraging
the Falcon to perform like a car half its age. At first
his progress was meteoric, and within the first hour of
his stint he'd got the car into the top twenty. It was about
then that the clutch started slipping, but he pressed on,
and had reached 14th overall before the car became too difficult
to drive. It proved to be a lengthy pitstop. The Falcon,
being created as more of a sprint car than an endurance
racer, was never designed with rapid repairs of this magnitude
in mind, and it took the crew almost two and a half hours
(the equivalent of nearly 100 laps) to complete the job.
The
rest of the night shift proved relatively uneventful, but
in the early hours the weather took a turn for the worse.
Fog descended like a wet blanket, and at 4:45 the safety
car was deployed. It remained on track for more than three
hours, starting with the final half hour of Mike Newton’s
second stint, and not ending until Philippe Hesnault had
endured two-and-a-half hours stuck in its queue. "It
was a nightmare!" he said. For some while he said he
had to navigate by peering out of the side window and following
the line around the edge of the track.
Dawn
came, the light improved, but visibility was still down
to little over seventy or a hundred feet, but it did finally
burn clear. At half-eight the pace car pulled into the pitlane,
and Philippe had the pleasure of twenty minute's real racing
before Adam Wiseberg stepped aboard to begin his first daylight
stint. From then on it was smooth running all the way to
the flag, with no major incidents, no significant problems,
and an engine that was as strong at the chequered flag as
it had been at the start. “If we’d had a clean
run, a top-ten would have been within reach,” insisted
Adam Wiseberg, Marketing Director of AD-Group and, for this
weekend, racing driver. In fact, the Falcon might have been
on course for a top five.
Back
to Top
For
a full account of the race, read on . . .
Warm
Up
Everything
about the Britcar weekend has echoes of motor racing as
it used to be. Public access to the paddock is open and
spectators mill around freely, able to seek out the team
garages and view the cars. The whole atmosphere is very
relaxed, and a sensibly structured daily schedule, with
warm-up for a 24-hour race not until just after mid-day,
ensuring drivers can, if they wish, arrive rested for the
task ahead. Even so, the morning was packed with excellent
support races – all guaranteed to appeal to endurance-racing
fans - and perfect for generating the right kind of backdrop
to the 12:15 warm-up session.
The plan had been that all four drivers
would get a few laps in the Falcon ahead of the five-o’clock
start, but that wasn’t how it worked out in the end.
Mike Newton was only half way through his out-lap when one
of the hoses on the power steering system blew, depositing
fluid all over the track and rendering the car undriveable.
This left no chance for the team to assess the effect of
the camber adjustments made since Saturday’s qualifying
session, and no opportunity for Philippe or Adam to drive
the track in daylight. Perhaps it wasn’t the ideal
way to face a twenty-four hour race but, as Mike said, “better
to have these things happen now than actually in the race.”
By
three o’clock the PAS had been repaired and the car
was been fully prepped for the race. The last task was to
drive the Falcon round to the refuelling rigs, sited for
the weekend in the secondary pitlane beside the Brooklands
section of the track. More often used as a collecting area
for support races, it had been set up for the Britcar 24
as the safe refuelling area. Unlike Le Mans, or the Le Mans
Series races, there are no rigs in the pitlane, and the
system is far more conventional in operation – a car
can take several minutes to take on fuel.
With
an on-going timetable of support races, including a thrilling
display by the “legends” and a spectacular incident-filled
Dutch Supercar Challenge race, the Britcar entrants weren’t
sent out onto the grid to form up until almost half-past
four. It was a very strange feeling for the Falcon crew.
With 52 cars taking the start, the tail end of the grid
was lining up through the exit of Luffield Two and the startline
was out of sight beyond Woodcote.
For
Mike, Tommy and Adam, more familiar with starting the MG
Lola from pole, it was an odd sensation to have to walk
the entire length of the grid to find Mike sitting in the
Falcon on the back row. With Philipe still learning the
circuit, the driving order had been revised so that Mike
would take the first stint, Philippe would follow while
there was still daylight, and then Adam and Tommy would
round off the quartet. Back to Top
Race
Start
The
pace car moved off at 4:55 (above), but it seemed an age
before Mike was able to get the Falcon rolling and follow
the train of cars through Woodcote. Starting from second-to-last,
only the #31 Darrian T90 was behind him as they disappeared
away down the pit straight. Not quite Le Mans, where practice
has made perfect, the pace car was a little early arriving
back in the “stadium” section, but when it pulled
off into the pitlane, Martin Short in the pole-setting Mosler
slowed the pace to such an extent that it looked possible
the race might yet start on time. He could have stepped
out and pushed the slime-green car quicker! In the end,
he floored the throttle some yards short of the line, getting
a fair jump on the second-placed Duller BMW, and the 2006
Britcar 24 Hours roared into life a minute before the hour.
Mike
was yet to clear Bridge by the time the leading pair were
fighting over rights through Copse, but he’d already
made up one place as the tail-enders swept across the line
to start their race. Wisely, there were no obvious heroics
on that opening lap, and no first-lap exits, and by the
time the Falcon came through again Mike had made up four
places. He continued to make steady progress, and picked
up another three places over the next few laps. Shorty’s
Mosler and Jamie Campbell-Walter, scrapping for the outright
lead, had clear track ahead of them, and had probably started
30 seconds or more before Mike. They came through at the
end of lap five, already deep in amongst the cars at the
back of the field, and lapped the Falcon. Unfortunately,
Mike had a problem, although nobody in the team, not even
the driver, was aware of it, but the waved orange and black
flag at the startline demonstrated that race officials were.
All
weekend the drivers have been complaining of an intermittent
smell of fuel, but even frequent visits from the scrutineers
had failed to locate the source. Now, in the rigours of
the race, the reason was suddenly obvious to anyone viewing
from the outside of the track – the side opposite
the pits. Every time the Falcon came hard through a right-hander,
fuel could be seen streaming in a thick mist from the left-hand
filler (above and right). Phone calls from spotters trackside
reached the team at the same time as the officials declared
an interest.
With almost exactly half an hour
and 14 laps completed Mike had made it through to 37th place,
from 51st, but all that gain was about to be lost as he
headed down the pitlane to have the leak attended to. Knowing
what the problem now was, it didn’t take long to seal
the filler. “All that work yesterday was a complete
waste of time!” said one of the crew later, having
removed and replaced the whole tank at one stage on Friday,
but at least the threat of a fire had finally been assuaged.
The
rest of Mike’s opening stint went smoothly enough,
and at just after six-fifteen he took to the slip road on
the entry to Brooklands and went through the first of what
would be about sixteen refuelling routines expected for
the next twenty-four hours. He was lying in 41st position
overall, an improvement of eleven since the start, nine
laps down on the leaders and with a best of 2:12.267 under
his belt. Back to Top
Hours
2-10
Philipe Hesnault was next to be strapped
into the Falcon, and the Frenchman enjoyed an untroubled
run, heading into official darkness at 7:30, and rising
through the field to reach 30th overall by the end of his
stint. As you’d expect from a driver new to both car
and track, his initial laptimes were not blisteringly quick,
but by the time he’d finished he was running regular
two-fifteens and looking comfortable.
With
64 laps completed, eleven behind the leaders, Philippe pitted
to hand over to Adam Wiseberg. The Falcon’s rise had
been steady throughout the previous two hours, but was now
starting to meet stiffer opposition within the midfield.
This observation disguises the fact that Adam gave a very
good account of himself for the next hour and a quarter,
consistently posting times in the sub-ten bracket and picking
off a succession of serious competitors.
This
strong performance did much to maintain the Falcon’s
recovery, and accounted for another five places. When Wiseberg
brought the Falcon back down the pitlane to hand the Ford
over to Erdos for the Brazilian’s first stint, the
car had completed 92 laps. Underlying the strength of Adam’s
run, he had officially made up one lap on the leaders, being
now only ten laps down on the Duller Motorsport BMW; the
impressive Z4 coupe leading the race overall from the second
of the Moslers, that of Eclipse Motorsport. “That
was a really good effort, and I’m really pleased for
him,” said Erdos afterwards. “Not only did he
have a good run, but he’s demonstrated that he’s
a very competent driver. He loves his racing, so it’s
good to see him performing at this level and enjoying himself.”
Thomas
Erdos (getting into the Falcon, left) picked up
where Adam had left off, with the Falcon continuing to make
up solid ground. Peaking with a best lap of 2:03.950, Erdos
gave another characteristic demonstration of skilful dicing
through heavy traffic, consistently among the fastest on
track, despite the presence of much newer machinery. All
was not well, however, and Tommy knew that he’d be
unable to maintain that kind of pace for long. “The
clutch was slipping badly as soon as I got into the car.
The biting point was right up near the top of the pedal,
and I knew then that it wouldn’t be long before it
started slipping. For a while it was OK, but then the engine
started going woaaaah woaaaah out of the corners, and it
got progressively” Sure enough, despite his best efforts,
the pace started to ease, but this didn’t prevent
the #25 car rising to a high of fourteenth overall as the
race neared the end of its seventh hour. Finally, a little
while before midnight, Erdos admitted defeat, and the Falcon
came down the pitlane to be greeted by the crew that recognised
they had an arduous task ahead of them. “There was
a risk of damaging the engine, so I came in,” said
Erdos. The leaders had completed 165 laps to the Falcon’s
153.
As
the mechanics knew it would be, the job of removing the
gearbox to replace the clutch in a car like the Falcon was
never going to be easy. In fact, it was “absolute
Hell,” as one of the guys declared with considerable
feeling. Just getting to the thing was hard enough, but
this was a gearbox filed with race-hot oil, and every nut
and bolt was blistering to the touch. Merely removing the
drain plug was hazardous. “It’s not much fun,
lying on your back in a pool of hot oil and covered in carbon
dust!” shrugged another. Despite this, they knuckled
down to the job, and at 2:25, in the depths of a dark and
chilly Sunday morning, the yellow and red Falcon emerged
once more into the fray. In the meantime, the race leaders
had ticked off another 80 laps, with the 911virgin.com Porsche
enjoying a purple patch of about an hour at the head of
the pack. The Falcon was lying in 44th position. Back
to Top
Hours
11-17
The
rest of the night went smoothly enough, with the car showing
104 laps down on the leaders, but at least it was circulating
strongly once again. Mike was in the car as the dawn started
to rise, but as the light levels slowly grew, the mist steadily
descended. In fact, this was fog the like of which you rarely
see – not that anyone really could.
At
a quarter to five the organisers recognised that the situation
was becoming dangerous, and the safety car was deployed.
It would control the race for the next two-and-a-half hours,
but to give an indication of just how thick this blanket
of fog truly was, Mike found himself at one point driving
off the track and across the grass near Luffield, and four
cars followed him before anyone realised the mistake. Mike
was not the only driver to become disorientated, and even
the safety car was reputed to take some wrong turns.
Half
an hour after the safety car had been introduced, Mike came
back to the garage, much relieved to hand over to Philippe
(above). Little did the Frenchman know that he’d
be stuck in a slow-moving queue for the entire length of
his stint. It was tedious, to say the least. He had only
one break from routine, with a trip down the refuelling
lane at seven-nineteen, but he didn’t stop at the
garage. Governed by the pace being set by the safety car,
the cars were circulating the Grand Prix circuit every three-and-a-half
minutes, and this became the norm until nearly eight o’clock.
By then, the rising sun had started to burn off the worst
of the fog, and the pace could pick up just a bit. As the
race entered its sixteenth hour, the Falcon was lying 40th
overall, 104 laps down on the leaders, and lapping in the
2:48s. The Duller BMW was back in the lead once more.
After
three and a half hours, believed to be the longest full-course
yellow in British motor racing history, the lights finally
went out on top of the safety car. It was 08:24, and Philippe
would enjoy twenty minutes of daylight racing.
Back
in the garage, Adam Wiseberg was preparing for his first
daylight stint of the race. He walked across to the crew
gathering on the pit apron. “Do we have any anti-fog?"
he asked innocently. Exchanging looks that bordered on incredulity,
the guys shrugged shoulders in unison, before Adam waved
a pair of glasses in front of them. "For my specs!"
he said, grinning through his visor. Some was found, but
we’re not sure how well it worked.
At
quarter to nine Philippe brought the Falcon down the pitlane,
and Adam clambered aboard (below). “That was a nightmare!”
announced Philippe, right, still shaking his head
in disbelief. “I was completely lost. I couldn’t
see anything. I was looking out of the side window to follow
the white line just to work out where I was going. I have
never seen fog like that, not even on a road car –
and I have better lights on my road car! That was two and
a half hours of safety car, and it was very boring.”
Once
again, Adam was quickly into the groove. His opening laps
were in the two-twelves, but before long he’d got
down to a personal best of 2:07.004. "Have you seen
the times Adam Wiseberg is doing? He's flying!" said
Dave Beecroft, clearly impressed by the exploits of someone
he’d previously only viewed as the Motorsport Director
of a major corporate. It was a bit of an eye-opener. This
time Wiseberg would do two complete stints, pitting at ten
to refuel, but driving on again for another hour. At one
point he’d risen to 37th, but the stop for fuel cost
him two places, but he recovered those before his pace started
to ease back. “I had a temperature warning light come
on,” he explained subsequently. “I was concerned
not to blow it up or anything, but it seemed to take me
ages to find out what it was. It turned out to be the oil
temperature, which wasn’t so critical, but I eased
back just to be safe rather than sorry.”
Then
a minor indiscretion at Brooklands (above) just
before the end of his stint sent him back to where he’d
started. “I just left the braking too late, and rather
than flat-spot the tyres, I went off across the grass,”
he said. “I think I could have probably got round
on the tarmac, but I wanted to look after the tyres.”
From the garage, Tommy was overheard to say that he thought
Adam was possibly “getting tired now. He’s done
two hours, and that’s tough going out there.”
There was no arguing with that, but Wiseberg had driven
another blinder. “I reckon the only car that passed
me was the Duller car!” he said proudly. “I
did the whole of my second stint sub-ten, until I had that
temperature problem,” he added. Back
to Top
Hours
18-23
At
eleven on Sunday morning, with eighteen hours completed,
the Falcon was in 39th position on 321 laps, 112 laps behind
the leading Z3 BMW. Tommy picked up the pace once more.
His very first through-lap was a new fastest lap for the
car at 2:03.400. He immediately followed that with a 2:01.841,
and this would prove to be the Falcon’s best lap of
the race.
Within
half an hour the Falcon was back up to 37th overall, and
then 35th by quarter-to-twelve. He was, however, fighting
with the brakes, and five minutes later he elected to come
back into the pits for a change of pads. The team rotated
the wheels at the same time, and he was back out and racing
again inside four minutes. Try getting your local fitters
to do that as quickly! A quick pump of the pedal to reset
the fluid, and with a squeal of tyres, he was away once
more (right).
Having
proven his point earlier, and with nothing but a race finish
in the offing as a meaningful result, Tommy eased back on
the throttle. He settled into an even rhythm that involved
lap-after-lap that barely wavered far from 2:08, although
this didn’t stop him snatching a few scalps along
the way. There was a safety car period at midday that compressed
the field, and Erdos took some delight in passing six cars
at the restart on the run down to Copse. For a brief period
he did speed up once more, clocking 2:03s and faster in
order to overtake the Eclipse Mosler through Becketts, and
leaving the sixth-placed car as if stationary. “Our
pace is a little bit academic now,” he explained.
“We could go quicker, but we need to look after the
car and the tyres, but I’m sure the car could do a
fifty-eight or fifty-nine, no problem – although it
would have to be hanging it pretty wild to do that! That
might be great fun, but thrashing the car is not why were
here.”
With one more stop for fuel, Erdos
pressed on until just gone one o’clock, when he handed
the Falcon back to Mike Newton. “The gearbox is deteriorating
slightly,” Erdos pointed out. “It’s slipping
out of fourth gear a little bit, but it’s not something
we can’t cope with. We did have a minor fuel pump
problem, with the main pump struggling to get the last few
drops out of the tank, but we can switch to the reserve
pump whenever that happens. It’s just a case of getting
to the finish now, and continuing to enjoy ourselves. The
car’s such fun to drive, and we’ve proven that
it’s one of the top ten fastest in the race, which
is a nice achievement.”
All
the drivers had been driving double-stints, but the temperature
in the closed cockpit of the Falcon was starting to make
that an arduous prospect. For Mike and Tommy, used to driving
the open-topped MG sports prototype, the difference between
that and the Aussie Ford was particularly marked, but it
didn’t appear to deter AD Holding’s CEO, and
Mike pressed on with his final stint at the wheel.
That
ended at around two-thirty, when Mike handed the Falcon
across to Adam Wiseberg. This time Adam’s pace was
a little more restrained, although he started quickly enough.
After half an hour or so, however, he eased back. “The
gearbox wasn’t too bad, but it did jump out of fourth
sometimes, so I was trying to miss that out and not tempt
providence by short-shifting up to sixth. Then the oil temperature
started to rise, so I eased off.” That allowed him
to enter into an entertaining tussle with some of the midfield
runners, toying with the likes of the #23 Lotus Exige (actually
a very respectable eleventh overall), the Morgan Aero 8
(23rd) and the sole surviving MG ZR of Mickel Automotive.
“They were probably having great fun thinking they
could keep up with the Falcon!” he joked. “The
car’s got so much grunt, but I was nursing it as best
I could; going early on the brakes, gently through the gears,
but then, once onto the straight, woomph, I could go again.
I really enjoyed that!” Back to Top
Hour
23 - Finish
"If
it gets to the flag, I’ll be absolutely bowled over,”
declared Dave Beecroft with an hour to go. “The Falcon’s
not an endurance car, and I wasn’t sure it would make
it, but it’s strong.” The driving order had
been deliberately changed by Adam’s final stint, in
recognition of the awful two-hours Philippe had spent at
the wheel during the foggy early morning. As some compensation,
the LMS Porsche regular was given the honour of the final
stint, and when Adam handed over to Philippe at four o’clock,
it would be the final pitstop for the #25 Falcon. “I
had a red light above the dash, and the engine cut out coming
into Stowe,” was one of the first things Adam said
as he pulled off his helmet, concern etched across his brows.
Nothing to worry about, insisted Dave Beecroft. “It
was the low fuel warning light!” Adam breathed a sigh
of relief. “Let’s just hope we can get it through
the last hour.”
Philippe
inherited the car in 28th place overall, 124 laps behind
the Duller BMW. Appreciative of the situation, he maintained
a steady pace of around 2:15 or 2:17, nursing the car –
as any driver would do in the final minutes of a twenty-four
hour race. That didn’t prevent him picking up a few
more places, however, and in the dying moments he snuck
through to claim 25th overall. One of those cruelly denied
was the Chad Racing Porsche GT3, for so long looking set
for the over-all podium, but sidelined half an hour from
the finish by suspension failure. “Twenty four hours
of really good fun,” said Nigel Greensall, despite
the evident disappointment.
Sharing
the same garage as the Falcon, Chad’s despondency
was strongly felt by the grey-clad Xero crew, their shirts
and faces begrimed by oil and black dust, as they clambered
up onto the fencing to welcome the finishers across the
line (above and right). It wasn’t quite as
emotional a moment as Le Mans perhaps, when Tommy and Adam
had been looking to witness Mike take a second successive
LMP2 victory, but it was still something to savour. Perhaps
most telling was the incongruous fact that more people watched
the finish from the pitlane than the stands opposite, but
that didn’t detract from the occasion. Thirty-five
cars crossed the line, and one of those was the AD NetVu
Falcon. Few would have believed that possible at one o’clock
that morning!
“If we’d had a clean
run, a top-ten would have been within reach, easy,”
insisted Adam Wiseberg. “When you consider that this
car had the capability to finish maybe fifth or sixth overall,
second or third in class, it’s quite amazing.”
It is hard to deny the mathematics. With the best part of
100 laps lost to the gearbox change, even a top-five might
have been possible. Philippe was delighted. “My first
ever 24 hour race, and we finished!” he beamed. For
him, the Le Mans experience is yet to come, although his
chances of securing a seat for 2007 are excellent. Mike
Newton already knows that feeling, but this was also something
to savour. “I enjoyed that. It was great fun”
smiled Mike Newton. “The car had been sitting there
doing nothing for months, and we thought it would be better
to do something, and this is what we’ve achieved!”
The
question now remains; what next for the Falcon? There’s
already talk of a new livery, so perhaps its race is not
yet fully run.
Back
to Top
Please
note: A full race gallery of high-resolution images
can be viewed here.
Use the hover caption to view photographer's credit. With
special thanks to David Lord, Ian Bull and Jason Gore for
additional images. All remainder by Marcus Potts.