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Britcar 24 Hours - Race Report. Issued September 11th 2006

Hours 2-10 Hours 11-17 Hour 18-22 Hour 23-Finish

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!”

Photo: Marcus Potts

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.

Photo: Marcus PottsThe 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.

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Photo: Marcus PottsFor 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.

Photo: Marcus PottsWith 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

Photo: Marcus Potts

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.

Photo: Marcus Potts

Photo: Marcus PottsAll 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.

Photo: David Lord

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.”

Photo: Ian BullThomas 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

Photo: Marcus PottsThe 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.

Photo: Ian Bull

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.

Photo: Marcus Potts

Photo: Marcus PottsAfter 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.”

Photo: Marcus Potts

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.”

Photo: Jason Gore

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

Photo: Marcus PottsAt 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.”

Photo: Marcus PottsAll 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.”

Photo: Marcus Potts

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.

Photo: Marcus Potts

Photo: Marcus PottsSharing 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.

Photo: Marcus Potts

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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.