Pembrey 6 hours 2008

David Byers

Motor racing suddenly seemed irrelevant on Saturday at Pembrey, as half way through our race we learned that one of our fellow competitors David Byers had died.

David, who lived in Co Dublin, Ireland, had suffered a massive heart attack after getting out of his race car. David was a familiar and regular face at Fun Cup meetings in 2005, 2006 and 2008 and will be greatly missed by all who knew him.
Our condolences go to his wife, Ann and to his family.

Qualifying :

6 cars qualified for the race at the Pembrey Circuit in South Wales. This was the first time the Fun Cup has been to Pembrey and although the circuit facilities are very poor, the actual circuit was quite fun to drive.

We sent Marc out first to learn the circuit as only Richard and Ian had tested on the Friday. He did well to qualify 11th. That was the time that stood, as when Richard and Ian went out to qualify the track had got wetter and the safety car was out, so Richard only got 2 flying laps!

It all meant for nothing though as for the second race in a row we had a poor grid draw, ending up 24th of the 26 cars.

The Race

Richard took the first stint in damp conditions and had a fantastic start form the back of the grid, coming around at the end of lap one in 15th place having made up 9 places! By lap 6th he was up to 10th and up to 8th by lap 26, only 22 second behind a fantastic lead dice that featured 6 cars.

Our first pit stop compulsory pit stop at 1 hour went wrong as we tried to replace a damaged front splitter…….it took much longer than we expected and we ended up in the pits for over 3 minutes for a pit stop that should have only taken about one minute. As a result, when Marc did get out he was down to 16th place.

However good progress was then made over the next two hours with some very consistent fast driving so by nearly 3 hours, we were back up to 6th place.

At the stage the race was stopped due to the sudden death of David. After discussion among the drivers the decision to abandon the remainder of the race was taken, which I believe was the correct decision.

Snetterton TV coverage dates and times

TV Coverage from Snetterton
TV Coverage will be shown on Raceworld
Thurs Sep 25th: 6.30pm (Sky Sports 1), 8pm (Sky Sports 2) and midnight (Sky Sports Xtra)
Fri Sep 26th: 4.30am (Sky Sports 3), 9am (Sky Sports 2) and midday (Sky Sports 3)
Sat Sep 27th: 6am (Sky Sports Xtra)

Sun Sep 28th: 3am (Sky Sports Xtra)

Pembrey TV coverage dates and times

TV Coverage from Pembrey
TV Coverage will be shown on Raceworld
Thurs Oct 2nd: 7pm (Sky Sports Xtra) and midnight (Sky Sports Xtra)
Fri Oct 3rd: 4am (Sky Sp 1), 8am (Sky Sports 3), midday (Sky Sports 3) 4pm (Sky Sports Xtra)
Sat Oct 4th: 5am (Sky Sports Xtra)

The Next Race

The next race for the team is the Oulton Park 4 hours on 11th October.