Spar 25 hours 2007

The Uniroyal Fun Cup 25 hour race, the world’s longest race, took place at Spa Franchorchamps last weekend, with the Cuisine de France /SPAR car driven by Ian & Marc Connell, Pete Cate and reserve Lars Fredrik Berg. It proved to be a roller coaster of an event!

A very amusing, detailed and personal view of the race from our team courtesy of Marvin together with great pictures can be found on the attached blog on the web, please click here

Qualifying :

Engine problems throughout qualifying, tracked to a damaged valve meant the car would start 69th of the 161 starters, when we had hoped to start in the top 20.

Race, 25 hours, Saturday/Sunday :

Pete started the race and after just 7 laps was up to 49th place, when contact with another car resulted in a damaged rear hub and a puncture. Quick repairs by the Abbey Motorsport crew saw the car lose just fewer than 3 laps but by the time we got out again at the 45 minute mark, we were down to 131st place!

There then began an incredible fight back through the evening and night with all three drivers up through the field at a fast but more important, consistent pace. Aided by a great fuel strategy from Nick and excellent pits stops by Will, Colin and Marvin we made progress beyond our expectations.

After 17 hours of racing we were amazingly back up into 12th place overall and 2nd in the UK class! Shortly after however, a serious mechanical failure in the gearbox forced Pete to stop, and Abbey again became the stars of the show, changing the entire gearbox in a little more then an hour.

The car rejoined in 80th position and in the remaining hours, rose to 61st, with Lars Fredrik getting the chance of a successful debut in the car, and with Ian finally taking the flag at 5pm with a very hot and overheating car, after a frustrating but still very enjoyable event. Later analysis back at Abbey HQ would reveal compression issues in the engine which means a new engine for the next race!

Thanks to all the Abbey Motorsport crew for their great efforts, particularly Will and also to our own ace team of Nick and Lars on the pit wall, refueller Colin and “I’ll do anything” Marvin.

NSPCC Charity Event with Connell Racing at Spa

We are delighted to have raised over £11,000 for the NSPCC, racing in the SPA 25 hour motor race

Thank you very much to you all for your very kind donations.

Mondello Park TV coverage

The TV coverage from the Mondello Park races can be TODAY at these times:

Thursday 12th July: 5pm (SkySports 2), 10pm (SkySports 2) and Midnight (SkySports3)

Friday 13th July: 8am (SkySports 2), midday (SkySports 1) and 4pm (Sky Sports 3).

Next race is at Snetterton on Saturday August 4th