Spar 25 hours 2008
Our main race of the year the SPA 25 hours was held last weekend at the fabulous Belgian Grand Prix circuit in the Ardennes Forest. Over 135 cars plus another 25 twin seaters were entered for the 2008 race.
After a fraught 25 hours the Cuisine de France / Relentless / SPAR team of Ian, Richard and Marc Connell plus Peter Cate staged a tremendous fight back through the field after an early incident dropped the car to the very back of the one hundred and thirty five car field.
Qualifying :
Qualifying went very well, although we were unable to get Richard or Ian many laps in the dry in race trim as rain plagued day two. Near the end of the last session we sent Peter out to try and get a draft down the straights to get a good grid position…..which he did very well, getting us up to 13th on the 160 car grid.
Race, 25 hours, Saturday/Sunday :
As ever with us, the first hour of the race proved costly. After a few wet laps and running in about 20th Marc had a scrape with another car that ripped the valve out of the tyre. This should have been simple and quick to sort, but when the wheel was changed a wheel stud snapped and it proved impossible to get the damaged end out of the hub. This meant a complete hub change which lost us 7 laps & dropped us to 135th place after one hour.
We started to make some good progress up until the nights session, when Ian was black flagged into the pits twice when the rear lights failed. More laps were lost when Richard had to pit with a failing alternator and Marc had another puncture.
So after half the race we had only climbed back up to 86th place and it did not look too promising!
Thereafter as the daylight dawned the car and drivers really started to motor on at a “Relentless” pace. During the next 12 hours we gained 2 laps back on the race leaders. By 18 hours we were up to 56th and hoping to get into the top 50.
Peter said, "We had the car working really well and found we were as fast as any one from Le Combes to Stavelot but were struggling to break away along the long straits through Blanchimont and up Kemmel”.
Marc added “I had a fantastic final stint which included running about 15 laps with the other Abbey Motorsport run car of Mark Gillam. We really got it together and bump drafted each other along…..hairy stuff but great if you can find a driver to trust who you can do it with…..no one passed us during those laps!”
Three fantastic final stints by Pete, Marc and finally Richard saw us up to 31st place by the start of the last lap
Richard flew in his last stint making up several paces and was clearly enjoying himself: “I could see the pit signals showing me making up places fast, but I ran out of laps and finally on the last lap…… fuel! No risk then!”
The car ran dry ½ way around the final lap. We had taken a calculated risk that we thought might get us to the end, but despite this, we were still classified 32nd, and 4th of the 22 UK starters, an achievement we were very happy with after the early race gremlins!
Ian summed up the race: “To fight back from virtually last to 32nd position was testimony to our very consistent and fast driver line up and the excellent pit work of the Abbey Motorsport crew and the tactical calls by Mike and Nick on the pit wall. We had a truly "Relentless" pace, setting a fastest lap of 3.08.08, over 3 seconds quicker than our fastest lap in 2007”.
Thanks to the Team
The car was run ably run by Abbey Motorsport as usual led by Chef D`Equipe Tony Gillam, supported by our No 1 mechanic Will Humphrey and joining Will in the garage was our volunteer spanner man and general pit ace Marvin Hall.
Thanks also to other Abbey helpers, John, Warner and Dan plus ace nutritionist Tina.
On the pit wall a special thanks to our ace crew Nick Carley and Mike Head from Premier Foods who did the whole 25 hours without a break or any sleep!
Finally thanks to all our sponsors.
TV coverage
PART ONE - RACEWORLD EPISODE 33
14th August: 7pm Sky Sports Xtra and 10pm Sky Sports Xtra
15th August: 5am Sky Sports 1
PART TWO - RACEWORLD EPISODE 34
21st August: 7pm Sky Sports Xtra and 10pm Sky Sports Xtra
22nd August: 3am Sky Sports 1, 10am Sky Sports 2, Midday Sky Sports 3, 3.30pm Sky Sports 3
23rd August: 6am Sky Sports Xtra
The next race is at Snetterton on Sunday August 24th