The plan was for a 475 lap race taking around 2 hours to finish the GT season - and the action was frantically fast from the start. The weather forecast was dry-damp-dry... that moist surface promising to cause problems on such a fast, heavy-braking layout. But that didn't bother the first stint drivers. Alex led the way with Dean's AST One McLaren, very closely followed by a pair of Mercedes in the hands of Ryan and Jean. After ten minutes - and before any pit stops - those three circulated on the same lap. In fourth, Pete was holding his own against Mike's Merc - the pair of them five laps off the lead. Matt was doing a great job in the Race Control Aston, well and truly dropped in the deep end, but only losing a lap a minute to the frontrunners...
The first round of pit stops came at the end of the first 20-minute stint. Some teams were harder on fuel than others and would have longer stops. The order at that first driver change was AST One and Slot Carazing a lap ahead of Smooth Operators. Ardingly Aces and Fundamentally Barley were four laps behind and Race Control were 18 laps off the lead. All six teams would swap drivers for what would be a second stint disrupted by a race control failure.
The drivers did nearly finish their 20 minutes on track, but for timing purposes, we only have results for half of that. An unusual - and frustrating - consequence of a short circuit meant connection between track and computer could not be reset without ending the race. Thankfully, the race situation at 30 minutes was similar to ten minutes later... Carazing led AST One, with Smooth Ops a lap back. Fundamentally Barley were now fourth, eight laps behind the leaders and five ahead of Ardingly Aces. Florence was driving the Race Control car, which was now 32 laps off the lead and 18 off fifth...
It's the first time we've needed to reset a race for quite a while. After checking cars and track, rebooting the powerbase and relaunching RCS64... we seemed to be okay. A second, shorter race of 250 was set up with similar weather forecast. We continued from the start of stint three, now timed to run from 30 to 50 minutes. Technically everything was smooth running, but the damp track before and after the interruption made the racing a bit of a crash-fest. That moisture is a nightmare on Hard tyres, with Intermediates not great when the track begins to dry.
After that first 20 minutes post-restart was over, Carazing had a big eight lap lead over Smooth Ops - AST One having dropped back to third after the beginnings of some frustrating mechanical issues. Fundamentally Barley were fourth, fifteen laps behind the Smooth Ops and four laps ahead of the Ardingly Aces. Debutant Dylan had moments of great driving mixed in with some tricky patches, but - most importantly - he kept the car running in one piece, albeit 52 laps adrift of fifth...
The fourth stint saw Jerome stay on for Smooth Operators, but all the other teams were back with their starting drivers. The track continued to dry, but was in no state for Hard tyres yet - everyone staying on Inters. Jean stretched Carazing's lead at the front to 15 laps and set up Terry for what might be the final stint, such was the pace on track. Mike had the Fundamentally Barley Merc in third, 14 laps off Smooth Ops in second. Pete overtook Alex's ailing McLaren for fourth and Matt did a great job holding the gap to 53 laps before handing over to Andy for his first stint of the evening...
That fifth stint did end up being the final one of the race. The pace at the front was unrelenting - Ryan had the bit between his teeth to catch Terry, but 15 laps was surely too much to ask? Rob and Matthew had the task of holding station, while Dean needed to get his McLaren round without losing 50+ laps to Andy's Aston. Andy was the first to switch to Soft tyres, followed by Ryan. These proved to be the compound that responded best to the conditions at this stage of the race. A mid-stint tyre stop would be necessary, but those Softs could really be pushed hard.
Ryan took chunks out of Carazing's lead. It was certainly frantic racing, keeping up the pace and navigating around the other cars. Terry looks to be hanging on, but then another couple of laps went the way of the Smooth Operators. At the back, Dean's McLaren was haemorrhaging laps to the hard-charging Race Control Aston. All the time, the laps remaining were counting down with the Carazing Merc still in the lead...
To win, Ryan needed to catch Terry in this second race and then lap him. Remember, Carazing had a lap lead over the Smooth Ops at 30 minutes of the original race. That uncertainty just added to the tension in the room... which was full of excitement, banter and laughter. Ryan made the pass and got the lap, but anything could happen in the final seconds - and we didn't have a result until the AST One McLaren belatedly crossed the line to trigger the end of the race. Yes, Smooth Operators had a two lap margin - a one lap win when the totals were combined (click the image to make it bigger)...
Fundamentally Barley were third, 18 laps off the lead, Ardingly Aces were fourth - another 24 laps back. Thanks to AST One's woes, Race Control finished fifth, 88 laps off the lead, but seven laps ahead of the McLaren. The rookie team were almost as delighted as the racer winners. That's the beauty of endurance racing!
It's worth noting that the stats are approximate due to the technical issues. The pit stop time and fuel use data is only from the second 250 laps and therefore only useful as a comparison with other teams. Other data is amalgamated.
Huge congratulations to Smooth Operators on their win - and bravo to all the teams...
Despite Smooth Operators' win, Carazing did more than enough to clinch the championship...
Congrats to Oliver, Terry and Jean who were the mainstays of the team this season...
In fact, Terry captained the team and ran his Porsche in the first race - Terry, Pete, Mike Mc and Tracy finishing third. So Pete, Mike and Tracy also contributed to the team's championship win.
A big thank you to everyone who came along for making it another hugely enjoyable evening at the Barn. Special thanks goes to the set-up crew, the race controllers and to everyone who stayed behind to pack away. That's the end of our GT racing this year, but we do have four exciting all-day Saturdays to look forward between now and Christmas - starting with the WHO Goodwood Revival on Saturday 23 September.
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