BRITCAR 24 HOURS
Oliver Bryant teamed up with father Grahame, Jon Finnemore and Chris Beighton in a Marcos Mantis for his second 24 hour race.
QUALIFYING
Due to the length of the race, qualifying was not important and the 4 drivers set about recording the mandatory 3 laps each. With this done, night qualifying was the next session in which to set up the lights on the car. With a few tweaks, the lights were successfully adjusted and the car was ready for the race.
RACE
Oliver made a blistering start from 25th on the grid and successfully completed a two and a half hour stint in the car working his way up to 2nd overall and second in class. Oliver had stuck to the agreed pace lapping between 2m06s and 2m10s.
Oliver handed over to father Grahame who completed a successful stint in the dark despite losing 2 laps due to 2 pit stops under safety car conditions to fix the rear lights and a puncture scare.
Jon Finnemore started his stint over 7 hours into the race. He was lapping well but spun into the gravel late in his stint losing about 5 minutes as the team worked on clearing the gravel from the car.
Chris Beighton had more problems during his stint. Firstly, a ball joint failed requiring a ride on the flat-bed truck to return it to the pits. Secondly, the throttle cable stuck open necessitating a pit stop for a new one. Towards the end of his stint, Chris was passing a back-marker around the outside at Club corner, he was squeezed wide onto the grass and he spun, hitting the wall hard. The damage put the car out of the race as the front crash-structure and bonnet were damaged beyond repair.
So after nearly 11 hours, the car had to retire and 4 very disappointed drivers pulled down the garage door and retired for the evening facing the big task of clearing up the mountains of kit required to complete a 24hr race the next morning!
- Categories: 2006 Season
