A Fraught Visit To Francorchamps
Races Attended By DSC In July
Grand-Am – Watkins Glen
Blancpain Endurance Series – Paul Ricard
GT Cup – Snetterton
ALMS – Lime Rock Park
VLN R6 & R7 – Nürburgring
Britcar – Brands Hatch
ELMS/SPEED – Donington Park
GT Open – Brands Hatch
ALMS – Mosport
GT Cup – Oulton Park
Group C – Silverstone
Grand-Am – Indianapolis
Blancpain Endurance Series – Spa
It’s strange to think that the Le Mans 24 Hours is actually quite an early race in the season. It has the air of a ‘climax’, but in reality the majority of racing – domestic and international – is still to come. Having said that, however, this was already the fourth twice-round-the-clock race for DSC and the Deputy Ed and the fifth would soon be here in the form of the Spa 24 Hours.
This race would be arriving at the end of July and as you can see from the list above there was plenty of other racing to be covered. Your scribe, though, was a long way – physically and mentally – from a race-track on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to South Africa. Instead of Porsches, Ferraris and Audis in soggy paddocks, I was instead greeted by the sight of Lions, Giraffes and Elephants in the sun and (occasionally) heat of the Sabi Sands Game Reserve; instead of a cramped and noisy media centre, there was a blissfully quiet and luxurious lodge – no phones, no laptops, nothing. Bliss! But just days later, I found myself in the back seat of Peter ‘Pedro’ May’s car as we arrived at the outskirts of Liege at midnight in the midst of a truly terrifying downpour and thunderstorm.
His day job commitments – keeping London’s trains moving on time during the Olympic Games (hence his nickname, Mussolini) – meant that the DSC Ed could not attend the Spa 24 for the first time in many years, and so Pedro, Dave Lord and I set off on the Friday afternoon for what was going to be a flying visit to Belgium.
A freak hailstorm just a few days earlier had resulted in Dave’s car – our usual mode of transport to Spa and back – being pummelled to within an inch of its life and was in the workshop having the 80-odd dents hammered out. The courtesy car given him by the insurance company barely had the puff to get two middle-aged blokes (and the ludicrous amount of equipment that your average snapper lugs around the world with him) down to Kent, so we were once more at the mercy of Pedro’s driving. Now, I’m not saying we aren’t grateful for his efforts; it’s just that he appears to see every bend, straight bit, traffic light, lorry coming the other way, etc. as a personal challenge and the result is often the sound of whimpering emanating from the passenger seats. Add to that his personal choice of music and you can perhaps understand why the sight of Belgium’s worst hotel – the oh-so-ironically-named Premiere Classe in Liege (and DSC’s budget’s accommodation of choice) – was greeted with such joy.
Having checked in at the hotel, we caught the last hour or so of the Olympics Opening Ceremony on the TV while the thunder and lightning (but not the rain) moved slowly away. Four or five hours after that, it was time to get showered and be on our way to the circuit.
DSC’s resident Dutch chap, Marcel ten Caat, had been holding the fort at Spa since Thursday and covering those bits of practice and qualifying that survived the weather, and after the usual round of mutual insults and badinage, we got down to the business of covering the race, which had the nerve to begin in bright sunshine.
This being Spa, the rain was always going to be making a reappearance, and when it did chaos ensued! The safety car was out so often that it wasn’t long before the media pack was taking bets on how many times it would be out in total (16), how many cars would make it to the end (33 out of 66 would be classified) and how long it would be before its next appearance. As sleep-deprivation kicked in during the race’s mid-stages, the safety car moved on from being a source of frustration to one of great amusement.
Eventually the madness ended and the race calmed down into…well, a race. This allowed the DSC crew the opportunity to grab some sleep, with one of the unoccupied F1 commentary booths proving to be just the right size for an uncomfortable hour of shut-eye.
By mid-morning on the Sunday, the race had essentially boiled down to a duel between the Audi R8s of Piccini/Rast/Stippler and Haase/Mies/Ortelli, with the lead swapping every time one or the other stopped for its latest service; and you just knew that mechanically these cars were rock-solid. The final appearance of the safety car was the factor that ultimately decided the race, with Stéphane Ortelli losing out in the queue and allowing Frank Stippler to bring the #16 home to take Audi’s third 24 hour win in 71 days.
Normally at this point in such an event, the DSC crew would gather quotes, snap the podium and cover the press conference before heading back to the hotel for a beer, pizza and dead-to-the-world sleep. This time, though, the UK contingent would be making the dash back to the Chunnel and it would be my job to make sure Pedro stayed awake while Lordy snored away on the back seats. Happily we made it back to Calais with only two or three utterly terrifying “Oh, my god we’re all going to die!!” moments, and with a vow that, next time, we would stopping the night in Liege!
The crossing allowed myself and Dave – we would still have a three-hour drive on the other side – the chance to grab a bit of shuteye, and we switched cars at Pedro’s before hitting the motorway again to complete our journeys in the early hours of Monday.
As things turned out, that would be my final 24 hour race of 2012, with a planned trip to cover the Britcar 24 in September being cancelled when I was needed on the continent once more. But more on that later.
MH
