Nelson Valkenburg is a Dutch motorsport journalist, an occasional DSC contributor and more recently a television commentator since 2009 for Eurosport and MotorsTV. He has commentated on more than 30 24 hours races but during the 24 hours of Barcelona he saw his sport in a completely new way and reports back to Dailysportscar.com.
“I’ve been covering 24 hour races for more than ten years now. First as a very, very young contributor at DSC and since 2009 as a television commentator. In that time you see so much, you develop a certain perspective on things and you most definitely believe that your perspective is the truth.
Last weekend I got the opportunity to step through the looking glass as it were and exchange my chair in the commentary position for one on the pitwall at the 24 hours of Barcelona and proved to be more than an enlightening experience!
I grew up on racing circuits and although, like the DSC readers, I love endurance racing and all of it’s complexities, I actually come from a single-seater background with my parents running a successful Formula Ford team since 1989. It’s through this connection I ended up with the SICL.com team, run by ex-Formula 1 engineer Matt Faulks and his TDF Racing team. Matt works together with our own Geva Racing team in restoring historic Formula 1 machines and gave one of our own drivers, Melroy Heemskerk the opportunity to race their Seat Leon Cup Racer alongside Ashley Woodman, Sven van Laere and Martin Byford.
The Barcelona 24 hours proved to be a real eye-opener for me. First because an endurance race is completely different on the other side of the fence. Whereas my job normally is to understand the bigger picture as well as try to zoom in on the individual stories as they unfold. In Barcelona I was tasked with working out the strategy and later in the race, taking care of the communication with both the drivers and race-control, always handy to talk to a race-director in his native tongue!
It’s incredible how much you just focus on your own car. We had some misfortunes early in the race and lost about two hours before the first three hours were even done but after that came a tremendous fightback. You really do just focus on the job at hand, something I had never realized but became really apparent at 04:00 as Melroy asked after his stint who was actually leading the race. I had no clue whatsoever, it all felt very trivial. We were here to do our job and we would only see after 24 hours where it would land us.
As a commentator you are used to look at a race differently, and that little moment gave me a whole new appreciation for the Creventic organization and the sort of racing it produces. For instance, I was quite critical of this years Dubai 24 hours as a spectacle. The fight up front was lacking after a few top teams lost out early and it’s difficult to focus on just the smaller classes as you are doing commentary. In all honesty, it feels less rewarding, especially if you are not at the circuit but in a small studio.
But embroiled in the race itself it becomes a whole different matter and I suddenly realized what makes this series tick. The 24 hour series is run for it’s participants. It’s there for teams to make a decent living, for drivers to race at great venues, live the dream as it were whilst also employing professional drivers to strut their stuff on track. And all of this in the friendliest of environments. Creventic has created something unique, something badly needed in this little niche of our favorite sport and I applaud them for it.
As a commentator we judge a race by it’s level of excitement at the sharp end of the grid. Le Mans with good fights in all classes except LMP1 is easily written off as a dull Le Mans but I can now honestly say that trying to make a fuel strategy work while only 50th overall is as exciting than calling a good race from the booth.
And because of that my debut in the pitlane was very worthwhile. It makes me understand my sport better, perhaps makes me love my sport even more and I definitely appreciate races like the 24 hours of Barcelona more.
And where did we end up? The #107 set the fastest lap in the A3T class on it’s way to 46th overall and 8th in class. We lost, yet it felt like a victory because we did not give up after our early troubles, had a clear run throughout the night and we finished.
And now I can still tell viewers on television that a finish is a victory in itself and really believe it!
Pics copyright Chris Schotanus.
